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

281–290 of 487 posts

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

#281

Post by Nifty3929 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #242
Nifty3929 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This only works if students have the money though - which the government helpfully provides. The Universities are just milking the system - which isn't their fault - it's ours as the voters.

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

#283

Post by mierz00 »

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

What makes a skill useful?

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

#284

Post by synergy20 »

that means if the parents earn 300K a year, one can just quit his/her job and take the free ride?

One couple, both PhDs, when their daughter went to Harvard, the mom quit her job to qualify for the free tuition.

What about if someone has a large net asset? will the 200K still apply?

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

#285

Post by spott »

scarby2 wrote: post #178
jjeaff wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand why they might do this. Many people who own a small business underpay themselves significantly and use the extra funds on the business to build up assets. This defers taxes and allows the funds to be reinvested without tax. They might even take out loans on those business assets. The same way the wealthy will pay themselves a tiny salary and just live off the asset value of their stock. Someone who o…

> This defers taxes and allows the funds to be reinvested without tax. All business funds are re-invested without tax, this is actually a good thing. Also for the majority of business owners taking a loan against your assets to pay yourself is a terrible idea, yes it may defer taxation but that tax will still come due and now you have to pay interest. > Someone who owns their own business could also easily drop their…

> most people don’t plan like this.

This is a pretty naive take. It is a $85k per year cost. If you can shift some money around and avoid $85k per year, you would absolutely do that.

> you could also emancipate your 17 year old.

This is complicated. Emancipation is not a “sign a form” kind of thing. The kid would have to be living completely independently (no support from the parents) and would have to convince a judge that they need to have rights and responsibilities otherwise given to adults. “Because the parents don’t want to pay for school” isn’t really a valid reason.

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

#286

Post by ehnto »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #164
xboxnolifes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "mistake" is that the assets themselves are the source of income. Sell them off, and the income goes away too. It's the equivalent of expecting the parents to use 100% of their income to put their kids into college, which is impossible.

IF I have stock and make $XX,XXX in dividends, how is that different? IF I have own apartments and make $XX,XXX in rent, how is that different? I think the idea is that Yes, the expectation is for people to make actual sacrifice before they qualify.

That's economic suicide not sacrifice, for many small businesses the asset produces the revenue. Sell the asset you may as well close the business. It is not a fair assessment of a family's means at all.

It's not equivalent to making all your income off one rental and having to sell it, but it is closer to that. If you sell it, you have no income now. But a small business also creates jobs and provides novel value to the community, so even more is lost than just a single income.

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

#287

Post by zten »

fuzztester wrote: post #234
technothrasher wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an owner of a small family business, I have to pay close attention to making sure my salary and that of my other family members involved is "generally commensurate with our duties" or the IRS will be up my backside pretty quick. I obviously try to minimize it as much as possible, but if you drop it to something insignificant and the IRS notices, they'll adjust your income and expenses reported to reflect your non-…

Are you saying that the IRS will literally officially modify your recorded / reported income and expenses to be different from what you reported, at their discretion, even if based on what they think are plausible reasons? That still seems like heavy handed overreach to me. Should they not instead contact you for clarifications about the ambiguity?

Well, they'll express their disagreement in the form of a letter and then calculate what they think you should pay and how far behind you are on the usual withholdings as a result, along with penalties.

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

#288

Post by vitus »

adastra22 wrote: post #257
vitus wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

> Those are some cherry-picked numbers.

I don't disagree, but they support my point that tuition has not changed meaningfully in the past decade (and then some), which is why I asked what timeframe you were looking at.

Inflation is perhaps not a good point of reference anyways, since in 2009, inflation per CPI was actually slightly negative. Cost of borrowing is not the same as cost of goods and services or cost of labor, for reasons such as the ones you point out (changes to banking regulations, increased risk aversion, etc).

Although, I'm a little surprised that cost of borrowing would have been much higher, seeing as that was the start of the zero interest-rate policy in the US. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was hovering around 6-7% pre-crisis and 4-5% in the years immediately following it.

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

#289

Post by yalok »

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…

Same problem for families with multiple kids of similar age - never saw discount for those. Also, no discount for the cost of living in a specific area…

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

#290

Post by linksnapzz »

currymj wrote: post #123
s1artibartfast wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because education is largely an afterthought, and universities primarily compete on entertainment and prestige. High cost and exclusivity is the entire point. A university open to all with a fraction of the price would be a poorly ranked one in every competitive measure.

actually ETHZ and EPFL are very good and highly ranked, and have cheap tuition and open enrollment. i don’t know how they do it. I guess things just work better in Switzerland.

Education quality, especially adjusting for tuition, doesn't correlate to prestige. Which, after WWII, almost required "Anglophone" as the language of instruction.
Post reply on HN