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

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

#251

Post by orangecat »

wnc3141 wrote: post #212
tomcam wrote: post #204

On a related note, why does an institution so commendably progressive as Harvard charge tuition at all?

I've come to realize what we think as progressive places are what I consider "inclusively conservative" as in liberal socially, but very much bound to keeping wealth strata in place. San Francisco + older bay area cities are a prime example of being a bastion of free market capitalism in the guise of progressivism.

San Francisco + older bay area cities are a prime example of being a bastion of free market capitalism in the guise of progressivism.

The main reason SF is unaffordable is that the city government forbids people from building housing, which is the exact opposite of a free market.

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

#252

Post by jedberg »

nurumaik wrote: post #202
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…

Make this .5% go directly to the university. Will incentivize universities to teach more useful skills

It would incentivize them to only offer majors that lead to high incomes. By pooling the money it removes that issue.

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

#253

Post by burkaman »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #233
kleton wrote: post #227

A sham marriage (get a prenup if you want) is sufficient to have parents' income not counted by FAFSA.

If true, this is wild. I've never heard of it, nor of anyone exploiting it.

I've never heard of anyone doing this either, but it is true and it's a pretty reasonable rule in my opinion. If you're an "independent student" then you don't need to report your parents' income, and the government is fairly generous about who qualifies as independent: https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/independe.... You can definitely game some of these qualifications, but that's fine, the overwhelming majority of people who qualify for this are legitimately independent from their parents and should be considered for financial aid.

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

#254

Post by itake »

jedberg wrote: post #249
Ferret7446 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

just a guess, but upfront money needs to come from somewhere, presumably everyone else that is working, including vocations.

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

#255

Post by itake »

jedberg wrote: post #252
nurumaik wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make this .5% go directly to the university. Will incentivize universities to teach more useful skills

It would incentivize them to only offer majors that lead to high incomes. By pooling the money it removes that issue.

jobs that pay well are a signal that there is high demand for this skill in our society and that more people need to develops these skills.

Why would we not want universities to respond to that signal?

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

#256

Post by seanmcdirmid »

brewdad wrote: post #99
clusterhacks wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use College Navigator for these types of questions: https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=MIT&s=all&id=166683#... That link says 72% of incoming freshman in 2022-2023 received financial aid. Also has a full-time beginning net cost average of just under $22,000 in 2022-2023. It's not a perfect source of data, but there is enough on College Navigator to let you dig into it a bit and compare to other schools.

Note that aid includes federal student loans though. They may have needed to come up with $22,000 out of pocket but also have taken on thousands more in loans that will need to be paid back. If they don't have the $22,000, then private student loans at much worse terms are likely required.

The article actually goes into more detail:

> Last year, the median annual cost paid by an MIT undergraduate receiving financial aid was $12,938 , allowing 87 percent of students in the Class of 2024 to graduate debt-free. Those who did borrow graduated with median debt of $14,844.

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

#257

Post by adastra22 »

vitus wrote: post #237
adastra22 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re going to have to qualify where you are talking about. Where I am, California, that only describes community colleges. Even state and especially UC have “invested” significantly in infrastructure improvements paid for with loans backed by expectations of tuition income, which has had an absurd effect on growing tuition far outside of inflation. Very little of your tuition at these schools goes towards teaching…

> Even state and especially UC have “invested” significantly in infrastructure improvements paid for with loans backed by expectations of tuition income, which has had an absurd effect on growing tuition far outside of inflation. What timeframe are you looking at? Back in 2011, registration fees at UC Berkeley were $7,230 per semester, with $813 allotted to health insurance (which could be waived if you provided proo…

Those are some cherry-picked numbers. Tuition went up A LOT just prior to your starting point, 2011, as the great financial crisis made renewing those loans I mention much more expensive: https://ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/fees/201415/documen...

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

#258

Post by janalsncm »

jjmarr wrote: post #154
bradchris wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that speaks to the low bar we have come to expect from our endowed institutions today more than anything else. American Universities, historically, are supposed to improve not just their students’ lives but also society as a whole, especially as serving as boosters for the city they’re in and their immediate neighbors. That’s why they’re nonprofits. That’s also likely their strongest lifeline to remain releva…

> That’s why the Carnegies and Mellons built libraries, museums, and the very literally named Carnegie-Mellon university, back then. Now it seems like the first thing billionaires today do is isolate themselves and their wealth from the masses as much as possible. Historically speaking, wealth accumulation was borderline impossible because the incentive to steal it was so large. You had to become a king, and then con…

> You had to become a king, and then constantly murder people trying to take the throne

There’s a bit more to it than that. There’s a reason Xi Jinping doesn’t need to murder members of his cabinet all the time. A stable government has a winning coalition which keeps the leader in power. The leader has to keep them happy which in small enough governments he can do by paying them directly.

In a democracy, the winning coalition is way too large to simply pay supporters. The government has to fund public works which are more cost effective. A larger winning coalition is better for the median person for this reason.

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

#259

Post by balderdash »

While I think this is well meaning, I’d be much more impressed by institutions actually cutting costs, The ratio of administrators to students is insane as is the faculty ratio at most universities, not to mention the outlays for extravagant projects like sports centers and student centers.

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

#260

Post by seanmcdirmid »

robocat wrote: post #21
bko wrote: post #11

MIT is a great financial investment. There is financing already available (federal and private) so presumably if someone wanted to go they likely could. They may leave with debt however. The median salary of an MIT graduate is 120k and the median debt is 12k, and less for lower income families (2023-2024): $0 - $30,000 family income: $6,866 $30,001 - $75,000 family income: $9,132 $75,000+ family income: $12,500 Bumpi…

> They may leave with debt however. The linked article says not. Loans are not included in our financial aid offers because we believe your financial aid will cover your expenses. We do not expect any undergraduate to take out a loan. Rather than borrow, most students opt to work during the academic year. At MIT, this work often provides students not only a way to help pay for college but also with world-class resear…

I've never heard an MIT graduate say they wasted their time there.
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