15 ms·

That's a rather cynical view. Education in America is a business, but it's so much more than that. Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both fro

That's a rather cynical view. Education in America is a business, but it's so much more than that. Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government. There are plenty of great state schools where you can get education basically for free. Despite the red tape, there is plenty of great research getting done, and plenty of professors who genuinely love to teach and want to help students succeed. For people who can't quite cut it in serious academic pursuits, there are city schools and community colleges that give good, inexpensive education and offer financial aid. Sometimes it can be useful to look at the world through cynical glasses, but it shouldn't be the only pair of glasses you use. You might completely miss a lot of beauty in the world around you.

phaus 13y ago
Unfortunately the industry adapted to the financial aid, and and by now the price of tuition has completely gobbled up any discount the aid may have provided. Sure, people who couldn't have gone to school in the past are able to do so, but many of them are getting saddled with a crippling amount of debt. I know that the price of tuition should increase naturally, as all prices do, but its been doubling the rate of inflation and that's fucked up. There are good aspects to the education system, but there's also a lot of good reasons to be cynical.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Scholarships and grants have also been rising, and the net price -what people actually pay -has been rising much more slowly than that. For private colleges, it has actually fallen since 2006/2007: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/22/153316565/the-price-of-college-tuition-in-1-graphic http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/22/153316565/the-pric...
  - phaus 13y ago
    How many people get a significant amount of scholarships vs those who pay primarily with student loans? Asking because I honestly don't know.
apsec112 13y ago
"Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government." ... As long as your parents are rich enough to hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork. I am an Ivy alum, of middle-class parents, and this "help" required me to submit literally hundreds of pages of paperwork. (I counted.) And any mistake, no matter how small, automatically disqualifies you from all help. So every year, there would inevitably be some minor mistake and I would have to lawyer up and threaten to sue the school. I was lucky enough to know one who helped me pro bono. What about everyone else? Half of Yale's class is from the top 2%. This is not a coincidence. "There are plenty of great state schools where you can get education basically for free." ... As long as you win the birth lottery, and your parents live in someplace like California. Only a handful of public universities even make the top 100. And even public schools are hardly "free", often costing >$10K/year just for tuition. "You might completely miss a lot of beauty in the world around you." Yale, according to their 1099, has a 45% profit margin. 45%. That's higher than Microsoft, Google, and Goldman Sachs. And every year they, and the other Ivies, call up all their alumni and beg for donations to their bulging bank accounts. It's disgusting.
- tks2103 13y ago
  I am an Ivy League alum from late last decade. My financial aid grant was approximately 75% of tuition (before considering any federal loans). I filed a FAFSA, and some direct paperwork required by the University. The paperwork amounted to less than 10 pages each year. I am not including the paper count of tax documents from my family. There were several financial aid officers, but I worked closely with one. At every step of the process she was available to answer questions. I made several mistakes in my paperwork, even one after submission. My aid officer helped me with each issue. My father passed away when I was in school. After I reported this to my University through my financial aid officer, they immediately waived all remaining tuition requirements (excluding those covered by federal loan grants). I did not pay a dime after that. My family made about $60k a year, before my father's passing. $30k after. We own a house. I think we were middle class, but I am not sure how that is defined. I got my aid officer a cake every year.
  - hugofirth 13y ago
Crake 13y ago
I'm gay, so my parents wouldn't pay or help me in any way. The public colleges in my state basically told me that if I didn't have the money, I should get lost and try again when I was 24. (This was despite routinely having the highest standardized test scores in my entire high school and a solid GPA. I usually test in the 95-99% range nationwide.) Meanwhile, many of my far stupider peers with richer/more benevolent parents have already graduated. The only difference between me and them is access to tens of thousands of dollars in tuition money. Colleges are nothing but a business, and if you think otherwise, you are very lucky to have been in a situation where you have never had to wait out half a decade in poverty because of where and how you were born.
- lmartel 13y ago
  Your situation sounds awful and I'm very sorry you're going through that. But, what's the alternative from the universities' point of view? If they gave extra financial aid to students disowned by their parents, every parent would claim to hate their child to save on tuition.
  - Crake 13y ago
    The alternative would be to prioritize academics over profits. In civilized countries, tuition is usually free, and college entrance standards are much higher. I know an english major who graduated still unable to distinguish between "your" and "you're." Who would you rather have in college, her or me?
    - aestra 13y ago
      There's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone pays for it. It's a minor but important point. Lets not kid ourselves here.
      - danieldk 13y ago
        Someone pays for it. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that education is free. However, it benefits society as a whole, and not everyone may be able to afford it. So, it is often in the interest of society to make good tuition affordable, regardless the background of a student. Of course, it is also beneficial for the student. But for that we have the tax man :).
icelancer 13y ago
>Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government. When "help" is defined as hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans that cannot be discharged, I laugh. My family was in a below-average income bracket, and as the oldest son, my parents didn't have much money for us to go to school. When I got into MIT and other elite schools, I was elated. Until I found out that "help" meant debt up to my ears. Eventually I realized it was unlikely to carry positive ROI over a full scholarship at any "lesser" university, which I was fortunate enough to earn. But let's not act like the elite schools are handing out free money to go there. My test scores, GPA, athletic performance, and extracurriculars made me a very desirable choice for most elite schools. The only problem was that my family's unremarkable history and lack of funds wasn't a good match.
- lmartel 13y ago
  When did you go to school? Nowadays, every elite school gives grants rather than loans, and (for example) Stanford pays for all tuition for families making under 100k (and throws in room and board for < 60k).
  - icelancer 13y ago
    I went to school during the same period of time that everyone else who is saddled with inflated loan packages went - the late 90's / early 2000s.
- ipince 13y ago
  I don't know if it is that things have changed recently, but I did see that schools were handing out free money (at least MIT did when I went there). I got sizable debt-free aid + small (4k/year) loans and I couldn't be more grateful. I know many friends that got much more aid, including monthly stipends to pay for food and other expenses. It does seem that this is the exception rather than the rule, so I don't usually bring this up. You explicitly mentioned MIT though...
- aestra 13y ago
  I got free money too, well need based aid in the form of lower tuition. This was 10 years ago though. My younger sister went to a more expensive school on paper, but got substantially more aid and paid much less than me.
hackula1 13y ago
> Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government. I hate to add any more cynicism to this, but student aid is often higher ed's version of price segmentation. Out of state people pay the top prices, in state pay the middle, and low income pay a bit less (but often more over the long run due to loans). I know many people who will be paying interest on their student debt long after they would have paid back the entire principle. I was lucky and had parents who encouraged me to pace myself and go without much debt, but the system pretty much is stacked to rope in low info 18 year olds and extract as much from them as possible.

phaus 13y ago

Unfortunately the industry adapted to the financial aid, and and by now the price of tuition has completely gobbled up any discount the aid may have provided. Sure, people who couldn't have gone to school in the past are able to do so, but many of them are getting saddled with a crippling amount of debt. I know that the price of tuition should increase naturally, as all prices do, but its been doubling the rate of inflation and that's fucked up. There are good aspects to the education system, but there's also a lot of good reasons to be cynical.

icebraining 13y ago
Scholarships and grants have also been rising, and the net price -what people actually pay -has been rising much more slowly than that. For private colleges, it has actually fallen since 2006/2007: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/22/153316565/the-price-of-college-tuition-in-1-graphic http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/05/22/153316565/the-pric...
- phaus 13y ago
  How many people get a significant amount of scholarships vs those who pay primarily with student loans? Asking because I honestly don't know.

apsec112 13y ago

"Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government." ... As long as your parents are rich enough to hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork. I am an Ivy alum, of middle-class parents, and this "help" required me to submit literally hundreds of pages of paperwork. (I counted.) And any mistake, no matter how small, automatically disqualifies you from all help. So every year, there would inevitably be some minor mistake and I would have to lawyer up and threaten to sue the school. I was lucky enough to know one who helped me pro bono. What about everyone else? Half of Yale's class is from the top 2%. This is not a coincidence. "There are plenty of great state schools where you can get education basically for free." ... As long as you win the birth lottery, and your parents live in someplace like California. Only a handful of public universities even make the top 100. And even public schools are hardly "free", often costing >$10K/year just for tuition. "You might completely miss a lot of beauty in the world around you." Yale, according to their 1099, has a 45% profit margin. 45%. That's higher than Microsoft, Google, and Goldman Sachs. And every year they, and the other Ivies, call up all their alumni and beg for donations to their bulging bank accounts. It's disgusting.

tks2103 13y ago
I am an Ivy League alum from late last decade. My financial aid grant was approximately 75% of tuition (before considering any federal loans). I filed a FAFSA, and some direct paperwork required by the University. The paperwork amounted to less than 10 pages each year. I am not including the paper count of tax documents from my family. There were several financial aid officers, but I worked closely with one. At every step of the process she was available to answer questions. I made several mistakes in my paperwork, even one after submission. My aid officer helped me with each issue. My father passed away when I was in school. After I reported this to my University through my financial aid officer, they immediately waived all remaining tuition requirements (excluding those covered by federal loan grants). I did not pay a dime after that. My family made about $60k a year, before my father's passing. $30k after. We own a house. I think we were middle class, but I am not sure how that is defined. I got my aid officer a cake every year.
- hugofirth 13y ago

Crake 13y ago

I'm gay, so my parents wouldn't pay or help me in any way. The public colleges in my state basically told me that if I didn't have the money, I should get lost and try again when I was 24. (This was despite routinely having the highest standardized test scores in my entire high school and a solid GPA. I usually test in the 95-99% range nationwide.) Meanwhile, many of my far stupider peers with richer/more benevolent parents have already graduated. The only difference between me and them is access to tens of thousands of dollars in tuition money. Colleges are nothing but a business, and if you think otherwise, you are very lucky to have been in a situation where you have never had to wait out half a decade in poverty because of where and how you were born.

lmartel 13y ago
Your situation sounds awful and I'm very sorry you're going through that. But, what's the alternative from the universities' point of view? If they gave extra financial aid to students disowned by their parents, every parent would claim to hate their child to save on tuition.
- Crake 13y ago
  The alternative would be to prioritize academics over profits. In civilized countries, tuition is usually free, and college entrance standards are much higher. I know an english major who graduated still unable to distinguish between "your" and "you're." Who would you rather have in college, her or me?
  - aestra 13y ago
    There's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone pays for it. It's a minor but important point. Lets not kid ourselves here.
    - danieldk 13y ago
      Someone pays for it. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that education is free. However, it benefits society as a whole, and not everyone may be able to afford it. So, it is often in the interest of society to make good tuition affordable, regardless the background of a student. Of course, it is also beneficial for the student. But for that we have the tax man :).

icelancer 13y ago

>Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government. When "help" is defined as hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans that cannot be discharged, I laugh. My family was in a below-average income bracket, and as the oldest son, my parents didn't have much money for us to go to school. When I got into MIT and other elite schools, I was elated. Until I found out that "help" meant debt up to my ears. Eventually I realized it was unlikely to carry positive ROI over a full scholarship at any "lesser" university, which I was fortunate enough to earn. But let's not act like the elite schools are handing out free money to go there. My test scores, GPA, athletic performance, and extracurriculars made me a very desirable choice for most elite schools. The only problem was that my family's unremarkable history and lack of funds wasn't a good match.

lmartel 13y ago
When did you go to school? Nowadays, every elite school gives grants rather than loans, and (for example) Stanford pays for all tuition for families making under 100k (and throws in room and board for < 60k).
- icelancer 13y ago
  I went to school during the same period of time that everyone else who is saddled with inflated loan packages went - the late 90's / early 2000s.
ipince 13y ago
I don't know if it is that things have changed recently, but I did see that schools were handing out free money (at least MIT did when I went there). I got sizable debt-free aid + small (4k/year) loans and I couldn't be more grateful. I know many friends that got much more aid, including monthly stipends to pay for food and other expenses. It does seem that this is the exception rather than the rule, so I don't usually bring this up. You explicitly mentioned MIT though...
aestra 13y ago
I got free money too, well need based aid in the form of lower tuition. This was 10 years ago though. My younger sister went to a more expensive school on paper, but got substantially more aid and paid much less than me.

hackula1 13y ago

> Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government. I hate to add any more cynicism to this, but student aid is often higher ed's version of price segmentation. Out of state people pay the top prices, in state pay the middle, and low income pay a bit less (but often more over the long run due to loans). I know many people who will be paying interest on their student debt long after they would have paid back the entire principle. I was lucky and had parents who encouraged me to pace myself and go without much debt, but the system pretty much is stacked to rope in low info 18 year olds and extract as much from them as possible.