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Dartmouth Eliminates Student Loans for Undergraduates

56 points by cwwc 4y ago

prepend 4y ago
This sounds nice, but the devil is in the details. My child applied to a school that had a similar policy that students would only graduate with $15k in student loans. Tuition was $40k back when kid applied. We filled out financial aid package with my income of like $150k and no assets outside of retirement savings. We got a letter with “congrats total amount each year is $47k including room and board, work study is $1500, grant is $1500, expected parental contribution is $44k/year. You don’t need student loans.” It was really frustrating. So the wording on what financial contributions should be, like in this article, has lots of wiggle room. It seems Dartmouth is covering tuition for families making $65k or less. But a single year’s tuition is $60k, so good luck to families making $70k. I think these legacy universities don’t want to lower tuition because they still admit lots of rich people who just pay. But the middle class is really squeezed out. Of course the lower class is squeezed as well since it’s hard to get accepted if parents can’t afford tutors, coaches, etc.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  There's a cynical take that the social function of the absolute elite universities is to allow young upper-class people (with family wealth and access to wealthy networks) to network with the smartest and most driven members of the middle- and lower classes (who will get things done). Presumably, the willingness of the family to make sacrifices for their child is a positive indicator for how driven the child will be.
  - jseliger 4y ago
    Cynical, or merely descriptive? https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-the-fuck-do-you-trust-harvard https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-the-fuck-do-you-tru...
    - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
      Oh man that was a good read. Especially since you can MadLib the institution name and so many other parts of it.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  Good catch. They use weasel words "Dartmouth is now removing the loan requirement for undergraduates from families with annual income of more than $125,000 who receive need-based financial aid." Most students coming from families earning 125k+ won't actually qualify for any aid. The entire financial aid system is broken. Have a domestic violence situation at home, so your parents don't want to fill your FASA out, no aid for you ! Still live with your supportive parents at 24, you automatically get the max amount. If I ran the world, I would give everyone aid for up to 6 years, and get rid of affirmative action completely. I'd argue the vast vast majority of students are better served going to a community college first. Figure out if college is even something you want to do , and if it is, get yourself a part-time job or better yet a full-time one so you understand how to manage money.
  - stevetron 4y ago
    I went to a community college first. I also worked in my dad's business, sometimes behind the cash register. I've had my own consulting business, I think I know a little bit about 'handling money', and I don't consider myself particularly better served by that community college bit.
    - ekam 4y ago
      Also went to CC but I highly disagree, it was great saving two years of tuition costs
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Most students coming from families earning 125k+ won't actually qualify for any aid. Good?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - kaesar14 4y ago
      75k a year of college is affordable for a household income of 150k? Really?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I think these legacy universities don’t want to lower tuition because they still admit lots of rich people who just pay. But the middle class is really squeezed out. Of course the lower class is squeezed as well since it’s hard to get accepted if parents can’t afford tutors, coaches, etc. IMHO, income from college endowments that are larger than one billion dollars should be taxed at 110%.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >It was really frustrating. So the wording on what financial contributions should be, like in this article, has lots of wiggle room. It seems Dartmouth is covering tuition for families making $65k or less. But a single year’s tuition is $60k, so good luck to families making $70k. That's the point. This is a non-change. They've always accepted a few poor people and dolled out scholarships under the unspoken guise of "economic diversity". If you don't fall into that category you either need to be rich or exceed the typical admissions requirements by enough to warrant an exception. The university is just patting itself on the back for something it's always been doing.
- alphaomegacode 4y ago
  Sadly, quite a lot of tuition seems to be supporting university employees who simply don't care. A friend of mine wanted to go to school after working for over a decade. She went to the University of Miami, got to the Continuing Education department and noticed not a single person on duty but a taped piece of paper saying everyone was working remotely due to CoVid. In 2022! Headed on to the location for Undergrad Admissions and was given a website where she could get more info. For a school that charges $65K+ a year. It happened again at a college in DC where all that she could get was a website versus speaking to an admissions counselor, getting a group tour on some particular date, etc. Even though about half of the university employees encountered were college students, their attitude of just cashing a paycheck and keeping the seats warm is both a cost and a reflection of the quality of administration. So much of University tuition now seems to be going to maintain salaries and perks for layers upon layers of employees and administrators versus student benefits.
  - sumy23 4y ago
    I’ve noticed something similar at the company I work for and I think I have an explanation. Basically, upper management doesn’t understand what it takes to accomplish tasks anymore due to maligned incentives from middle management. Middle management wants to progress up the corporate ladder, which it does by growing its team size. E.g. by growing a team of 10 into a team of 100 with new layers of management below. This happens even if the scope of work remains largely unchanged. As a result, no one knows how many people it takes to accomplish tasks. There are so many people that ownership becomes and issue. People can simply pass the buck. And any sense of autonomy fades as more people are brought on to do a dwindling pool of actual work. The end result is large, inefficiently run bureaucracies.
Pigalowda 4y ago
Oh gee oh wow! They’re eliminating disbursement of loans directly to the student. Now the parents can take the loan out in their own names to pay for their child’s education. They fixed the system, we can all go home now. Wait, wasn’t that essentially what promissory notes were for prior to the department of education originating loans to the student directly? Hundreds of millions of donor dollars to the endowment are not going to the people. They probably just eliminated some jobs from their financial aid department and are now announcing that they don’t even have the capacity to serve loans to students. Dartmouth can eat my fafsa.
- synergy20 4y ago
  this practice applies to all schools saying 'eliminating debts for students', Dartmouth just joined the game late. the bottom line is always squeezing the middle classes.
Communitivity 4y ago
Ideally, tuition should be provided by the government. If not, then a subsidy that provides universities only charge 5% of income to $50k, 10% of annual net income per year if making up to $150k, then 20% of any net income exceeding $150k. Add a break to deduct from taxable income the tuition donated to a blind trust scholarship up to a certain amount. That scholarship is then used to offset high achievers for whom college tuition might still be a burden. That gives universities a fair share of money while still allowing everyone to go to college. If it keeps going the way it's going, the only people who will be able to go to anything other than a community college are those whose parents are making in excess of $200k per year. Mind you community college is often a great education, but you don't get the extra opportunity benefits you would at a university: increased networking, professors who can demand a higher salary (come of these will work at community colleges because they want to), wider range of curriculum, more research opportunities, easier to get published.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea of government funded tuition if the institutions weren't so horribly bloated. Even back in the early 2000's my university built a college football stadium, because they didn't like that the team had to use the city's stadium. Not only did they take donations and funding, but also added $600 a semester to every students' "fees" Yup, they increased tuition without increasing tuition by making every student pay an additional fee which, in my case, added roughly 10% (not to mention the other fees) to help pay for a stadium we didn't need. They literally funded the stadium in part by students taking out non-dischargable loans. Since then, administrative and real estate bloat has only gotten worse. The whole system needs a drastic re-think if it is to become a public good.
  - Communitivity 4y ago
    You are right, just throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it. It's not a popular opinion, but I think they should just ban all college sports. Students are there to learn, not to play a a sport - and much of the abuses in the system are the result of college sports. Much of the rest of the abuses are from universities acting as for-profit organizations with their research and patents. Maybe something where students cannot graduate until they achieve a successful score on a test in their profession. Annual tuition is set by, and split among, the professors of the classes they take. A 10% overhead on the tuition would go to the school. The professors who best enabled passing the test would be able to demand the most money. I look at what I wrote and realize this is sounding like the model of Coursera, Udacity, etc.
ghostbust555 4y ago
One whiff of student loan forgiveness being mentioned and they rush to protect their capital. This is financial protection for Dartmouth dressed up as some sort of benefit to students.
- kristianbrigman 4y ago
  How would this be a problem? Not following…. They don’t offer the student loans themselves afaik, the loans come from somewhere else, so they normally get the money but not the risk. And I would think that if there _is_ loan forgiveness… that is essentially a back door to a increased government grant, they can’t just tell private companies to eat the losses, the government (i.e. taxpayers :) would have to cover them…
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > they can’t just tell private companies to eat the losses Sure they can. The poor widdle loan sharks might not like that, but tough shit.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      > Sure they can Sure they can. And just as sure they'd be sued. Fifth Amendment, or something.
twobitshifter 4y ago
I see a lot of negativity and questioning the motives of Dartmouth here. The college endowment is large enough that they could fund tuition for all students. The place is not run like a for-profit business and these decisions are made by looking at the finances what their goals are for funding financial aid. At some point it doesn’t make sense to give free tuition to a family and the money could be better spent elsewhere to further their goals. Since September they received $120M, divide by 70,000 and that’s full tuition for 1714 students, more than the freshman class. In the “campaign” it’s over $500M covering everyone for a year. In 2021 the endowment was $8.5B. A 4% yearly return on the endowment could fund every single undergraduate and then some in perpetuity. As mentioned above, they’re raking in massive donations on top of that so the endowment is growing faster than it can be spent.
293984j29384 4y ago
As a NYC resident, it always makes me sad to see hard caps on income limits that don't take into account any type of COL or locality. As a family, we bring in around 300k/year but after rent in a modest 2BD Manhattan apartment, child care, essentials and everything else a family needs, we have very little "extra" spending money. I'm not trying to make an argument that we're the equivalent of a family making 60k/year but it seems like an argument could be made that we shouldn't punish people who live in high COL areas with high salaries but low disposable incomes.

56 points by cwwc 4y ago

This sounds nice, but the devil is in the details. My child applied to a school that had a similar policy that students would only graduate with $15k in student loans. Tuition was $40k back when kid applied. We filled out financial aid package with my income of like $150k and no assets outside of retirement savings. We got a letter with “congrats total amount each year is $47k including room and board, work study is $1500, grant is $1500, expected parental contribution is $44k/year. You don’t need student loans.” It was really frustrating. So the wording on what financial contributions should be, like in this article, has lots of wiggle room. It seems Dartmouth is covering tuition for families making $65k or less. But a single year’s tuition is $60k, so good luck to families making $70k. I think these legacy universities don’t want to lower tuition because they still admit lots of rich people who just pay. But the middle class is really squeezed out. Of course the lower class is squeezed as well since it’s hard to get accepted if parents can’t afford tutors, coaches, etc.

InitialLastName 4y ago
There's a cynical take that the social function of the absolute elite universities is to allow young upper-class people (with family wealth and access to wealthy networks) to network with the smartest and most driven members of the middle- and lower classes (who will get things done). Presumably, the willingness of the family to make sacrifices for their child is a positive indicator for how driven the child will be.
- jseliger 4y ago
  Cynical, or merely descriptive? https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-the-fuck-do-you-trust-harvard https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-the-fuck-do-you-tru...
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    Oh man that was a good read. Especially since you can MadLib the institution name and so many other parts of it.
999900000999 4y ago
Good catch. They use weasel words "Dartmouth is now removing the loan requirement for undergraduates from families with annual income of more than $125,000 who receive need-based financial aid." Most students coming from families earning 125k+ won't actually qualify for any aid. The entire financial aid system is broken. Have a domestic violence situation at home, so your parents don't want to fill your FASA out, no aid for you ! Still live with your supportive parents at 24, you automatically get the max amount. If I ran the world, I would give everyone aid for up to 6 years, and get rid of affirmative action completely. I'd argue the vast vast majority of students are better served going to a community college first. Figure out if college is even something you want to do , and if it is, get yourself a part-time job or better yet a full-time one so you understand how to manage money.
- stevetron 4y ago
  I went to a community college first. I also worked in my dad's business, sometimes behind the cash register. I've had my own consulting business, I think I know a little bit about 'handling money', and I don't consider myself particularly better served by that community college bit.
  - ekam 4y ago
    Also went to CC but I highly disagree, it was great saving two years of tuition costs
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Most students coming from families earning 125k+ won't actually qualify for any aid. Good?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kaesar14 4y ago
    75k a year of college is affordable for a household income of 150k? Really?
tablespoon 4y ago
> I think these legacy universities don’t want to lower tuition because they still admit lots of rich people who just pay. But the middle class is really squeezed out. Of course the lower class is squeezed as well since it’s hard to get accepted if parents can’t afford tutors, coaches, etc. IMHO, income from college endowments that are larger than one billion dollars should be taxed at 110%.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>It was really frustrating. So the wording on what financial contributions should be, like in this article, has lots of wiggle room. It seems Dartmouth is covering tuition for families making $65k or less. But a single year’s tuition is $60k, so good luck to families making $70k. That's the point. This is a non-change. They've always accepted a few poor people and dolled out scholarships under the unspoken guise of "economic diversity". If you don't fall into that category you either need to be rich or exceed the typical admissions requirements by enough to warrant an exception. The university is just patting itself on the back for something it's always been doing.
alphaomegacode 4y ago
Sadly, quite a lot of tuition seems to be supporting university employees who simply don't care. A friend of mine wanted to go to school after working for over a decade. She went to the University of Miami, got to the Continuing Education department and noticed not a single person on duty but a taped piece of paper saying everyone was working remotely due to CoVid. In 2022! Headed on to the location for Undergrad Admissions and was given a website where she could get more info. For a school that charges $65K+ a year. It happened again at a college in DC where all that she could get was a website versus speaking to an admissions counselor, getting a group tour on some particular date, etc. Even though about half of the university employees encountered were college students, their attitude of just cashing a paycheck and keeping the seats warm is both a cost and a reflection of the quality of administration. So much of University tuition now seems to be going to maintain salaries and perks for layers upon layers of employees and administrators versus student benefits.
- sumy23 4y ago
  I’ve noticed something similar at the company I work for and I think I have an explanation. Basically, upper management doesn’t understand what it takes to accomplish tasks anymore due to maligned incentives from middle management. Middle management wants to progress up the corporate ladder, which it does by growing its team size. E.g. by growing a team of 10 into a team of 100 with new layers of management below. This happens even if the scope of work remains largely unchanged. As a result, no one knows how many people it takes to accomplish tasks. There are so many people that ownership becomes and issue. People can simply pass the buck. And any sense of autonomy fades as more people are brought on to do a dwindling pool of actual work. The end result is large, inefficiently run bureaucracies.

Pigalowda 4y ago

Oh gee oh wow! They’re eliminating disbursement of loans directly to the student. Now the parents can take the loan out in their own names to pay for their child’s education. They fixed the system, we can all go home now. Wait, wasn’t that essentially what promissory notes were for prior to the department of education originating loans to the student directly? Hundreds of millions of donor dollars to the endowment are not going to the people. They probably just eliminated some jobs from their financial aid department and are now announcing that they don’t even have the capacity to serve loans to students. Dartmouth can eat my fafsa.

synergy20 4y ago
this practice applies to all schools saying 'eliminating debts for students', Dartmouth just joined the game late. the bottom line is always squeezing the middle classes.

Communitivity 4y ago

Ideally, tuition should be provided by the government. If not, then a subsidy that provides universities only charge 5% of income to $50k, 10% of annual net income per year if making up to $150k, then 20% of any net income exceeding $150k. Add a break to deduct from taxable income the tuition donated to a blind trust scholarship up to a certain amount. That scholarship is then used to offset high achievers for whom college tuition might still be a burden. That gives universities a fair share of money while still allowing everyone to go to college. If it keeps going the way it's going, the only people who will be able to go to anything other than a community college are those whose parents are making in excess of $200k per year. Mind you community college is often a great education, but you don't get the extra opportunity benefits you would at a university: increased networking, professors who can demand a higher salary (come of these will work at community colleges because they want to), wider range of curriculum, more research opportunities, easier to get published.

zdragnar 4y ago
I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea of government funded tuition if the institutions weren't so horribly bloated. Even back in the early 2000's my university built a college football stadium, because they didn't like that the team had to use the city's stadium. Not only did they take donations and funding, but also added $600 a semester to every students' "fees" Yup, they increased tuition without increasing tuition by making every student pay an additional fee which, in my case, added roughly 10% (not to mention the other fees) to help pay for a stadium we didn't need. They literally funded the stadium in part by students taking out non-dischargable loans. Since then, administrative and real estate bloat has only gotten worse. The whole system needs a drastic re-think if it is to become a public good.
- Communitivity 4y ago
  You are right, just throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it. It's not a popular opinion, but I think they should just ban all college sports. Students are there to learn, not to play a a sport - and much of the abuses in the system are the result of college sports. Much of the rest of the abuses are from universities acting as for-profit organizations with their research and patents. Maybe something where students cannot graduate until they achieve a successful score on a test in their profession. Annual tuition is set by, and split among, the professors of the classes they take. A 10% overhead on the tuition would go to the school. The professors who best enabled passing the test would be able to demand the most money. I look at what I wrote and realize this is sounding like the model of Coursera, Udacity, etc.

ghostbust555 4y ago

One whiff of student loan forgiveness being mentioned and they rush to protect their capital. This is financial protection for Dartmouth dressed up as some sort of benefit to students.

kristianbrigman 4y ago
How would this be a problem? Not following…. They don’t offer the student loans themselves afaik, the loans come from somewhere else, so they normally get the money but not the risk. And I would think that if there _is_ loan forgiveness… that is essentially a back door to a increased government grant, they can’t just tell private companies to eat the losses, the government (i.e. taxpayers :) would have to cover them…
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > they can’t just tell private companies to eat the losses Sure they can. The poor widdle loan sharks might not like that, but tough shit.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > Sure they can Sure they can. And just as sure they'd be sued. Fifth Amendment, or something.

twobitshifter 4y ago

I see a lot of negativity and questioning the motives of Dartmouth here. The college endowment is large enough that they could fund tuition for all students. The place is not run like a for-profit business and these decisions are made by looking at the finances what their goals are for funding financial aid. At some point it doesn’t make sense to give free tuition to a family and the money could be better spent elsewhere to further their goals. Since September they received $120M, divide by 70,000 and that’s full tuition for 1714 students, more than the freshman class. In the “campaign” it’s over $500M covering everyone for a year. In 2021 the endowment was $8.5B. A 4% yearly return on the endowment could fund every single undergraduate and then some in perpetuity. As mentioned above, they’re raking in massive donations on top of that so the endowment is growing faster than it can be spent.

293984j29384 4y ago

As a NYC resident, it always makes me sad to see hard caps on income limits that don't take into account any type of COL or locality. As a family, we bring in around 300k/year but after rent in a modest 2BD Manhattan apartment, child care, essentials and everything else a family needs, we have very little "extra" spending money. I'm not trying to make an argument that we're the equivalent of a family making 60k/year but it seems like an argument could be made that we shouldn't punish people who live in high COL areas with high salaries but low disposable incomes.