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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

#431

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> and people didn't see college as an automatic requirement

This here is where the money is... college degrees are a very effective dull-weeder for job applications. It filters out people of lower social classes (because they cannot afford college or effects of their social status like having to work jobs next to school to help their family make rent prevent them from getting good enough grades), it filters out people with unmanaged mental health issues, it filters out young parents (good luck managing to get a degree parallel to raising a child), it filters out people with disabilities... and all of that without violating a single anti-discrimination law.

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

#432

Post by softwaredoug »

rKarpinski wrote: post #221
softwaredoug wrote: post #194

Is this going to create some weird incentive for me, a parent of a college kid, to go 4 years unemployed traveling the world?

Honey, think about how much money the divorce will save us on tuition!

TBH My parents got divorced my Freshman year, and as much as it sucked, I did somehow get more Federal financial aid out of the deal...

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

#433

Post by chengiz »

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

You mean there's no sliding scale here as in tax brackets? Citation please?

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

#434

Post by vharuck »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #265
kleton wrote: post #227

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

Another way to save money is to rent an apartment and make that your permanent address freshman year than to pay out of state tuition and room and board. I always thought this scheme could never work until I met someone who played it and saved tens of thousands in the process.

It might be a "scheme" the school and the state quietly approve. Students living in the community should be more likely to set down roots with employment, social groups, or marriage. Brain theft, instead of brain drain.

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

#435

Post by lolinder »

balderdash wrote: post #259

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.

> not to mention the outlays for extravagant projects like sports centers

Just a note that for a lot of schools the sports programs (football especially) are actually a profit center, not a cost center. Situations obviously vary, but it's entirely plausible that a new sports center could be an investment that pays itself off rather than an extravagant expense.

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

#436

Post by s1artibartfast »

baq wrote: post #345
s1artibartfast wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to make that sacrifice either, but I also understand that im not entitled to tuition assistance as some sort of human right

There are countries with free public respected universities. So yeah not a human right but not that far off depending on where you live.

yes, and Europe also has some extremely expensive private universities, and the US has vastly cheaper options than MIT.

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

#437

Post by s1artibartfast »

foobarian wrote: post #209
s1artibartfast wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was speaking to the US situation, and agree most European schools are quite cheap in comparison. Not only in tuition, but in terms of their budgets; US schools spend 4-5X as much per student- so it isnt just about state funding.

Guessing those schools can't provide access to the exclusive social network you get by restricting admissions.

I'm sure you can get some exclusive networking done at Oxford, with 25% the cost per student as MIT.

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

#438

Post by NamTaf »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #183
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…

I actually quite like the system we have in the UK. Graduates pay roughly 9% of their income above £27k towards debt repayment, and the remaining balance is written off after 30 years. Typical tuition fees are just over £9k per year. This strikes a nice balance between encouraging people to carefully consider alternative non-university careers whilst also not preventing too many people from not being able to afford i…

Australia's system is similar, albeit the tuition fees are higher (capped depending on the degree and set by the government). You take out a government-backed loan and which is around CPI and then pay it back at an increasing % based on your income, between I think 1.5% above a certain threshold and 10% by a second, higher one.

There's been some issues with it, but no system is perfect and the thrust of it is aligned with the dual public-private structure that Australia seems to prefer (see also: medicare vs private health insurance).

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

#439

Post by sgerenser »

jjav wrote: post #383
yesco wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To throw in a data point on this for reference, as an American I pay around ~$220 a month (~$2,640 per year) on health insurance through my job, this comes out of my pre-taxed income. While I won't get into specifics on the details of the terms, I am quite happy with it. I work in Massachusetts, but I live in New Hampshire. I pay more than double this on both Social Security fees & Massachusetts income taxes, which a…

> To throw in a data point on this for reference, as an American I pay around ~$220 a month (~$2,640 per year) on health insurance Having just filled my annual benefits selections tonight, here's my data point: health insurance is $3000/month on the company plan (36K/year). Yes, the company "pays" for a percentage of that. But of course the entire $3K/month is part of my total compensation cost to the company. If hea…

Insurance companies don’t actually make very much profit. I don’t recall the exact number, but something like 80-90% of premiums taken in are paid out in claims. Insurance companies are an easy target though, since no one wants to go after the doctors and hospitals for charging too much.

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

#440

Post by Nifty3929 »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #378
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the real issue in american universities is that the tuition largely goes to paying for administrators. they do no teaching and largly dont' add much value to the experience. if we capped administratiors to 1 per 5 professors, that would go a ong way towards paying for tutors and services that actually do help students.

You have the causation backwards, I think. Or maybe we agree.

These administrators exist due to the influx of government money. As long as there is available money, the administration has every incentive to grow, and does. It's really very much like the government itself.

IOW - It's not that a larger administration causes costs and prices to go up - it's that more money coming in leads to a larger administration.

It's very much like the cost-plus model in the defense department as well: If I'm allowed to make more money when my costs are higher, then I will ensure that my costs continue to go up.

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