6 ms·

Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less

82 points by pseudolus 2y ago

almosthere 2y ago
... then proceeds to admit only 5 people making lt 200k
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Who coincidentally happen to be amazing at some sport or another.
- tzs 2y ago
  More than half of Harvard undergraduates come from families making under $200k per year.
  - throwawayjd 2y ago
    Is there any source supporting this claim? I find that very hard to believe. I think the same cannot even be said for a lot of UCs.
    - acdha 2y ago
      See the data here - it’s slightly off as the middle bucket ends at $249k but that doesn’t substantially change the point: https://features.thecrimson.com/2023/freshman-survey/makeup/ https://features.thecrimson.com/2023/freshman-survey/makeup/ It’s actually easier for the Ivy League schools: they have huge endowments to cushion year to year variation, and they have massive international draw so Harvard or Yale can offer many students a great aid package and still come out ahead thanks to the rich international students paying full price for the prestige and the chance to intern with top researchers. My wife is a high school science teacher and many of her students have been surprised that they were looking at a higher total loan with state schools because so much of the costs have been shifted away from general fund revenue.
      - WeylandYutani 2y ago
        A lot of international students receive scholarships from their own country to study at the best universities. Brains are a strategic resource.
  - paulpauper 2y ago
    100% correct. a common misconception is that Ivy League admittees are the elite. It's mostly the middle class.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    You speak as if that's a lot, but more than 85% of US families make under $200k per year. Also, under $200k is a big range. What % are below $100k? Or below $80k, the median family income?
tombert 2y ago
That would be great, though shouldn't this be adjusted for the number of kids?
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  The source material (https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi...) answers this: > Once you're admitted, the Financial Aid Committee will assess your family’s financial need and offer you an award to meet it. We determine need based on your family’s income, assets, and overall financial circumstances. … We know that each student's financial circumstances are unique. Your financial aid officer will work with you all four years to understand your needs and take the stress out of affording Harvard.
  - jamesrcole 2y ago
    The text you quote doesn’t really answer the question. Does “number of kids” come under their interpretation of “overall financial circumstances”?
    - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
      Best I can answer is this: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi... (the page I referenced) has a link to https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat..., and that page asks for both the size of the family, and the number of children in college. From that, I infer that they take the number of kids into account in some way.
thumbsup-_- 2y ago
It's a good move but blanket 200k may mean that a kid from a well-off family in Iowa with a 150k income is able to get free tution while a kid with not so well off family in California with a 210k income is unable to get free tution. Income as a number doesn't have much meaning until Cost of living is taken into account.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  Tuition assistance isn't a binary all-or-nothing. Every university like this uses a sliding scale. In this case, their scale slides to the point that under $200K family income you pay nothing for tuition. Under $100K they'll even cover food and housing.
- elicksaur 2y ago
  Yes cost of living does matter. But I’ve also never met or heard of a $200k household that I wouldn’t consider “well off”. Typically, stories about these “not well off” yet “over double the median income” households are budgeting issues. People don’t like to admit that because most people blame external forces instead of evaluating their own choices.
  - FloorEgg 2y ago
    Multiple kids + unexpected chronic health issues can quickly change this equation. And before you go judging someone for having multiple kids, consider that a) demographic collapse is probably very bad and we don't want our society to make having kids exceptionally hard, rather than the default norm and b) people may decide to have kids without expecting significant and rapid changes to inflation and cost of living.
    - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
      This is one of the reasons why—although university admissions and financial aid has lots of paperwork—there is still a major human element. This is explicitly mentioned on the FAFSA's web site: https://studentaid.gov/help/reporting-special-financial-circumstances https://studentaid.gov/help/reporting-special-financial-circ...
rufus_foreman 2y ago
[flagged]
- Aurornis 2y ago
  Harvard has a $53.2 billion endowment. That's where the money comes from.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rufus_foreman 2y ago
    We know where the money comes from. That's the point. If you're not bringing the money, you're the product.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > If you're not bringing the money, you're the product Well, yes. It’s university. It’s a privilege to attend, not a commodity product.
      - rufus_foreman 2y ago
        [flagged]
- eulgro 2y ago
  Tuition is often subsidized with the expectation that graduates will get a better salary than otherwise, generating more tax income in the long run than the amount of the subsidy. As such, free or heavily subsidized tuition can actually be a great investment for the government. And yes, from that point of view, the students are the product.
  - semiquaver 2y ago
    This is true for public universities but does not apply to Harvard, which is not part of the government. Any benefit that Harvard obtains from an increased tax base is incredibly attenuated and not really relevant.
Aurornis 2y ago
Under $100K they're covering housing, food, and more: > Undergraduate students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or less will not only have tuition covered but also housing, food, health services and other student services, the university said. A very confusing aspect of the US college system is that very few students pay the full sticker price. Most universities have sliding scales for tuition through various grants and scholarships. Strangely, even talking to college students reveals that most of them don't understand this situation. You'll frequently hear college students explain that they got "lucky" to get a lot of grants, discounts, and/or scholarships to attend, but in reality all but the most wealthy families get a lot of "tuition assistance". The situation confuses foreigners and even US people to no end, but it allows universities to admit a much wider range of students than they normally would. It's not uncommon to look at their statistics and find a significant portion of their student body pays nearly nothing in tuition. Harvard is taking this to an extreme, but there are similar programs at all of the other big universities. One critical exception: There are sleazy for-profit universities who take advantage of the fact that some people don't understand this game and use it to charge exorbitant rates to people who can't afford it. Avoid those, obviously, and do your part to discourage others from looking at them. This sliding scale tuition structure explains the massive discrepancy between the $200K+ per year sticker price for a 4-year degree at private universities and the fact that most students graduate with nowhere near that much debt.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  This is sorta why the hysterics by the punditry on Twitter and the media about student loan debt or about college degrees being worthless, are overblown or unfounded. The sticker price is seldom, if ever paid in full. Not only huge discounts on the tuition-side, but also tons of forbearance and payment plans after graduating. There are many people with homes, 6-figure jobs paying off loans slowly and gradually, while enjoying career success and a high standard of living compared to those who do not have degrees. It's not as daunting as the large figure of money would suggest when the returns from a degree are still largely positive compared to without a degree.
  - lapcat 2y ago
WalterBright 2y ago
[flagged]
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  People can adjust income to qualify. Rich people will be first to game the system.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    You'd think Harvard educated people could come up with a continuous function rather than a step function. Students who are unable to understand a continuous function are not Harvard material anyway :-/
    - mlyle 2y ago
      You have said this twice, but it's not accurate. Harvard provides 100% of demonstrated need; just it works out that they cover all for those earning under $200k (plus all food/housing under $100k). So e.g. if you make $210k/year in California with a family of 4, and the parents have $300k in cash and short term investments, they cover $45k -- or about 2/3rds of tuition. With $0 in investments, they cover $57k-- 90% of tuition. If both kids are in college in this situation, they move to $65k, or slightly over 100% of tuition in this situation.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        It was accurate according to the article. Thank you for providing better information.
        CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
        Please do not assume that a single article contains the full truth of a situation. People are empowered to do their own research. Curiosity is better than cynicism.
        2y ago
smrtinsert 2y ago
This is some of the best news I've heard this year. Hopefully other ivys follow suit.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  Since you are not clear, it's worth noting that the other Ivys do have free tuition at some level. For Yale it's $75k, per https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details. For Stanford it's $150k, per https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/02/stanford-sets-2025-26-tuition-rates https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/02/stanford-sets-2025...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bradleyjg 2y ago
$200,000 family income and below, with typical assets
- jjav 2y ago
  I wonder what that means exactly, but haven't been able to find any details.
  - bradleyjg 2y ago
    There’s a calculator here: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... But it doesn’t seem to have been updated yet, because I put in income of $200k and assets of $0 and still got less than a full tuition grant.
    - jjav 2y ago
      Thanks for the link. Ok so as I suspected, even with very little income but if one has assetts, there is no discount.
singhrac 2y ago
Sigh, there is a lot of misinformation about this and higher education tuition. * It’s not a new policy, when I went to school the same threshold was ~$150k * It’s not a step function, it’s a sliding scale (with <0 tuition, i.e. cost-of-living assistance below that number, and some (but not full) tuition above $200k) * It’s not just for athletes or minorities - I was neither (by Harvard standards, Indians were fairly common and not considered a minority in admissions processes). Lots of smart kids whose parents did not make a lot of money fell into this bucket. * It’s not a small subset of the student body (as tzs said); despite what you might perceive, a large fraction of students came from modest backgrounds. It was balanced by a sizable fraction that came from incredibly well-off backgrounds. But the total number that had donated a building to get in were pretty small (there are only so many buildings). Higher education has many, many flaws, but please examine the facts before you respond with knee-jerk cynicism.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  Thank you for this. Unfortunately (IMO) many people seem to have a very short memory, or lack research skills, and I think this leads people to a cynical response.
laidoffamazon 2y ago
It's amusing that people keep wanting to portray Harvard admits as Horatio Alger stories when even the "middle class" ones that get free tuition are the least sympathetic, most elite (by virtue of getting in) people on the planet.
bsimpson 2y ago
This feels ripe for gaming. Building a system that's resilient to a bunch of smart people going "what if I retire a few years early if I realize my kid might go to Harvard?" seems nontrivial.
- meetingthrower 2y ago
  This doesn't work as I actually did this game! Had no job and no income. They ask for a list of assets and they take 5% per year. So if you have a $1M in savings they take $50K per year.... $2M and then you are paying full boat in any case.
ipv6ipv4 2y ago
People are going out of their way to extol Harvard's supposed largesse, and how hardly anyone pays sticker. First, 45% do pay sticker according to the article. Second, another way to look at this is that Harvard is putting a cap on a family earnings that it doesn't feel entitled to. ~$83K/year (post tax) is a massive amount of money for one child of a family making even $300K/year or $500K/year (pre tax). The sticker price does matter, and this exemption is lipstick on the pig. The problem with American higher education (and American healthcare, for the matter) is that they have persistently grown to opportunistically consume all the discretionary income of Americans.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  > People are going out of their way to extol Harvard's supposed largesse, and how hardly anyone pays sticker. First, 45% do pay sticker according to the article. No. Do not make assumptions like that. The source material is easy to find. It's https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi... From the source material: > Financial aid will be available to many students from families with incomes above $200,000, depending on individual circumstances. The cost of an American higher education is something worth discussing, but I think starting the discussion with inaccurate information is problematic.
  - goldfishgold 2y ago
    From the article: > About 55% of Harvard undergraduates receive some type of financial aid, according to the university. Which implies that 45% of Harvard undergrads do not receive any financial aid, ie pay sticker price. Anecdotally that would match my expectations.
486sx33 2y ago
Boo Income based anything is completely anti American
mmmBacon 2y ago
With the size of Harvard’s endowment, 11% of its operating income coming from federal sources, and its tax exempt status, it’s hard to understand why anyone has to pay tuition regardless of need.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  Tuition is around 21% of their revenue and the endowment is 37%. That corresponds to around a 4.8% withdrawal rate currently which would go up to around 7% if they covered tuition. And 7% is probably too high to do in perpetuity.
  - csa 2y ago
    > Tuition is around 21% of their revenue The bulk of that tuition is grad school tuition — MBA, law school, and all non-terminal master’s degrees being large contributors — plus exec ed. Undergraduate tuition is a small fraction of that.
slackfan 2y ago
Well fuck them very much. They wouldn't even cover the tuition for families of faculty or workers unlike the small technical college down the street previously. There's still some good teachers there, but a lot of them have left the rat race that the admin created. The beurocratic hellhole sitting in harvard yard is more interested in lining their pockets than in education.
lollollollollol 2y ago
> Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less I read this as Harvard being more stringent on admitting more students whose families make enough to pay their children’s tuition. There’s nothing wrong with that. Harvard has to make money. If you think I’m wrong, understand that there will be limited funding available for this program.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  > I read this as Harvard being more stringent on admitting more students whose families make enough to pay their children’s tuition. From https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi...: > Most importantly, your financial situation will not affect your chances of admission to Harvard College. > If you think I’m wrong, understand that there will be limited funding available for this program. First of all, be aware that this program is not new. Until now the cutoff was $150,000, not $200,000. See https://web.archive.org/web/20240229232535/https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://web.archive.org/web/20240229232535/https://college.h... To the question "How does Harvard afford raising the threshold by $50,000?", I think the plan is to use endowment investment returns to cover the cost.
koolba 2y ago
Harvard has an endowment of about $55 billion dollars. Student population is about 22,000. At an industry standard 4% drawdown, they could provide $88,000 of “aid” to every student indefinitely. If you exclude foreign students and make them pay a full ride, or change that cap to a family net worth of <$5M, you could easily cover everybody else.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  > At an industry standard 4% drawdown, they could provide $88,000 of “aid” to every student indefinitely. Just to confirm: Are you saying that all endowment proceeds should go towards student aid? What would you suggest be done to restricted-purpose investments?
  - koolba 2y ago
    Money is fungible and that’s clearly more than enough to cover the cost of the service provided. It doesn’t have to be the sticker price.
theodorewiles 2y ago
why dont they increase class sizes
BrandoElFollito 2y ago
On France the elite schools are very expensive (by our standards). Universities are basically free. They are expensive for wealthy people. Depending on how much you earn, you get a progressive cost that covers the tuition of the less fortunate. There is no threshold (200k would be insane). I pay a lot but I also keep in mind my father who came from an extremely poor family and graduated from our most prestigious engineering school. This what we call the social elevator and it works.

82 points by pseudolus 2y ago

almosthere 2y ago

... then proceeds to admit only 5 people making lt 200k

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Who coincidentally happen to be amazing at some sport or another.
tzs 2y ago
More than half of Harvard undergraduates come from families making under $200k per year.
- throwawayjd 2y ago
  Is there any source supporting this claim? I find that very hard to believe. I think the same cannot even be said for a lot of UCs.
  - acdha 2y ago
    See the data here - it’s slightly off as the middle bucket ends at $249k but that doesn’t substantially change the point: https://features.thecrimson.com/2023/freshman-survey/makeup/ https://features.thecrimson.com/2023/freshman-survey/makeup/ It’s actually easier for the Ivy League schools: they have huge endowments to cushion year to year variation, and they have massive international draw so Harvard or Yale can offer many students a great aid package and still come out ahead thanks to the rich international students paying full price for the prestige and the chance to intern with top researchers. My wife is a high school science teacher and many of her students have been surprised that they were looking at a higher total loan with state schools because so much of the costs have been shifted away from general fund revenue.
    - WeylandYutani 2y ago
      A lot of international students receive scholarships from their own country to study at the best universities. Brains are a strategic resource.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  100% correct. a common misconception is that Ivy League admittees are the elite. It's mostly the middle class.
- lapcat 2y ago
  You speak as if that's a lot, but more than 85% of US families make under $200k per year. Also, under $200k is a big range. What % are below $100k? Or below $80k, the median family income?

tombert 2y ago

That would be great, though shouldn't this be adjusted for the number of kids?

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
The source material (https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi...) answers this: > Once you're admitted, the Financial Aid Committee will assess your family’s financial need and offer you an award to meet it. We determine need based on your family’s income, assets, and overall financial circumstances. … We know that each student's financial circumstances are unique. Your financial aid officer will work with you all four years to understand your needs and take the stress out of affording Harvard.
- jamesrcole 2y ago
  The text you quote doesn’t really answer the question. Does “number of kids” come under their interpretation of “overall financial circumstances”?
  - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
    Best I can answer is this: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi... (the page I referenced) has a link to https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat..., and that page asks for both the size of the family, and the number of children in college. From that, I infer that they take the number of kids into account in some way.

thumbsup-_- 2y ago

It's a good move but blanket 200k may mean that a kid from a well-off family in Iowa with a 150k income is able to get free tution while a kid with not so well off family in California with a 210k income is unable to get free tution. Income as a number doesn't have much meaning until Cost of living is taken into account.

Aurornis 2y ago
Tuition assistance isn't a binary all-or-nothing. Every university like this uses a sliding scale. In this case, their scale slides to the point that under $200K family income you pay nothing for tuition. Under $100K they'll even cover food and housing.
elicksaur 2y ago
Yes cost of living does matter. But I’ve also never met or heard of a $200k household that I wouldn’t consider “well off”. Typically, stories about these “not well off” yet “over double the median income” households are budgeting issues. People don’t like to admit that because most people blame external forces instead of evaluating their own choices.
- FloorEgg 2y ago
  Multiple kids + unexpected chronic health issues can quickly change this equation. And before you go judging someone for having multiple kids, consider that a) demographic collapse is probably very bad and we don't want our society to make having kids exceptionally hard, rather than the default norm and b) people may decide to have kids without expecting significant and rapid changes to inflation and cost of living.
  - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
    This is one of the reasons why—although university admissions and financial aid has lots of paperwork—there is still a major human element. This is explicitly mentioned on the FAFSA's web site: https://studentaid.gov/help/reporting-special-financial-circumstances https://studentaid.gov/help/reporting-special-financial-circ...

rufus_foreman 2y ago

[flagged]

Aurornis 2y ago
Harvard has a $53.2 billion endowment. That's where the money comes from.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  We know where the money comes from. That's the point. If you're not bringing the money, you're the product.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > If you're not bringing the money, you're the product Well, yes. It’s university. It’s a privilege to attend, not a commodity product.
    - rufus_foreman 2y ago
      [flagged]
eulgro 2y ago
Tuition is often subsidized with the expectation that graduates will get a better salary than otherwise, generating more tax income in the long run than the amount of the subsidy. As such, free or heavily subsidized tuition can actually be a great investment for the government. And yes, from that point of view, the students are the product.
- semiquaver 2y ago
  This is true for public universities but does not apply to Harvard, which is not part of the government. Any benefit that Harvard obtains from an increased tax base is incredibly attenuated and not really relevant.

Aurornis 2y ago

Under $100K they're covering housing, food, and more: > Undergraduate students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or less will not only have tuition covered but also housing, food, health services and other student services, the university said. A very confusing aspect of the US college system is that very few students pay the full sticker price. Most universities have sliding scales for tuition through various grants and scholarships. Strangely, even talking to college students reveals that most of them don't understand this situation. You'll frequently hear college students explain that they got "lucky" to get a lot of grants, discounts, and/or scholarships to attend, but in reality all but the most wealthy families get a lot of "tuition assistance". The situation confuses foreigners and even US people to no end, but it allows universities to admit a much wider range of students than they normally would. It's not uncommon to look at their statistics and find a significant portion of their student body pays nearly nothing in tuition. Harvard is taking this to an extreme, but there are similar programs at all of the other big universities. One critical exception: There are sleazy for-profit universities who take advantage of the fact that some people don't understand this game and use it to charge exorbitant rates to people who can't afford it. Avoid those, obviously, and do your part to discourage others from looking at them. This sliding scale tuition structure explains the massive discrepancy between the $200K+ per year sticker price for a 4-year degree at private universities and the fact that most students graduate with nowhere near that much debt.

paulpauper 2y ago
This is sorta why the hysterics by the punditry on Twitter and the media about student loan debt or about college degrees being worthless, are overblown or unfounded. The sticker price is seldom, if ever paid in full. Not only huge discounts on the tuition-side, but also tons of forbearance and payment plans after graduating. There are many people with homes, 6-figure jobs paying off loans slowly and gradually, while enjoying career success and a high standard of living compared to those who do not have degrees. It's not as daunting as the large figure of money would suggest when the returns from a degree are still largely positive compared to without a degree.
- lapcat 2y ago

WalterBright 2y ago

[flagged]

onemoresoop 2y ago
People can adjust income to qualify. Rich people will be first to game the system.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  You'd think Harvard educated people could come up with a continuous function rather than a step function. Students who are unable to understand a continuous function are not Harvard material anyway :-/
  - mlyle 2y ago
    You have said this twice, but it's not accurate. Harvard provides 100% of demonstrated need; just it works out that they cover all for those earning under $200k (plus all food/housing under $100k). So e.g. if you make $210k/year in California with a family of 4, and the parents have $300k in cash and short term investments, they cover $45k -- or about 2/3rds of tuition. With $0 in investments, they cover $57k-- 90% of tuition. If both kids are in college in this situation, they move to $65k, or slightly over 100% of tuition in this situation.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      It was accurate according to the article. Thank you for providing better information.
      - CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
        Please do not assume that a single article contains the full truth of a situation. People are empowered to do their own research. Curiosity is better than cynicism.
      - 2y ago

smrtinsert 2y ago

This is some of the best news I've heard this year. Hopefully other ivys follow suit.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
Since you are not clear, it's worth noting that the other Ivys do have free tuition at some level. For Yale it's $75k, per https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details. For Stanford it's $150k, per https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/02/stanford-sets-2025-26-tuition-rates https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/02/stanford-sets-2025...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bradleyjg 2y ago

$200,000 family income and below, with typical assets

jjav 2y ago
I wonder what that means exactly, but haven't been able to find any details.
- bradleyjg 2y ago
  There’s a calculator here: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... But it doesn’t seem to have been updated yet, because I put in income of $200k and assets of $0 and still got less than a full tuition grant.
  - jjav 2y ago
    Thanks for the link. Ok so as I suspected, even with very little income but if one has assetts, there is no discount.

singhrac 2y ago

Sigh, there is a lot of misinformation about this and higher education tuition. * It’s not a new policy, when I went to school the same threshold was ~$150k * It’s not a step function, it’s a sliding scale (with <0 tuition, i.e. cost-of-living assistance below that number, and some (but not full) tuition above $200k) * It’s not just for athletes or minorities - I was neither (by Harvard standards, Indians were fairly common and not considered a minority in admissions processes). Lots of smart kids whose parents did not make a lot of money fell into this bucket. * It’s not a small subset of the student body (as tzs said); despite what you might perceive, a large fraction of students came from modest backgrounds. It was balanced by a sizable fraction that came from incredibly well-off backgrounds. But the total number that had donated a building to get in were pretty small (there are only so many buildings). Higher education has many, many flaws, but please examine the facts before you respond with knee-jerk cynicism.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
Thank you for this. Unfortunately (IMO) many people seem to have a very short memory, or lack research skills, and I think this leads people to a cynical response.

laidoffamazon 2y ago

It's amusing that people keep wanting to portray Harvard admits as Horatio Alger stories when even the "middle class" ones that get free tuition are the least sympathetic, most elite (by virtue of getting in) people on the planet.

bsimpson 2y ago

This feels ripe for gaming. Building a system that's resilient to a bunch of smart people going "what if I retire a few years early if I realize my kid might go to Harvard?" seems nontrivial.

meetingthrower 2y ago
This doesn't work as I actually did this game! Had no job and no income. They ask for a list of assets and they take 5% per year. So if you have a $1M in savings they take $50K per year.... $2M and then you are paying full boat in any case.

ipv6ipv4 2y ago

People are going out of their way to extol Harvard's supposed largesse, and how hardly anyone pays sticker. First, 45% do pay sticker according to the article. Second, another way to look at this is that Harvard is putting a cap on a family earnings that it doesn't feel entitled to. ~$83K/year (post tax) is a massive amount of money for one child of a family making even $300K/year or $500K/year (pre tax). The sticker price does matter, and this exemption is lipstick on the pig. The problem with American higher education (and American healthcare, for the matter) is that they have persistently grown to opportunistically consume all the discretionary income of Americans.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
> People are going out of their way to extol Harvard's supposed largesse, and how hardly anyone pays sticker. First, 45% do pay sticker according to the article. No. Do not make assumptions like that. The source material is easy to find. It's https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi... From the source material: > Financial aid will be available to many students from families with incomes above $200,000, depending on individual circumstances. The cost of an American higher education is something worth discussing, but I think starting the discussion with inaccurate information is problematic.
- goldfishgold 2y ago
  From the article: > About 55% of Harvard undergraduates receive some type of financial aid, according to the university. Which implies that 45% of Harvard undergrads do not receive any financial aid, ie pay sticker price. Anecdotally that would match my expectations.

486sx33 2y ago

Boo Income based anything is completely anti American

mmmBacon 2y ago

With the size of Harvard’s endowment, 11% of its operating income coming from federal sources, and its tax exempt status, it’s hard to understand why anyone has to pay tuition regardless of need.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Tuition is around 21% of their revenue and the endowment is 37%. That corresponds to around a 4.8% withdrawal rate currently which would go up to around 7% if they covered tuition. And 7% is probably too high to do in perpetuity.
- csa 2y ago
  > Tuition is around 21% of their revenue The bulk of that tuition is grad school tuition — MBA, law school, and all non-terminal master’s degrees being large contributors — plus exec ed. Undergraduate tuition is a small fraction of that.

slackfan 2y ago

Well fuck them very much. They wouldn't even cover the tuition for families of faculty or workers unlike the small technical college down the street previously. There's still some good teachers there, but a lot of them have left the rat race that the admin created. The beurocratic hellhole sitting in harvard yard is more interested in lining their pockets than in education.

lollollollollol 2y ago

> Harvard says tuition will be free for families making $200K or less I read this as Harvard being more stringent on admitting more students whose families make enough to pay their children’s tuition. There’s nothing wrong with that. Harvard has to make money. If you think I’m wrong, understand that there will be limited funding available for this program.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
> I read this as Harvard being more stringent on admitting more students whose families make enough to pay their children’s tuition. From https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi...: > Most importantly, your financial situation will not affect your chances of admission to Harvard College. > If you think I’m wrong, understand that there will be limited funding available for this program. First of all, be aware that this program is not new. Until now the cutoff was $150,000, not $200,000. See https://web.archive.org/web/20240229232535/https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordability https://web.archive.org/web/20240229232535/https://college.h... To the question "How does Harvard afford raising the threshold by $50,000?", I think the plan is to use endowment investment returns to cover the cost.

koolba 2y ago

Harvard has an endowment of about $55 billion dollars. Student population is about 22,000. At an industry standard 4% drawdown, they could provide $88,000 of “aid” to every student indefinitely. If you exclude foreign students and make them pay a full ride, or change that cap to a family net worth of <$5M, you could easily cover everybody else.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
> At an industry standard 4% drawdown, they could provide $88,000 of “aid” to every student indefinitely. Just to confirm: Are you saying that all endowment proceeds should go towards student aid? What would you suggest be done to restricted-purpose investments?
- koolba 2y ago
  Money is fungible and that’s clearly more than enough to cover the cost of the service provided. It doesn’t have to be the sticker price.

theodorewiles 2y ago

why dont they increase class sizes

BrandoElFollito 2y ago

On France the elite schools are very expensive (by our standards). Universities are basically free. They are expensive for wealthy people. Depending on how much you earn, you get a progressive cost that covers the tuition of the less fortunate. There is no threshold (200k would be insane). I pay a lot but I also keep in mind my father who came from an extremely poor family and graduated from our most prestigious engineering school. This what we call the social elevator and it works.