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

211–220 of 487 posts

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

#211

Post by bfrink »

brewdad wrote: post #110
aidenn0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bumping this up to families making $200k seems really unnecessary and helps people that don't really need to help. My household income is right around $200k, and my daughter (still a few years from college) would definitely consider e.g. UC Berkeley, which (including housing) is half the cost of MIT for an in-state student. Free tuition would certainly make her look at MIT more closely, so if the goal is to draw th…

True. Counselors at poorer school districts frequently don't recognize that these "dream schools" are often more affordable than a state school for certain populations. The students certainly don't know it unless a trusted adult shows them and really pushes them towards pursuing it. Hopefully, some students out there will see this and realize that while MIT is crazy selective, getting in is the hardest part.

Programs like Stars College Network (https://starscollegenetwork.org/) and Questbridge (https://www.questbridge.org/) help to bridge this gap in knowledge. They are really good programs, based on my limited to exposure to them as a Caltech alumnus. It was an incredible stroke of luck that I knew Caltech even existed growing up in a very small town pre-Internet, and these programs take some of that luck out of the equation.

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

#212

Post by wnc3141 »

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.

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

#213

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

European colleges are incredibly thrifty, though. German universities for example can lack dorms, student unions, and professors lack TAs to grade homework (so homework isn't graded) and your entire grade depends on one final.

We could do this in the USA also, or perhaps even bother with online universities, except those are generally considered not very useful as degrees.

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

#215

Post by kevinsync »

Just read an adjacent banger that interrogates the underlying reasons why our (US) education system is broken, how it got that way, how it's influenced culture beyond our (individual) control, insinuates why these institutions are so preposterously expensive, and proposes thoughts on how to fix it (TL;DR prolly won't get fixed)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritoc...

https://archive.ph/OC81c

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

#216

Post by seanmcdirmid »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #132
nuancebydefault wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, I do not get it. Why would this competition / exclusivity rule be so much less prevalent in large parts of Europe? I don't want to say Europe is without problems, but I think this kind of legislation, together with social security in general, is a clear example of how it can be handled more efficient and fair for most people.

Good question. I wonder if labor competition in Europe is less reliant on University names and reputation? IT could also have to do with cultural difference is what students look for in a university. My understanding is that most universities in Europe look more like US bare bones commuter schools, opposed to an all inclusive recreational experience. The top ranked university in Europe is Oxford, which educates more…

MIT is a huge outlier in terms of R&D and the population it selects students from, it would be more fair to compare Oxford to Harvard. Oxford...really is about as far from commuter schools than you can get, for example having to wear robes to the dining hall...that is straight out of Harry Potter (and indeed, where they filmed the dining scene at one of the colleges).

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

#217

Post by Izikiel43 »

sethammons wrote: post #76
Izikiel43 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the federal government already do this? Work for them 10 years and student debt is cancelled?

I think they are suggesting that you would graduate debt free for having done service while getting your education

But how would you have time to study full time and work full time?

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

#218

Post by harishneit »

jjeaff wrote: post #68
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…

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 may be an overly naïve or slightly overloaded question) would it make sense to treat salaried individuals as one-person businesses? this approach could grant them access to opportunities like these which typically reserved for businesses, especially considering that in many countries, businesses are increasingly being granted the same rights as individuals.

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

#220

Post by bradleyjg »

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…

MIT is rich and can certainly front the money. If it’s such a great idea, let them do it.
Post reply on HN