Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

news.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 487 posts

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#241

Post by mhb »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #32

This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the fami…

Isn't this another way of asking how they consider assets? Which never seems to be mentioned in these headlines about income qualifications.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#242

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #145
nuancebydefault wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are such things in the US so complicated? Where I live, studying is much much cheaper for most professions,for everyone! That's the only fair way. Also, a set of well educated people pays itself back later in the form of mostly income and added value taxes, which provides money to keep studying for cheap for the next generation.

Because the US government will loan people very large sums to attend, which allows the universities to raise prices at will. The buyers are price-inelastic, which means that they want to go regardless of price, because they are surrounded by people that tell them that going to college is the right thing to do - and the more prestigious the better. College in the US would be a lot cheaper if the government didn't infl…

It isn't solely the government's fault. Most American universities are corporatized and exist primarily as money printers for the admin staff. The purpose of an adjunct professor is to cost the institution as little as possible while passing as many marginal students as possible so they can maximize profits with sheep that keep coming back to the trough.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#243

Post by j45 »

I'm sure this causes pause for more than a few people who always wanted to go to MIT, knew they could, and didn't. Tuition wasn't appetizing even 20 years ago.

In addition to pioneering Open Courses that were of high enough quality that you'd want to take them, this is hopefully the start of another trend/wave.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#244

Post by j45 »

mhb wrote: post #241
TheJoeMan wrote: post #32

This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the fami…

Isn't this another way of asking how they consider assets? Which never seems to be mentioned in these headlines about income qualifications.

Small Family business assessment should be different than larger businesses for this kind of criteria.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#245

Post by seanmcdirmid »

d2049 wrote: post #33

When I was touring colleges as a high school senior I met someone who had gotten into MIT but whose family could only afford to send one kid to an elite college, him or his sister. He decided to go to a state school which was a lot less expensive but whose academics weren't close to the same level. This stuff matters to people.

> I met someone who had gotten into MIT but whose family could only afford to send one kid to an elite college, him or his sister.

So they were rich enough that he didn't get exempt from tuition but still could only send one kid to an elite school?

I wonder if the guy was just pulling your leg.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#246

Post by Ferret7446 »

jedberg wrote: post #176

Or, crazy idea, have the government pay all tuition up front for everyone and then collect an extra .5% on your income tax for every semester you attend (or .33% for every quarter). Obviously you'd have to put some limits on what colleges can charge to get paid from that pool of money. Then you can't go broke from debt because it's a percent of your income, but it's also not "free" to address those who have concerns…

That subsidizes useless degrees, low quality colleges, and punishes people who work in vocations (likely providing more value to society), among some other issues.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#247

Post by mbil »

araes wrote: post #12

Started looking and found out there's some much worse, and far more obvious cases that need to implement these reforms. [1] UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence. BTW, amazing site to be horrified by gun violence (and vaguely fascinated). Look upon the awfulness of Philadelphia. [2] Sitti…

Just want to point out that Philadelphia’s homicide count is down ~40% from last year. And Penn’s “haven” looks similar to the other affluent commercial corridors throughout the city.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#248

Post by Ferret7446 »

knowitnone wrote: post #14

Yeah, education should be free. Record all lectures and put them out there. Charge a small fee to view them if you must but lecturers repeating themselves is not my idea of a great use of their time. Yes, I know lots of lectures are already published.

Why should people be compelled to provide education for free? Compelling work without compensation is slavery.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#249

Post by jedberg »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #246
jedberg wrote: post #176

Or, crazy idea, have the government pay all tuition up front for everyone and then collect an extra .5% on your income tax for every semester you attend (or .33% for every quarter). Obviously you'd have to put some limits on what colleges can charge to get paid from that pool of money. Then you can't go broke from debt because it's a percent of your income, but it's also not "free" to address those who have concerns…

That subsidizes useless degrees, low quality colleges, and punishes people who work in vocations (likely providing more value to society), among some other issues.

How does it punish vocations?

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#250

Post by dragonwriter »

potato3732842 wrote: post #173
dragonwriter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because small business owners are often, by any measure that doesn’t explicitly discount ownership of the business, actually rich.

How so? I know a guy who has literally millions of dollars tied up in shit that moves dirt and rocks and another mil tied up in some gravel pits. The free cash he has, the house he lives in, the lifestyle he can afford is on par with "normal" white collar professionals (i.e. not people who get a bajillion monopoly bucks to implement linked list traversals for faang). He works 60hr weeks during construction season and…

> How so? I know a guy who has literally millions of dollars tied up in shit that moves dirt and rocks and another mil tied up in some gravel pits

Having literally millions of dollars in productive assets is rich by any reasonable standard.

> The free cash he has, the house he lives in, the lifestyle he can afford is on par with "normal" white collar professionals

And he has decades of support at that level of wealth in and realizable from the assets. Choosing to use it to generate a a “normal white collar professional” (i.e., reasonably well off to start with) income doesn't change that it is an enormous store of value that he owns.

Post reply on HN