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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

#441

Post by ndriscoll »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #304
ndriscoll wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not their problem, but they're setting the absurd price, so it's not the parents screwing over the kids somehow. The price being so outrageously high does also call into question whether their charitable endowments could reasonably be characterized as part of a tax avoidance scam.

>The price being so outrageously high does also call into question whether their charitable endowments could reasonably be characterized as part of a tax avoidance scam. I dont see how that follows at all. They spend more on students than they receive in tuition funds. Who would they be scamming? What if they offered a million dollar education? I still dont see how that would impact their non-profit status.

If they offered a million dollar education, I'd say the IRS should heavily scrutinize their budget, and if they did manage to stay within the letter of the law, it's likely that the law should be fixed because holistically, it's unlikely that they're truly spending over 20x what comparable universities do on educating students.

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

#442

Post by consteval »

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…

Politically, there are so many policies across the board that make having a small business untenable as compared to a normal salary. As time goes on, these policies increase in amount and severity.

Looking around me I see the effects. Year over year small businesses continue to disappear.

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

#443

Post by ummonk »

LtWorf wrote: post #134
ummonk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans earn more than Swiss people after taxes according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

And after paying insurance?

Switzerland's system is the kind of system Obamacare was modeled after (i.e. requiring private health insurance, and providing subsidies to those who can't afford it).

No doubt, Switzerland's healthcare is cheaper (American doctors and hospitals are some of the most expensive in the world), but the data I linked to is already adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP).

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

#444

Post by s1artibartfast »

ndriscoll wrote: post #441
s1artibartfast wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The price being so outrageously high does also call into question whether their charitable endowments could reasonably be characterized as part of a tax avoidance scam. I dont see how that follows at all. They spend more on students than they receive in tuition funds. Who would they be scamming? What if they offered a million dollar education? I still dont see how that would impact their non-profit status.

If they offered a million dollar education, I'd say the IRS should heavily scrutinize their budget, and if they did manage to stay within the letter of the law, it's likely that the law should be fixed because holistically, it's unlikely that they're truly spending over 20x what comparable universities do on educating students.

What laws are you worried about specifically? You could run a non-profit giving million dollar spa days.

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

#445

Post by insane_dreamer »

freeopinion wrote: post #406
insane_dreamer wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

sure; my daughter went to a top-30 school for $0 on a full-ride scholarship

What I was talking about what you expect to pay if 1) you don't have scholarships, and 2) you're not low income enough to qualify for a lot of financial aid (Pell Grant and matching grants from state schools)

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

#446

Post by Malidir »

"MIT’s endowment — made up of generous gifts made by individual alumni and friends — allows the Institute to provide this level of financial aid, both now and into the future."

This 'free education' is a great argument for MIT to persuade Wealthy Lefties to donate/leave them their inheritence. And do the senior people get any bonuses related to number of applicants/places?

But regardless, the increase to the current thresholds are great!

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

#447

Post by insane_dreamer »

lolinder wrote: post #340
insane_dreamer wrote: post #333

that's nice, but it's become nearly as difficult to get into MIT as winning the lottery The MIT undergraduate student body is about the same as it was in 1960, but the number of applications rose from around 4000 in 1960 to 11000 in 2000, to 20000 in 2024. This isn't just an MIT problem. The undergrad populations of the top universities (Ivy league and similar) have hardly grown over the decades despite a large incre…

> The undergrad populations of the top universities (Ivy league and similar) have hardly grown over the decades despite a large increase in student population overall in the US Why should we expect individual universities to scale up their class sizes proportional to the student population in the US? Some universities may choose to, and new universities could spin up to serve the increased student body, but I don't s…

> it's not necessarily a conspiracy to build exclusive brands

except that it is about branding and ranking; these top unis have the money and the capability to double their undergrad student size; they have no problem attracting top talent as far as professors are concerned

I didn't just make this up[0]

[0] https://www.nber.org/papers/w29309

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

#448

Post by linksnapzz »

baq wrote: post #356
linksnapzz wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ideal is that college should be very expensive for rich people and cheap, free, or at least more affordable, for less wealthy people. Dunno where you got this "ideal". the days of outrageous student debt are thankfully fading away ..."fading away", to the tune of (at last glance ) one and three quarters of a trillion dollars in outstanding student loan debt. it would make more sense to do this redistribution thro…

> Dunno where you got this "ideal". I wonder if people like you just lack the imagination or system thinking or equate poor with useless or are just afraid of thinking people? From the perspective of the state and the society it’s beneficial to have an educated population, unless you think you won’t have enough stupid people to man the factories?

The track record over the past thirty years of sending more and more people to nominal "college" as "a way to have more thinking people" hasn't exactly done wonders, unless you're in the student loan servicing business.

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

#449

Post by linksnapzz »

1dontknow_ wrote: post #422
linksnapzz wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ideal is that college should be very expensive for rich people and cheap, free, or at least more affordable, for less wealthy people. Dunno where you got this "ideal". the days of outrageous student debt are thankfully fading away ..."fading away", to the tune of (at last glance ) one and three quarters of a trillion dollars in outstanding student loan debt. it would make more sense to do this redistribution thro…

Wait so US colleges are allowed to require any kind of real financial information from you all? Shouldn't they just say if you're accepted or not, then send you the bills? And for any financial aid program, shouldn't someone else review that instead of them directly having access to all that financial data of students without being any kind of financial institution? Let's say some kind of government letter instead gi…

They're allowed to ask for the info; and if not explicity "need-blind", are allowed to accept or reject your application based on how much of a discount on tuition they anticipate you needing. Practically speaking, this means that if you look like you can pay the $65-85 thousand a year w/o any help, that's a plus.

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

#450

Post by seanmcdirmid »

linksnapzz wrote: post #449
1dontknow_ wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait so US colleges are allowed to require any kind of real financial information from you all? Shouldn't they just say if you're accepted or not, then send you the bills? And for any financial aid program, shouldn't someone else review that instead of them directly having access to all that financial data of students without being any kind of financial institution? Let's say some kind of government letter instead gi…

They're allowed to ask for the info; and if not explicity "need-blind", are allowed to accept or reject your application based on how much of a discount on tuition they anticipate you needing. Practically speaking, this means that if you look like you can pay the $65-85 thousand a year w/o any help, that's a plus.

MIT specifically doesn't do that though, as per the article. Still, successful applicants generally come from more well off families due to the resources required in raising a kid to be a successful applicant.
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