5 ms·

The part that I find the most repulsive about this – aside from the fact that the school got itself into debt by borrowing money to gamble it, and then lost it

by SeoxyS 14y ago

The part that I find the most repulsive about this – aside from the fact that the school got itself into debt by borrowing money to gamble it, and then lost it – is that its board of trustees went from a visionary model of free tuition, and against the advice of the professionals it hired to analyse the decision, opted, on purpose, for a sliding scale. Schooling in america is not fucked up because it charges tuition; that's fine. It's fucked up because it charges tuition so unequally. Often, half the student body does not pay a dime, while the other half gets itself in massive debt because of bureaucratic technicalities. In my case, I paid full $50k/yr tuition, by myself, because not being a US citizen made me ineligible for all scholarships, whereas many of my peers got a free ride even though their families were much wealthier than mine. All around me, and throughout the academic culture of the united states, I see this. Students struggle to battle for the few scholarships schools offer subsidized by the financial hardships of other students. We'd all be much better off if we abolished all scholarships and dropped tuition to a price much more reasonable for everybody. School ought to cost 5-10k a year, not 50. And everybody should pay it, or take out a loan for it, because at that price, it's a no-brainer.

argonaut 14y ago
To be fair, I've examined the way college admissions works in the US, and by and large those who get financial aid actually need it, and those who are charged full freight tend to actually be able to pay full freight. Secondly, in the case of private institutions, they are private institutions and are largely free to spend their endowment as they wish. Most thus choose not to give financial aid to internationals, but some do give aid.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Crake 14y ago
  Well, and then you have people like me who had to wait 6 years to become eligible for enough aid to even pay tuition, much less pay for food or rent. (I applied for about 40 scholarships when I was 18, so it's not like I didn't try or anything.) I wasn't out to study Chicano Lit or whatever, either; I'm an EE+physics major. Meanwhile, many of my friends who studied liberal arts with thousands of dollars of financial assistance from the state and federal government continue to work the same level of job they held in high school.
  - argonaut 14y ago
    Without knowing more about the reason you never got aid (wealthy parents refused to pay tuition?), there's not much I can say about the general applicability of your anecdote.
    - Crake 14y ago
      There are plenty of articles out there documenting the inaccessibility of higher education. In my experience, and many others, the "aid" system is a ploy to make people who can afford college feel good that they're there on merit (instead of ability to pay, even if that's the actual primary criteria), as well as to give colleges excuses for jacking up tuition even more ("well it -says- $50,000/year, but act now and we'll give you it for $29,999!"...inflates people's egos that they're "so smart" that the college is giving them a $20,001 discount, increases perceived "value" of an institution, and also helps to obscure the real price of attendance so that the only way to find out if you can afford to attend is to gamble away $100+ in application fees before they'll tell you or not).
      - argonaut 14y ago
        That does not match with my experience, especially considering that the majority of scholarships are need based. Especially at top universities, where merit scholarships are vanishingly rare (except at top LACs - liberal arts colleges). edit: changed colloquial use of word.
        Crake 14y ago
        Unfortunately, your experience does not match reality, wther it "jives" with it or not. Blithely ignoring the actual situation is, of course, almost guaranteed to ensure that poor but smart people will continue to be priced out of college educations in the US.
        argonaut 14y ago
        You see, now your arguments are just devolving into non sequiturs. Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? The Ivy Leagues, for example, have a strict policy of not giving out merit scholarships or even athletic scholarships. That is a fact.
thebooktocome 14y ago
Yes, it's unfair that international students get boned by almost every step of American higher education. On the other hand, there's (still, for some reason) massive international demand. > Schooling in america is not fucked up because it charges tuition; that's fine. It's fucked up because it charges tuition so unequally. You use "scholarships" as the example in the rest of your comment, but the dominant price difference in American tuition is probably the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. International students (and non-residents) pay out-of-state tuition because the state is betting on its residents remaining in the state long enough to repay them in property and sales taxes. (The situation isn't nearly as sane as that, but it's approximately so.) Most scholarships are run by private groups and individuals (though sometimes administered by the university), and seem to be completely within their rights to discriminate. > I paid full $50k/yr tuition, by myself Why didn't you go somewhere cheaper? (Oh, right, supply and demand didn't stop being a thing while I wasn't looking.) > We'd all be much better off if we abolished all scholarships and dropped tuition to a price much more reasonable for everybody. School ought to cost 5-10k a year, not 50. And everybody should pay it, or take out a loan for it, because at that price, it's a no-brainer. I'm sure there are some community colleges that could survive charging $10k/year (e.g., by gutting their support staff, hiring only adjuncts, and so on) but they're not the sort of institutions that international students would want to attend.
rtpg 14y ago
out of curiosity, where did you go that costs 50k a year? Even for American stuff that sounds excessive. It would probably have been a better bet to study in your home country, and get into a school with an exchange program with a good uni in the US (Granted, your country might not have had that).
- thebooktocome 14y ago
  International student fees can be much higher than even out-of-state tuition, supposedly to cope with the added bureaucracy. I wouldn't be surprised if that school was usually $40k/year, e.g., a Big Ten school.

by SeoxyS 14y ago

argonaut 14y ago

To be fair, I've examined the way college admissions works in the US, and by and large those who get financial aid actually need it, and those who are charged full freight tend to actually be able to pay full freight. Secondly, in the case of private institutions, they are private institutions and are largely free to spend their endowment as they wish. Most thus choose not to give financial aid to internationals, but some do give aid.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Crake 14y ago
Well, and then you have people like me who had to wait 6 years to become eligible for enough aid to even pay tuition, much less pay for food or rent. (I applied for about 40 scholarships when I was 18, so it's not like I didn't try or anything.) I wasn't out to study Chicano Lit or whatever, either; I'm an EE+physics major. Meanwhile, many of my friends who studied liberal arts with thousands of dollars of financial assistance from the state and federal government continue to work the same level of job they held in high school.
- argonaut 14y ago
  Without knowing more about the reason you never got aid (wealthy parents refused to pay tuition?), there's not much I can say about the general applicability of your anecdote.
  - Crake 14y ago
    There are plenty of articles out there documenting the inaccessibility of higher education. In my experience, and many others, the "aid" system is a ploy to make people who can afford college feel good that they're there on merit (instead of ability to pay, even if that's the actual primary criteria), as well as to give colleges excuses for jacking up tuition even more ("well it -says- $50,000/year, but act now and we'll give you it for $29,999!"...inflates people's egos that they're "so smart" that the college is giving them a $20,001 discount, increases perceived "value" of an institution, and also helps to obscure the real price of attendance so that the only way to find out if you can afford to attend is to gamble away $100+ in application fees before they'll tell you or not).
    - argonaut 14y ago
      That does not match with my experience, especially considering that the majority of scholarships are need based. Especially at top universities, where merit scholarships are vanishingly rare (except at top LACs - liberal arts colleges). edit: changed colloquial use of word.
      - Crake 14y ago
        Unfortunately, your experience does not match reality, wther it "jives" with it or not. Blithely ignoring the actual situation is, of course, almost guaranteed to ensure that poor but smart people will continue to be priced out of college educations in the US.
        argonaut 14y ago
        You see, now your arguments are just devolving into non sequiturs. Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? The Ivy Leagues, for example, have a strict policy of not giving out merit scholarships or even athletic scholarships. That is a fact.

thebooktocome 14y ago

Yes, it's unfair that international students get boned by almost every step of American higher education. On the other hand, there's (still, for some reason) massive international demand. > Schooling in america is not fucked up because it charges tuition; that's fine. It's fucked up because it charges tuition so unequally. You use "scholarships" as the example in the rest of your comment, but the dominant price difference in American tuition is probably the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. International students (and non-residents) pay out-of-state tuition because the state is betting on its residents remaining in the state long enough to repay them in property and sales taxes. (The situation isn't nearly as sane as that, but it's approximately so.) Most scholarships are run by private groups and individuals (though sometimes administered by the university), and seem to be completely within their rights to discriminate. > I paid full $50k/yr tuition, by myself Why didn't you go somewhere cheaper? (Oh, right, supply and demand didn't stop being a thing while I wasn't looking.) > We'd all be much better off if we abolished all scholarships and dropped tuition to a price much more reasonable for everybody. School ought to cost 5-10k a year, not 50. And everybody should pay it, or take out a loan for it, because at that price, it's a no-brainer. I'm sure there are some community colleges that could survive charging $10k/year (e.g., by gutting their support staff, hiring only adjuncts, and so on) but they're not the sort of institutions that international students would want to attend.

rtpg 14y ago

out of curiosity, where did you go that costs 50k a year? Even for American stuff that sounds excessive. It would probably have been a better bet to study in your home country, and get into a school with an exchange program with a good uni in the US (Granted, your country might not have had that).

thebooktocome 14y ago
International student fees can be much higher than even out-of-state tuition, supposedly to cope with the added bureaucracy. I wouldn't be surprised if that school was usually $40k/year, e.g., a Big Ten school.