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

news.mit.edu

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

#401

Post by michaelt »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #379
s1artibartfast wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Running a small business is not the same as owning stock. I can own stock and can still work and one does not affect the other in terms of time or capability. On the other hand, selling your small business is equivalent to quitting your job.

Imagine I own farmland worth $10M.

I claim we've had a lean few years, as we had to replace some aged equipment. I'm working all the hours god sends and only making $30,000 a year. There's also, uh, inflation. Market volatility. Climate change. Rising fuel prices. And I'm really worried labour costs are about to rise under this new government.

I also claim we can't sell any of the land without undermining the commercial viability of the farm; and the land would be difficult to sell profitably, because anyone except me and my immediate neighbours would have to travel a long way to farm it. And the remainder of our capital is tied up in crops, which obviously we can't sell until harvest.

On the other hand, it's an almighty coincidence that I needed to replace my tractor, my combine harvester, my skid steer, and my truck all at the same time, just as my kid turned 17. And that I just planted all those apple trees, hops and asparagus that I won't be able to harvest for a few years.

And yet - should MIT be in the business of second-guessing how farmers run their farms? Should my kid be denied a scholarship because some desk jockey in Cambridge thinks he knows the asparagus market better than I do?

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

#405

Post by OJFord »

mgoetzke wrote: post #395

I never like these hard cut-offs. We should establish a name/expression for all these rules a simple wording which represents 200k=0% and eg. 250k=100% or something. Otherwise we always have a situation where making more money suddenly leads to less net

It's 'not progressive', but that might not fly in the US.

i.e. in a progressive fee structure, your marginal fee if your family earns 250k would be whatever%, but that would only be due on the amount over 200k.

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

#406

Post by freeopinion »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #326
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have plenty of cheaper schools too, and they’re fine. The expensive schools are for the richest people to say they went to school next to the best students who get in free.And for the best students to meet rich people.

The cheapest you're going to get is $10K a year (and that's hard to find), and that's just tuition. If it's not near your parents' home then you're looking at $25K/year bare minimum (as in living off ramen packs and peanut butter). So that's $100K that your parents have to have saved up (per child) or which you have to take on as debt. Just looked up our main state schools and cost of attendance is $31K - $35K for in…

It is possible to go to a top-100 school for under $5K/year tuition. Tens of thousands of people do it every year.

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

#407

Post by oh_fiddlesticks »

tossandthrow wrote: post #399

It seems insane that your personal choices are bound to your family situation- especially when you are an adult. Just the idea that parents in the US are expected to pay for their children's education is so wrong.

I sort of understand where you're coming from, but on the other hand, if parents aren't to be expected to provide for the children they (most commonly) decided to give life to, then who in your view should bear the financial cost of that decision?

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

#408

Post by fragmede »

tossandthrow wrote: post #399

It seems insane that your personal choices are bound to your family situation- especially when you are an adult. Just the idea that parents in the US are expected to pay for their children's education is so wrong.

to be clear, schooling until the age of 18 is free in the US, it's higher education whos cost is borne by the parents

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

#409

Post by inglor_cz »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #113
inglor_cz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American universities sell their students a lot of amenities that aren't really necessary for study. Not to mention the bloated admin class. You want to feel "in" when it comes to social justice? Here are your administrators that do the rituals of social justice as a full-time job, but they demand salaries. As for amenities, back in Europe, many universities don't even have a campus, just a scattering of buildings al…

30 minutes does not seem too bad. Unless you paid a lot for the dorm.

It wasn't meant as a complaint. 30 minutes is fine, even though the route led through some less-beautiful parts of Prague.

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

#410

Post by tossandthrow »

oh_fiddlesticks wrote: post #407
tossandthrow wrote: post #399

It seems insane that your personal choices are bound to your family situation- especially when you are an adult. Just the idea that parents in the US are expected to pay for their children's education is so wrong.

I sort of understand where you're coming from, but on the other hand, if parents aren't to be expected to provide for the children they (most commonly) decided to give life to, then who in your view should bear the financial cost of that decision?

It should be a public good as an educated populous is a public benefit.

This is about MIT, which along with their Ivy League peers probably represent symbolism and no more than a dent into the total number of education programmes carried out in the US.

But again, hearing advisors on personal finance talking about saving for your kids education as a high priority is so insane for me and is completely contrary to what I would expect from a meritocratic society (which I know the US aspires to be).

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