9 ms·

New bill to bar wealthy colleges in the US from accepting federal student loans

58 points by Geekette 3y ago

Geekette 3y ago
Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/jm3pE https://archive.is/jm3pE
jakderrida 3y ago
Seems like this would only bar working-class and lower-class applicants with high ambitions and impeccable high school records from the ability to attend top universities. True, they could attend Honors programs from state schools instead. But it still doesn't feel right.
- fredgrott 3y ago
  typically the land grant universities that are state public out perform ivy league schools in specific subject areas. You miss the point of these ivy league schools already are taxed, Congress wants to say well why not donate to the cause...and frankly some ivy league schools do in fact do that in donations to financial grant programs for low income... Other point is that pell grants are better spent at State Schools where students can almost get 50% or more of tuition covered by pell grants due to the Congress finally increasing the amounts due to inflation in the bill they are proposing.
  - Loughla 3y ago
    I agree with mostly everything you're saying except this: >some ivy league schools do in fact do that in donations to financial grant programs for low income This is always after other financial aid has been applied to the student account. They're not going to be willing to pony up the missing chunk, I bet you.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  Honors colleges are a massive scam. They give the student more work and far more costs for only a small fraction of the prestige associated with top universities. They also usually prevent one from applying AP credits or IB credits to college courses, as their "honors" versions of classes are not considered equivalent to any AP class. More money for mom and dad to pay because their kid got waitlisted and later rejected from Berkeley.
  - westurner 3y ago
    "Is college worth it? A return-on-investment analysis" (2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29007377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29007377 : >>> Why would people make an investment with insufficient ROI (Return on Investment)? >> Insufficient information. >> College Scorecard [1] is a database with a web interface for finding and comparing schools according to a number of objective criteria. CollegeScorecard launched in 2015. It lists "Average Annual Cost", "Graduation Rate", and "Salary After Attending" on the search results pages. When you review a detail page for an institution, there are many additional statistics; things like: "Typical Total Debt After Graduation" and "Typical Monthly Loan Payment" Which curricular assignments have actual career ROI for cash-strapped students?
  - ejstronge 3y ago
    > They also usually prevent one from applying AP credits or IB credits to college courses Maybe this was your experience, but I have not ever heard of this, so ‘usually’ may not be the correct descriptor.
    - Der_Einzige 3y ago
      I challenge you to find an example where honors college courses are considered "equivalent" to the honors college core you're required to take. My claim is specifically courses like AP Lit or AP Lang can't be applied for "Honors Western Civ", not that they prevent AP Physics or other stuff not in the honors college from being applied.
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    > Honors colleges are a massive scam. They give the student more work and far more costs for only a small fraction of the prestige associated with top universities. My niece is actually getting paid monthly in her honors program. Everything else is also covered. This, despite being eligible for GI Bill through her dad. As for Berkeley, I didn't imagine they have an honors college. In my mind, it's most associated with state schools and I've definitely seen students go from Honors program at state school to Ivy Leagues for grad school. Perhaps some of them are a scam. Just not the ones that I've seen.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago
  This would never happen. The universities need smart people to keep the reputation up for all the average but rich people.
  - epolanski 3y ago
    They only need those people in fundraising/public and research role to boost the college rankings. Education received has never been different at ivy leagues.
    - jakderrida 3y ago
      I disagree. When watching some interviews of Yale students before, there was a frequent pattern of students responding, "I'm just a legacy student." to indicate that they're from a family of graduates paying full tuition, distinct from the merited students that are on some sort of scholarships and aid. You have to consider that, as much as we'd all love think being smart is reliably inherited, it's not reliable at all. Not saying I'm opposed to their system. So-called "legacy students" are how the school is primarily financed, allowing subsidies for merited students. Without legacy, it goes bankrupt. Without merited, the degree loses value.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  There’s nothing stopping them from taking Pell grants, and most of these universities are need blind at that income level anyway
sota4077 3y ago
I have read this article twice now and I am failing to understand what they are trying to solve with this. They want to essentially punish students who that opt to attend a wealthy university? So they are expanding pell-grants and banning students from getting federal financial aid? What is the overall purpose or problem they are trying to solve?
- fakecontent000 3y ago
  [dead]
- hasty_pudding 3y ago
  I guess its as simple as: if the university already has massive amounts of money, why give them more when schools who dont have that money need it?
  - mixdup 3y ago
    When of course while yes the schools ultimately get the money, it's not a direct handout/appropriation to the school it's a vessel to get the student an education Since the schools have high demand there is another student that will replace the loan recipient so the private school will not suffer one iota. However the poor or middle class student just had their bootstraps cut off, the same ones that they'll be told they should've pulled themselves up by in 10-20 years when it's explained to them why they are not to have help with healthcare when they get cancer and have to stop working or why the banks are getting bailed out directly but their mortgage is definitely going to be foreclosed in the next housing crisis
    - eitally 3y ago
      You're not wrong, but I'm wondering how many of those top 50 schools (by wealth) already have guaranteed scholarships/grants that are income based. Stanford, for example, guarantees free tuition (not sure if this covers room & board, or fees) for any students with household income <$250k/yr, which is a pretty darn high threshold. Princeton has been similarly generous for a long time (UVA modeled their program after Princeton's about twenty years ago), and I suspect a number of others have programs like this, too.
wingspar 3y ago
Is there some reason these institutions could not make direct student loans themselves to their students? That would give them some real ‘skin in the game’ ensuring a good education with good job prospects. It would be telling if they ended up lending to students in some majors but not others.
- JCharante 3y ago
  That's just called an institutional loan. Also I don't think the top 50 wealthiest private universities need us to worry about their students' outcomes.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  Massive conflict of interest? You will not fail students and you will inflate grades much more than this is already done. Also, education is for education not for job prospects. The fact that you want this to be the wrong way around is a very American perspective.
  - mgamache 3y ago
    That might work for a few years, but if all institutions did that it would collapse the whole system. A university degree is for jobs why would you think otherwise?
    - diffeomorphism 3y ago
      It isn't, why would you think so?
    - throwaway318 3y ago
      A university degree, for many jobs, is a box tick. A university for many careers, is a signal. A trade school is for jobs. Skills are different from knowledge. Etc.
- genedan 3y ago
  Even if the loans weren't subsidized by the government, the schools wouldn't do it. It's more likely they would be financed by banks like they are with other goods.
addicted 3y ago
This makes absolutely no sense from any angle. US politics is so messed up right now. The entire right is lost in a personality cult and is driven more by triggering the libs than actually effecting change for their fellow citizens or the country as a whole. And the entire left is on a rampage to make sure they alienate as many people and supporters as possible and would much rather focus on symbolic protesting on issues they have no impact over as opposed to real issues they can help. The center is sensible and fairly effective but was small to begin with and is rapidly getting squeezed from both sides. Re: this specific issue, it’s very obvious that universal programs are always more successful. They build a strong political and support base across the spectrum of voters without creating any losers who are deliberately excluded that would be motivated to end them. Further, more often than not any sort of means discrimination costs way more than the money saved through the means discrimination. And that’s even before the hoops the means discrimination adds to the lives of the poorest to prove their eligibility. The means discrimination should be done once on the income tax side. There’s an extremely well established process for that and will be done anyways. Setting up ad hoc processes for each program on the benefit side simply doesn’t make sense. And yet contra all the information we have the people proposing these policies will go out of their way to make their own policies less effective and more expensive as we’re seeing with these unnecessary riders.
- fakecontent000 3y ago
  [dead]
- niceice 3y ago
  Harvard has $50 billion dollars and only accepts about 2,000 students/yr.
  - Kon-Peki 3y ago
    The Harvard endowment per student is insanely large, but you don't need to exaggerate by only including the undergrad class. They're well past granting 9000 degrees per year; I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 10000/yr within 10-15 years. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-awards-9926-degrees-over-the-2022-23-academic-year/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-award...
rasengan 3y ago
> “America’s reliance on student loans is imperfect, but this move would hurt students far more than the colleges they attend.” I’m not so sure that this would hurt students more. Taking debt without income or profit to service said debt is a highly risky move and this may mitigate the number of risks taken thereafter. That said I do understand at the surface it would appear to prevent poor kids from attending these schools. We should probably analyze the entire cohort and make a determination if it’s a good or bad move.
- mixdup 3y ago
  >Taking debt without income or profit to service said debt is a highly risky move and this may mitigate the number of risks taken thereafter. Stanford and Harvard issuing a lot of useless basket weaving and women's studies degrees that no one can use to get a job, are they?
nxm 3y ago
Per recent episode of Bill Maher, Stanford university has over 10000 administrators. Why is higher education so expensive in the US… bloated bureaucracy and fancy buildings which would not happen if the federal government was backing student loans.
- ericmay 3y ago
  People have cited this figure before, but I think the “10,000 administrators” without further context is misleading. The number is 15,000 anyway if you look at Wikipedia. The reason it’s misleading is that it’s being portrayed as though there are 10,000 diversity, equity, and inclusion support group staff or payroll checkers or some other nonsense when the fact of the matter is that these figures include staff doing things like running federal research grant projects, maintaining facilities, working at university hospitals, and numerous other activities. If you think 10,000 is a lot, wait until you see Ohio State University’s 27,000 administrative staff.
  - yellow_postit 3y ago
    Adjust for student body that’s what ~1.5 admin staff per Harvard student and ~2.4 per Ohio state. Both seem crazy on their own but also sensationalized. I’d love to see how this has changed over time and compare school cohorts.
    - ericmay 3y ago
      Does it seem crazy? What’s the baseline? What’s “normal”?
      - yellow_postit 3y ago
        That’s my point but I may not have made it well. On its own that “feels” high but a better representation would be to look over time and also try to adjust for things like services offered — eg more sports teams likely means more admin. I don’t know if I’ve seen that dataset though.
bell-cot 3y ago
> It would ban students who attend Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or any of the roughly 50 other wealthy, private colleges subject to a tax on their endowment from taking out federal student loans. > America’s reliance on student loans is imperfect, but this move would hurt students far more than the colleges they attend. Reaction: Yeah - from the PoV of folks who've drunk too much of the "We are the uppermost crust of the New Meritocracy, born to lord over lesser humans..." Kool-Aid that many elite colleges serve up, this sounds pretty bad. But between the staggering administrative bloat of those institutions, the sort of culture wars Bizarro-world they seem determined to keep pushing into, and other major problems - maybe it would be better if the brighter & harder-working young people were steered away from them? Back about 1900, Americans were obsessed with the high status and long history of British nobility, and quite a few of America's richest families forced their daughters to marry British nobles - with huge dowries - in crass "pay for social status" trades. A few decades later, when the decline & fall of the British noble class was d*mned obvious, that fad faded. If all your friends aren't making "take mommy's private jet, or daddy's?" decisions as they head to Harvard, this might be a good time to look further ahead, and make a long-term better decision.
addicted 3y ago
The wealthiest schools would absolutely love this. There’s absolutely no pressure anymore on them to accept anyone but the wealthiest candidates anymore from across the world. Not only will they make more money the exclusivity means they will be more desirable as well. What a backwards idea from both the right and left perspective.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  > Not only will they make more money the exclusivity means they will be more desirable as well. In a functioning society, this would only be true if the education quality is actually superior.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    It's a combination of prestige and education quality. And the fact that they can afford to be very selective, so they can keep the prestige intact by admitting the very best for the majority of the student base.
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Consider this: The best and brightest that aren't admitted to the ivy league due to financial purposes will attend some other institution. Those institutions will raise their prestige over time as the market acknowledges the education outcomes. As long as we continue to let these ivy league institutions gate-keep society, we'll be stuck in this system. Cutting out federal tax-payer money from these wildly overpriced institutions is a good first step.
      - millzlane 3y ago
        >Cutting out federal tax-payer money from these wildly overpriced institutions is a good first step. I would tend to agree. It's usually my first response when someone says <insert community college here> isn't a good school.
  - dotancohen 3y ago
pmarreck 3y ago
Maybe we can bar them them from accepting Qatari pro-Islamic money next https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jwhsqhrat https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jwhsqhrat
koliber 3y ago
Story time, to bring another perspective. When I was in high school, and it was time to choose colleges, I had a particular challenge. As an immigrant to the US, I had a legal immigrant status that was unconventional. Additionally, my family has come to the country just 5 years prior, and it was tough to pay for brand name cereal, let alone college tuition. Federal financial aid, including loans, is not available to everyone. It was unclear whether my family met those criteria. Our immigrant status was rarely encountered. I was told that likely I would not be able to get any financial aid. The prospect of paying $20k-$30k per year worried my head hunched over a bowl of no-name ringo-o’s. I chose not to apply to any top schools because of my financial situation. Without federal assistance the cost would be even higher. I felt that I needed to balance my ability to pay with all other choices that go into a life plan. Who knows if I would have been accepted. I did not even try because I was told that federal financial aid would not be available to me. This ended up being not true and I got federal financial aid after all. I learned this after I already sent in my applications. But not to MIT and Stanford, my dream schools. I ended up going to RIT. It was cold and I found a new appreciation for brick architecture. My life is fine. I do occasionally think about what would have been had I heard “You have access to federal student loans” when I was choosing where to apply. Would such a proposed bill cause more kids who are not well off to not even apply if they knew federal financial aid would not help them pay for certain schools? My situation was odd and rare, but this would place many more kids in a similar dilemma. On the bright side, if such a law passes, less wealthy colleges will get access to more top-tier applicants, and that is what equality is all about, right?
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  > I had a legal immigrant status that was unconventional. > It was unclear whether my family met those criteria. Firstly: I’m sorry that your high school and the system seems to have failed you here. A guidance counselor office (or similar) should have been either already knowledgeable in this area or able to figure it out. What was unconventional about your immigration status?
  - koliber 3y ago
    No reason to be sorry. Things turned out quite well. I rarely share sad stories but this one provides a perspective that may be valuable for the conversation. Re rare immigration status: my family entered the US in 1990 as “indefinitely paroled.” A single stamp in the passport was all we had to show for it. Supposedly only a few hundred people came in similar circumstances. Eventually this status got normalized through some legislation and now I am a US citizen. I can share more in private if you are curious. So I don’t think the system failed me. There is no way that a guidance counselor would have know this, if lawyers were perplexed. Looking at it from another perspective and a wider view, the system worked well because it gave my family a chance to emigrate to the US. There are many ways to look at the past. Road not taken and all. It’s good to take a moment how our decisions today might play out.
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
Max Pell grant: $7,395 Duke School of Nursing (article ex) Tuition: BSN: $14,525/yr (or ABSN $25,258/yr). Housing: $11k/yr. Fees,Food,etc: $7k/yr. I'm likely low. sources: https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/absn-accelerated-bachelor-science-nursing/absn-tuition-fees https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/absn-accelerated-... https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/msn-master-science-nursing/tuition-fees-msn https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/msn-master-scienc... housing:internet said $1100/mo for student housing in Durham NC (do students rent all 12mo?), food:guess This is to measure the issue, not advance an argument either way.
- sgerenser 3y ago
  Duke also guarantees tuition free undergrad attendance to all “lower income” attendees, where lower income is something in the ballpark of $120K family income.
george-in-sd 3y ago
It's unfair that these colleges that have legacy admissions can take any federal loans/grants at all. I think the colleges' enthusiasm for race based admissions was to ensure that social class never becomes an issue - thus protecting their true clients, the children of rich alumni.
nunez 3y ago
Link to bill: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr6585ih/pdf/BILLS-118hr6585ih.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr6585ih/pdf/BI... Section 7 is the amendment under discussion here. Definition of an "applicable institution" from 26 USC § 4968(b): https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=26-USC-2055825046-565461210&term_occur=999&term_src=title:26:subtitle:D:chapter:42:subchapter:H:section:4968 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840... Takeaways: This modification basically removes federal Stanford and direct plus loan eligibility for schools whose average family net worth (assets held) exceeds $500k. (This isn't just HYP/Ivy's either! Small private schools like Reed and William and Mary might pass this eligibility test, as they have very wealthy student bodies.). However, the actual impact this will have on students coming from poorer backgrounds remains to be seen, for three reasons: 1. These loans tend to not be very large. Anything helps, of course, but a $6k Stafford loan is a drop in the bucket against a $78k/year tuition. 2. These schools tend to issue grants and scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These are better than federal loans, of course. Check out what Harvard is doing for the class of 2026: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-expand-financial-aid-starting-with-class-of-26/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-ex.... You pay nothing if your family makes less than $75k/year. That's pretty neat! 3. These schools are stupidly insanely selective and everyone applies to them, I.e., it's like Google's hiring problem. Students from wealthier families with always have more resources to help their kids get noticed, and students from poorer backgrounds will have to claw their way in. Same as it ever was. Very disappointing that The Atlantic couldn't cite the source of the actual bill and the section in question.
LeafItAlone 3y ago
I would expect that students most of the named schools would be more likely than average to pay back their loans. Wouldn’t the government be making money, in interest, off these students?

58 points by Geekette 3y ago

Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/jm3pE https://archive.is/jm3pE

Seems like this would only bar working-class and lower-class applicants with high ambitions and impeccable high school records from the ability to attend top universities. True, they could attend Honors programs from state schools instead. But it still doesn't feel right.

fredgrott 3y ago
typically the land grant universities that are state public out perform ivy league schools in specific subject areas. You miss the point of these ivy league schools already are taxed, Congress wants to say well why not donate to the cause...and frankly some ivy league schools do in fact do that in donations to financial grant programs for low income... Other point is that pell grants are better spent at State Schools where students can almost get 50% or more of tuition covered by pell grants due to the Congress finally increasing the amounts due to inflation in the bill they are proposing.
- Loughla 3y ago
  I agree with mostly everything you're saying except this: >some ivy league schools do in fact do that in donations to financial grant programs for low income This is always after other financial aid has been applied to the student account. They're not going to be willing to pony up the missing chunk, I bet you.
Der_Einzige 3y ago
Honors colleges are a massive scam. They give the student more work and far more costs for only a small fraction of the prestige associated with top universities. They also usually prevent one from applying AP credits or IB credits to college courses, as their "honors" versions of classes are not considered equivalent to any AP class. More money for mom and dad to pay because their kid got waitlisted and later rejected from Berkeley.
- westurner 3y ago
  "Is college worth it? A return-on-investment analysis" (2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29007377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29007377 : >>> Why would people make an investment with insufficient ROI (Return on Investment)? >> Insufficient information. >> College Scorecard [1] is a database with a web interface for finding and comparing schools according to a number of objective criteria. CollegeScorecard launched in 2015. It lists "Average Annual Cost", "Graduation Rate", and "Salary After Attending" on the search results pages. When you review a detail page for an institution, there are many additional statistics; things like: "Typical Total Debt After Graduation" and "Typical Monthly Loan Payment" Which curricular assignments have actual career ROI for cash-strapped students?
- ejstronge 3y ago
  > They also usually prevent one from applying AP credits or IB credits to college courses Maybe this was your experience, but I have not ever heard of this, so ‘usually’ may not be the correct descriptor.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    I challenge you to find an example where honors college courses are considered "equivalent" to the honors college core you're required to take. My claim is specifically courses like AP Lit or AP Lang can't be applied for "Honors Western Civ", not that they prevent AP Physics or other stuff not in the honors college from being applied.
- jakderrida 3y ago
  > Honors colleges are a massive scam. They give the student more work and far more costs for only a small fraction of the prestige associated with top universities. My niece is actually getting paid monthly in her honors program. Everything else is also covered. This, despite being eligible for GI Bill through her dad. As for Berkeley, I didn't imagine they have an honors college. In my mind, it's most associated with state schools and I've definitely seen students go from Honors program at state school to Ivy Leagues for grad school. Perhaps some of them are a scam. Just not the ones that I've seen.
hasty_pudding 3y ago
This would never happen. The universities need smart people to keep the reputation up for all the average but rich people.
- epolanski 3y ago
  They only need those people in fundraising/public and research role to boost the college rankings. Education received has never been different at ivy leagues.
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    I disagree. When watching some interviews of Yale students before, there was a frequent pattern of students responding, "I'm just a legacy student." to indicate that they're from a family of graduates paying full tuition, distinct from the merited students that are on some sort of scholarships and aid. You have to consider that, as much as we'd all love think being smart is reliably inherited, it's not reliable at all. Not saying I'm opposed to their system. So-called "legacy students" are how the school is primarily financed, allowing subsidies for merited students. Without legacy, it goes bankrupt. Without merited, the degree loses value.
selimthegrim 3y ago
There’s nothing stopping them from taking Pell grants, and most of these universities are need blind at that income level anyway

sota4077 3y ago

I have read this article twice now and I am failing to understand what they are trying to solve with this. They want to essentially punish students who that opt to attend a wealthy university? So they are expanding pell-grants and banning students from getting federal financial aid? What is the overall purpose or problem they are trying to solve?

fakecontent000 3y ago
[dead]
hasty_pudding 3y ago
I guess its as simple as: if the university already has massive amounts of money, why give them more when schools who dont have that money need it?
- mixdup 3y ago
  When of course while yes the schools ultimately get the money, it's not a direct handout/appropriation to the school it's a vessel to get the student an education Since the schools have high demand there is another student that will replace the loan recipient so the private school will not suffer one iota. However the poor or middle class student just had their bootstraps cut off, the same ones that they'll be told they should've pulled themselves up by in 10-20 years when it's explained to them why they are not to have help with healthcare when they get cancer and have to stop working or why the banks are getting bailed out directly but their mortgage is definitely going to be foreclosed in the next housing crisis
  - eitally 3y ago
    You're not wrong, but I'm wondering how many of those top 50 schools (by wealth) already have guaranteed scholarships/grants that are income based. Stanford, for example, guarantees free tuition (not sure if this covers room & board, or fees) for any students with household income <$250k/yr, which is a pretty darn high threshold. Princeton has been similarly generous for a long time (UVA modeled their program after Princeton's about twenty years ago), and I suspect a number of others have programs like this, too.

wingspar 3y ago

Is there some reason these institutions could not make direct student loans themselves to their students? That would give them some real ‘skin in the game’ ensuring a good education with good job prospects. It would be telling if they ended up lending to students in some majors but not others.

JCharante 3y ago
That's just called an institutional loan. Also I don't think the top 50 wealthiest private universities need us to worry about their students' outcomes.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Massive conflict of interest? You will not fail students and you will inflate grades much more than this is already done. Also, education is for education not for job prospects. The fact that you want this to be the wrong way around is a very American perspective.
- mgamache 3y ago
  That might work for a few years, but if all institutions did that it would collapse the whole system. A university degree is for jobs why would you think otherwise?
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    It isn't, why would you think so?
  - throwaway318 3y ago
    A university degree, for many jobs, is a box tick. A university for many careers, is a signal. A trade school is for jobs. Skills are different from knowledge. Etc.
genedan 3y ago
Even if the loans weren't subsidized by the government, the schools wouldn't do it. It's more likely they would be financed by banks like they are with other goods.

addicted 3y ago

This makes absolutely no sense from any angle. US politics is so messed up right now. The entire right is lost in a personality cult and is driven more by triggering the libs than actually effecting change for their fellow citizens or the country as a whole. And the entire left is on a rampage to make sure they alienate as many people and supporters as possible and would much rather focus on symbolic protesting on issues they have no impact over as opposed to real issues they can help. The center is sensible and fairly effective but was small to begin with and is rapidly getting squeezed from both sides. Re: this specific issue, it’s very obvious that universal programs are always more successful. They build a strong political and support base across the spectrum of voters without creating any losers who are deliberately excluded that would be motivated to end them. Further, more often than not any sort of means discrimination costs way more than the money saved through the means discrimination. And that’s even before the hoops the means discrimination adds to the lives of the poorest to prove their eligibility. The means discrimination should be done once on the income tax side. There’s an extremely well established process for that and will be done anyways. Setting up ad hoc processes for each program on the benefit side simply doesn’t make sense. And yet contra all the information we have the people proposing these policies will go out of their way to make their own policies less effective and more expensive as we’re seeing with these unnecessary riders.

fakecontent000 3y ago
[dead]
niceice 3y ago
Harvard has $50 billion dollars and only accepts about 2,000 students/yr.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  The Harvard endowment per student is insanely large, but you don't need to exaggerate by only including the undergrad class. They're well past granting 9000 degrees per year; I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 10000/yr within 10-15 years. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-awards-9926-degrees-over-the-2022-23-academic-year/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-award...

rasengan 3y ago

> “America’s reliance on student loans is imperfect, but this move would hurt students far more than the colleges they attend.” I’m not so sure that this would hurt students more. Taking debt without income or profit to service said debt is a highly risky move and this may mitigate the number of risks taken thereafter. That said I do understand at the surface it would appear to prevent poor kids from attending these schools. We should probably analyze the entire cohort and make a determination if it’s a good or bad move.

mixdup 3y ago
>Taking debt without income or profit to service said debt is a highly risky move and this may mitigate the number of risks taken thereafter. Stanford and Harvard issuing a lot of useless basket weaving and women's studies degrees that no one can use to get a job, are they?

nxm 3y ago

Per recent episode of Bill Maher, Stanford university has over 10000 administrators. Why is higher education so expensive in the US… bloated bureaucracy and fancy buildings which would not happen if the federal government was backing student loans.

ericmay 3y ago
People have cited this figure before, but I think the “10,000 administrators” without further context is misleading. The number is 15,000 anyway if you look at Wikipedia. The reason it’s misleading is that it’s being portrayed as though there are 10,000 diversity, equity, and inclusion support group staff or payroll checkers or some other nonsense when the fact of the matter is that these figures include staff doing things like running federal research grant projects, maintaining facilities, working at university hospitals, and numerous other activities. If you think 10,000 is a lot, wait until you see Ohio State University’s 27,000 administrative staff.
- yellow_postit 3y ago
  Adjust for student body that’s what ~1.5 admin staff per Harvard student and ~2.4 per Ohio state. Both seem crazy on their own but also sensationalized. I’d love to see how this has changed over time and compare school cohorts.
  - ericmay 3y ago
    Does it seem crazy? What’s the baseline? What’s “normal”?
    - yellow_postit 3y ago
      That’s my point but I may not have made it well. On its own that “feels” high but a better representation would be to look over time and also try to adjust for things like services offered — eg more sports teams likely means more admin. I don’t know if I’ve seen that dataset though.

bell-cot 3y ago

> It would ban students who attend Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or any of the roughly 50 other wealthy, private colleges subject to a tax on their endowment from taking out federal student loans. > America’s reliance on student loans is imperfect, but this move would hurt students far more than the colleges they attend. Reaction: Yeah - from the PoV of folks who've drunk too much of the "We are the uppermost crust of the New Meritocracy, born to lord over lesser humans..." Kool-Aid that many elite colleges serve up, this sounds pretty bad. But between the staggering administrative bloat of those institutions, the sort of culture wars Bizarro-world they seem determined to keep pushing into, and other major problems - maybe it would be better if the brighter & harder-working young people were steered away from them? Back about 1900, Americans were obsessed with the high status and long history of British nobility, and quite a few of America's richest families forced their daughters to marry British nobles - with huge dowries - in crass "pay for social status" trades. A few decades later, when the decline & fall of the British noble class was d*mned obvious, that fad faded. If all your friends aren't making "take mommy's private jet, or daddy's?" decisions as they head to Harvard, this might be a good time to look further ahead, and make a long-term better decision.

addicted 3y ago

The wealthiest schools would absolutely love this. There’s absolutely no pressure anymore on them to accept anyone but the wealthiest candidates anymore from across the world. Not only will they make more money the exclusivity means they will be more desirable as well. What a backwards idea from both the right and left perspective.

linuxftw 3y ago
> Not only will they make more money the exclusivity means they will be more desirable as well. In a functioning society, this would only be true if the education quality is actually superior.
- belltaco 3y ago
  It's a combination of prestige and education quality. And the fact that they can afford to be very selective, so they can keep the prestige intact by admitting the very best for the majority of the student base.
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Consider this: The best and brightest that aren't admitted to the ivy league due to financial purposes will attend some other institution. Those institutions will raise their prestige over time as the market acknowledges the education outcomes. As long as we continue to let these ivy league institutions gate-keep society, we'll be stuck in this system. Cutting out federal tax-payer money from these wildly overpriced institutions is a good first step.
    - millzlane 3y ago
      >Cutting out federal tax-payer money from these wildly overpriced institutions is a good first step. I would tend to agree. It's usually my first response when someone says <insert community college here> isn't a good school.
- dotancohen 3y ago

pmarreck 3y ago

Maybe we can bar them them from accepting Qatari pro-Islamic money next https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jwhsqhrat https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jwhsqhrat

koliber 3y ago

Story time, to bring another perspective. When I was in high school, and it was time to choose colleges, I had a particular challenge. As an immigrant to the US, I had a legal immigrant status that was unconventional. Additionally, my family has come to the country just 5 years prior, and it was tough to pay for brand name cereal, let alone college tuition. Federal financial aid, including loans, is not available to everyone. It was unclear whether my family met those criteria. Our immigrant status was rarely encountered. I was told that likely I would not be able to get any financial aid. The prospect of paying $20k-$30k per year worried my head hunched over a bowl of no-name ringo-o’s. I chose not to apply to any top schools because of my financial situation. Without federal assistance the cost would be even higher. I felt that I needed to balance my ability to pay with all other choices that go into a life plan. Who knows if I would have been accepted. I did not even try because I was told that federal financial aid would not be available to me. This ended up being not true and I got federal financial aid after all. I learned this after I already sent in my applications. But not to MIT and Stanford, my dream schools. I ended up going to RIT. It was cold and I found a new appreciation for brick architecture. My life is fine. I do occasionally think about what would have been had I heard “You have access to federal student loans” when I was choosing where to apply. Would such a proposed bill cause more kids who are not well off to not even apply if they knew federal financial aid would not help them pay for certain schools? My situation was odd and rare, but this would place many more kids in a similar dilemma. On the bright side, if such a law passes, less wealthy colleges will get access to more top-tier applicants, and that is what equality is all about, right?

LeafItAlone 3y ago
> I had a legal immigrant status that was unconventional. > It was unclear whether my family met those criteria. Firstly: I’m sorry that your high school and the system seems to have failed you here. A guidance counselor office (or similar) should have been either already knowledgeable in this area or able to figure it out. What was unconventional about your immigration status?
- koliber 3y ago
  No reason to be sorry. Things turned out quite well. I rarely share sad stories but this one provides a perspective that may be valuable for the conversation. Re rare immigration status: my family entered the US in 1990 as “indefinitely paroled.” A single stamp in the passport was all we had to show for it. Supposedly only a few hundred people came in similar circumstances. Eventually this status got normalized through some legislation and now I am a US citizen. I can share more in private if you are curious. So I don’t think the system failed me. There is no way that a guidance counselor would have know this, if lawyers were perplexed. Looking at it from another perspective and a wider view, the system worked well because it gave my family a chance to emigrate to the US. There are many ways to look at the past. Road not taken and all. It’s good to take a moment how our decisions today might play out.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

Max Pell grant: $7,395 Duke School of Nursing (article ex) Tuition: BSN: $14,525/yr (or ABSN $25,258/yr). Housing: $11k/yr. Fees,Food,etc: $7k/yr. I'm likely low. sources: https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/absn-accelerated-bachelor-science-nursing/absn-tuition-fees https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/absn-accelerated-... https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/msn-master-science-nursing/tuition-fees-msn https://nursing.duke.edu/academic-programs/msn-master-scienc... housing:internet said $1100/mo for student housing in Durham NC (do students rent all 12mo?), food:guess This is to measure the issue, not advance an argument either way.

sgerenser 3y ago
Duke also guarantees tuition free undergrad attendance to all “lower income” attendees, where lower income is something in the ballpark of $120K family income.

george-in-sd 3y ago

It's unfair that these colleges that have legacy admissions can take any federal loans/grants at all. I think the colleges' enthusiasm for race based admissions was to ensure that social class never becomes an issue - thus protecting their true clients, the children of rich alumni.

nunez 3y ago

Link to bill: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr6585ih/pdf/BILLS-118hr6585ih.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr6585ih/pdf/BI... Section 7 is the amendment under discussion here. Definition of an "applicable institution" from 26 USC § 4968(b): https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=26-USC-2055825046-565461210&term_occur=999&term_src=title:26:subtitle:D:chapter:42:subchapter:H:section:4968 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840... Takeaways: This modification basically removes federal Stanford and direct plus loan eligibility for schools whose average family net worth (assets held) exceeds $500k. (This isn't just HYP/Ivy's either! Small private schools like Reed and William and Mary might pass this eligibility test, as they have very wealthy student bodies.). However, the actual impact this will have on students coming from poorer backgrounds remains to be seen, for three reasons: 1. These loans tend to not be very large. Anything helps, of course, but a $6k Stafford loan is a drop in the bucket against a $78k/year tuition. 2. These schools tend to issue grants and scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These are better than federal loans, of course. Check out what Harvard is doing for the class of 2026: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-expand-financial-aid-starting-with-class-of-26/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-ex.... You pay nothing if your family makes less than $75k/year. That's pretty neat! 3. These schools are stupidly insanely selective and everyone applies to them, I.e., it's like Google's hiring problem. Students from wealthier families with always have more resources to help their kids get noticed, and students from poorer backgrounds will have to claw their way in. Same as it ever was. Very disappointing that The Atlantic couldn't cite the source of the actual bill and the section in question.

LeafItAlone 3y ago

I would expect that students most of the named schools would be more likely than average to pay back their loans. Wouldn’t the government be making money, in interest, off these students?