4 ms·

The argument for high tuition private school is to not leave money on the table from rich people who can afford to pay full price. Middle class people pay a big

The argument for high tuition private school is to not leave money on the table from rich people who can afford to pay full price. Middle class people pay a big discount, while working class people don’t pay anything. For a state school, you can have a billionaire’s kid enrolled but you are only getting the $14k in state tuition from them and therefore might not be able to support many students at the bottom since you are giving a discount to anyone in state.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
The notion that there is "money on the table" is fundamentally flawed. Why are we building every single system essentially to catch whales with a cacophony of bureaucratic stop gaps to help "the poor" navigate this hellscape process, it just leads to an endless cycle of more and more loopholes being topped onto each other. You're basically forcing anyone not rich to do a boatload of extra labor. A streamlined process that doesn't endless sticker shock people and force them to grind for scholarships and financial aid while charging a fair price is easier on the psychology of all involved
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  Again - a problem at places other than Harvard, which operates a need-blind approach where students will all automatically receive 100% of their demonstrated financial aid requirements.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    The thing is, Harvard could very likely fully-fund everybody's tuition from endowment, while continuing to allow the endowment to grow. I can't remember where I read that, I'll try to find a reference this evening.
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      It's completely impossible for an outsider to know that - you have no idea what constraints are placed on the gifts that make up the endowment - it's not one big fund you can draw down on as needed; it's like 14,000 different funds each of which may be allocated to a specific purpose (like a particular professorial chair or to a library or whatever).
    - nverno 4y ago
      Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it recently, showing Princeton had reached that point. https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is-the-worlds-first-perpetual-motion-machine/ https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is...

SQueeeeeL 4y ago

The notion that there is "money on the table" is fundamentally flawed. Why are we building every single system essentially to catch whales with a cacophony of bureaucratic stop gaps to help "the poor" navigate this hellscape process, it just leads to an endless cycle of more and more loopholes being topped onto each other. You're basically forcing anyone not rich to do a boatload of extra labor. A streamlined process that doesn't endless sticker shock people and force them to grind for scholarships and financial aid while charging a fair price is easier on the psychology of all involved

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
Again - a problem at places other than Harvard, which operates a need-blind approach where students will all automatically receive 100% of their demonstrated financial aid requirements.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  The thing is, Harvard could very likely fully-fund everybody's tuition from endowment, while continuing to allow the endowment to grow. I can't remember where I read that, I'll try to find a reference this evening.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    It's completely impossible for an outsider to know that - you have no idea what constraints are placed on the gifts that make up the endowment - it's not one big fund you can draw down on as needed; it's like 14,000 different funds each of which may be allocated to a specific purpose (like a particular professorial chair or to a library or whatever).
  - nverno 4y ago
    Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it recently, showing Princeton had reached that point. https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is-the-worlds-first-perpetual-motion-machine/ https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is...