16 ms·

Parents with annual family incomes below $125,000 will pay no tuition

597 points by Link- 12y ago

jgalt212 12y ago
This is, of course, good news for many families of current and/future Stanford students. That being said, the upper middle class continues to get screwed in this country. UMC produces most of the GNP, and pays most of the taxes (sorry no carried interest tax loopholes available to those who draw salaries), and then we still have to pay these crazy tuition fees. The oligarchs, of course, don't care who much college costs be it 0$K, $100K or $200K year. Any at cost basis, it just doesn't make a dent in their wallet. Down with the oligarchs!
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  The poor upper middle class. Always getting screwed.
  - ausjke 12y ago
    The UMC is also the most hard-working class, who is carefully taking responsibilities for their families etc. And guess what, it's the most exploited/punished/screwed class by either tax system or zero-tuition policy like this. it looks like getting divorced, or one couple quitting job before kids are going to apply for college, or having unlimited kids, are the right strategies for the best colleges application than otherwise. I actually know one family did just that, the college-educated mid-age mom quit her job so her daughter got all the financial support from Harvard, and she is walking her dog on the community daily to stay fit now(instead of working). I am not sure if she will be back to work after 4 years when her kid graduates. Basically, the more screwed your (family) situation is, the more helps are there for you for free, even for the most prestigious universities admission! only the sky is the limit.
    - geographomics 12y ago
      > The UMC is also the most hard-working class, who is carefully taking responsibilities for their families etc. I very much doubt the veracity of this broad generalisation. Indeed I'd be most surprised if there was any correlation between hard work and socioeconomic status, given that there are such a wide range of employment roles (including self-employed) in which one can work very hard, yet with such diverse financial rewards.
      - harryh 12y ago
        Prepare to be surprised: http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html
        geographomics 12y ago
        Interesting paper, thanks for the link. However, I do wonder to what extent the extra hours are voluntary, and if this definition relates to working harder (rather than longer).
      - jsprogrammer 12y ago
        There's also the conveniently undefined term 'hard-working'. It's likely too difficult to compare 'work hardness' across 'jobs'. Does a farm laborer who gets paid less than minimum wage and spends every day toiling in the fields really work 'less hard' than a lawyer who bills 60 hours a week from his air-conditioned office that he commutes to in his BMW from the suburbs? I doubt it.
    - vacri 12y ago
      And yet, despite being screwed, they're still above the rest of the middle class and the working class. If it's really that onerous, take a pay cut and enjoy a drop to the MMC or LMC. Or join the working class. They don't pay much (individually) in the way of taxes, so apparently they're not screwed much. Life would be pretty sweet there!
- claar 12y ago
  Yeah, I feel pretty bad for the top 13% wage earners in the US (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...). They really have it rough.
  - mg1982 12y ago
    http://s300.photobucket.com/user/Huskrrrr/media/worlds-smallest-violin.jpg.html http://s300.photobucket.com/user/Huskrrrr/media/worlds-small...
- bdcravens 12y ago
  There has to be a cut-off somewhere. Too many hand-outs would destroy the values that enables a person to get to be upper middle class.
- harryh 12y ago
  I challenge you to provide evidence supporting your "most of the taxes" claim.
  - BrandonMarc 12y ago
    Try this, for 2011 numbers: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-e... This chart summarizes decades of numbers pretty well: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5033e3e3ecad049417000002-1200/here-are-the-income-taxes-paid-by-the-respective-income-percentiles-note-how-little-the-bottom-half-pay-blue-note-how-much-more-as-a-percentage-of-the-whole-the-top-5-are-paying.jpg http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5033e3e3ecad0494170... ... it's from this article, which gives lots more detail: http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8?op=1
- stephencanon 12y ago
  Any lower-class parent would be delighted to have the money to contribute to their child's education. Stop worrying that someone else might be getting a better deal than you are and be happy you can afford it. Why does it upset that someone else is getting help? Be happy for them and be glad you don't need it, and get on with your life.
suyash 12y ago
This is interesting, I wonder what does it mean for international students? $125K in family income for students from developing countries, will probably cover most of the students.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It is ambiguous, but: > Stanford has long been committed to need-blind admissions for U.S. students, supported by a financial aid program that meets the demonstrated financial need of all admitted undergraduate students.
- reubenmorais 12y ago
  It'd definitely cover all of the international students from developing countries, but I don't think they're included in this policy. IIRC Stanford only does need-blind admission for US students. $125K/yr is an order of magnitude more than upper middle class families in Latin America make, for example. I looked into going to a US university when I was finishing high school in Brazil but the reality is that even with aid packages and all of the assistance you can get, the process involves a significant chunk of money being spent on paperwork (official translations of dozens and dozens of documents are expensive, US visas are expensive, intl travel is expensive, the standardized English exam is expensive, etc.). A free ride to Stanford for me when I was going into college 3 years ago would have put my family in debt. Today I know that I could've remedied that with a single internship in the US, but back then all of the costs intimidated me and I gave up.
  - eitally 12y ago
    I just relocated one of my managers from Campinas to Huntsville and I think he paid about $4000 for official translations. I couldn't believe it. The company paid, but even so -- that's insane. And apparently there are different levels of translation, ranging up to about $75/pp.
inthewoods 12y ago
This is a good start. Just my opinion, but I think Harvard should be considered a for-profit company unless all students go free.
- fastball 12y ago
  If all students were free they would be cashflow negative which is worse than non-profit?
  - inthewoods 12y ago
    That assumes no other source of revenue - the endowment generates about $5b a year.
- jtfairbank 12y ago
  That's not the definition of non-profit. Non-profit companies charge for products all the time, the only requirement is that they reinvest any profits back into their mission instead of distributing it to shareholders. That's why you get non-profits with million dollar CEO salaries- its they only way to funnel money out.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  I'm sure zero revenue would result in excellent education.
  - inthewoods 12y ago
    Who said they have zero revenue? The Harvard endowment is about $36b - generating about $5b in revenue for the University.
tux 12y ago
Looks like Standford is learned something :-) Not everyone that can afford to pay is smarter then the one who can't. Students should be accepted upon knowledge and skills and not there financial situation. I vote for free education!
Futurebot 12y ago
This is a great step. I wonder if there are any plans to expand this to would-be adult learners. That would be amazing. If other top universities follow suit (I'd love to see this at NYU and Columbia, personally), that'd be even better. Not going to solve the student loan crisis, but it'll certainly help a bit. Encouraging to see this. Another thing I like about this is the "only contribute $5000 a year" part (especially if it does expand to adults) - that means if you've built a small personal safety net, you won't have to watch it all go up in smoke instantly. That adds a margin of safety you don't get right now.
acadien 12y ago
Why not just make it a graduated tuition based on parental income?
- EduardoBautista 12y ago
  What things like FAFSA and even what Stanford is doing never consider is whether or not the parents are even going to help pay at all.
  - acadien 12y ago
    Yes, I remember friends having that problem in undergrad in Canada. There was a way around it but it was an application process with an interview. I believe they were concerned with people trying to game the system to get lower tuition fees.
- levosmetalo 12y ago
  In some, especially Europpean, countries such thing exist, and it's called tax. Besides paying taxes, there's no additional fees for attending university.
  - roel_v 12y ago
    "Besides paying taxes, there's no additional fees for attending university." So what countries are that?
    - _delirium 12y ago
      In Europe, these are the countries I know of that either have no tuition, or only nominal fees up to €100/semester or so (for EU/EEA citizens): Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden. Denmark is the most generous, not only charging no tuition, but even paying students about €700/mo to attend university, in order to cover living expenses [1]. [1] http://www.su.dk/english/sider/agency.aspx http://www.su.dk/english/sider/agency.aspx
- morgante 12y ago
tacon 12y ago
Rice University (originally Rice Institute) began teaching in 1912 and didn't charge tuition until 1965, as they were also amending their charter to admit other than white students. My understanding is that Rice still provides a relatively large amount of student aid compared to most elite universities.
- saryant 12y ago
  Anecdotally, a number of my high school friends went to Rice and all claimed to be paying very little or nothing in tuition (2008). My high school girlfriend received a full ride offer there (as she did from Caltech, which is what she chose). IIRC 38 students from my high school graduation class received offers from Rice.
- caminante 12y ago
  Rice actually has a lower-% of students receiving need based aid.[1] I think a key reason why Rice enters a lot of conversations re: value stems from Houston's low cost of living. [1]http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...
ezequiel-garzon 12y ago
What happens for a family making $125,001? Are they expected to pay full tuition? I applaud the initiative in any event.
- lkbm 12y ago
  > Families with incomes at higher levels, typically up to $225,000, may also qualify for financial assistance, especially if more than one family member is enrolled in college.
  - ezequiel-garzon 12y ago
    Thanks for your reply. I would imagine there is some sort of gradual scale from no tuition to full tuition. My goodness, I thought it was a reasonable question, but it earned me a -4 in Hacker News!
mg1982 12y ago
Can any one explain what '...and typical assets means'? I took it to mean the value of normal things you own such as a house and cars. This seems like a massive caveat against the headline (basically anyone who owns their home), but since it's being ignored, I assume I'm wrong.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  It also implies that parents with modest incomes who scrimp and save for college tuition for their kids are kinda punished for it.
- dantiberian 12y ago
  I know of one family that run a profitable business and own ~10 rental properties. Their accountant has structured things such that they are making so little profit that they are able to get government subsidies for low income families. The 'typical assets' clause would probably be to disqualify people like that.
- morgante 12y ago
  Owning your own home would be considered fairly typical for an American household. It's to protect against people who have a million dollars in assets but make "only" $100,000 a year.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
  - sukilot 12y ago
    And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
  - sukilot 12y ago
    And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
- 12y ago
WalterBright 12y ago
One wonders about the people who make $125,001 - $170,000 who are then on the hook for the full tuition (around $45K). They'd find it cost effective to substantially lower their income.
- obastani 12y ago
  I'm sure Stanford offers partial aid as well -- this is just the threshold for zero contributions.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  And they can probably afford enough CPA to make that happen.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    What is CPA?
    - harryh 12y ago
      Certified Public Accountant
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      A Certified Public Accountant. You pay them to find the best solutions to your taxes. The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) uses the student's family's taxable income to determine if they qualify for aid.
- downandout 12y ago
  "Families with incomes at higher levels, typically up to $225,000, may also qualify for financial assistance, especially if more than one family member is enrolled in college. Financial aid offers vary by family, but the financial aid expansion for 2015-16 will allow Stanford to reduce the expected parental contribution for many families at these higher income levels."
chx 12y ago
What I find even more important: > In either case, students will still be expected to contribute toward their own educational expenses from summer income, savings and part-time work during the school year. Students are expected to contribute at least $5,000 per year from these sources but are not expected to borrow to make the contribution.
- mrowland 12y ago
  Agreed. Student earnings requirements aren't much of a problem for CS/engineering students (who can get paid summer jobs related to their field), but they are difficult for students trying to get into industries where unpaid internships are effectively a requirement. You would think Stanford would have made a change to this as well.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    The schools pay aid recipients $10/hr to sit in the library and study and help checkout books.
  - sloanesturz 12y ago
    I'm a current Stanford undergrad. Most Stanford kids are able to pay for their "student contribution" by getting on campus work-study jobs (like in the Library or career development center), working as dorm staff in the underclassmen dorms, or working as paid researchers in professors' labs.
    - mrowland 12y ago
      I've had on-campus jobs throughout college, and making $5000 from those jobs alone would require working somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours a week. Certainly possible (and many do it), but at that point it starts to have a pretty noticeable affect on your schoolwork and personal life.
      - adevine 12y ago
        What? $5000 a year is a straightforward, achievable contribution, especially with work-study jobs. When I was an undergrad at an ivy league school I made significantly more than that working at the dining hall during the year and the course review guide in the summer, and this was in the mid 90s.
eatonphil 12y ago
This is nothing new. This happens at every top 20 private college/university respectively. I went to Haverford College [1] and paid nothing on tuition. Divorced parents and 10 siblings... That'll do it. A friend from high school went to Duke free too for similar reasons. And another friend went to Penn for free because of her parents' state too. The only sad thing is how few people know about this. Under-privileged students think they can only afford state schools. In truth, I couldn't even afford a state school. Only a private college/university would give me the full financial aid that I needed to attend. Thankfully programs like Questbridge[2] (it's not spam, surprisingly) help facilitate under-priveleged students applying to and attending top private schools. [1] - http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/haverford-college-3274 http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/... [2] - http://www.questbridge.org/ http://www.questbridge.org/
- javaun 12y ago
  My brother worked at Questbridge for a few years. They place low-income and disadvantaged (but brilliant kids) at top schools, for free rides. The top schools can't get enough of students like you, but they're hard to find. Questbridge's model is similar to executive headhunters. I believe they do approx. 20400 students a year. The challenging part is scaling what they do, since it's very manual labor intensive.
- bradleyjg 12y ago
  It is true that below some income level many schools will expect no parental contribution, but the $125k / year level announced by Stanford is particularly high. Filling out the calculator at the education department(1) it appears that the FASFA expected family contribution for that income level would be somewhere around $20k (+/- depending on things like assets and family size). Harvard, for example, makes that guarantee only as to students whose parents' income is up to $65,000 a year (2) 1 https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm 2 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426 Edit: In light of dollaaron's correction below, this is much less significant than I thought at first glance. This part "Scholarship or grant funds will be provided to cover these costs in lieu of a parental contribution" is still above and beyond what many schools do, but is similar to Princeton and Harvard, as he points out.
sporkenfang 12y ago
Essentially, colleges (and the government) expecting a family contribution to tuition meant I went into extensive debt on my own, though cosigned by my stepdad (who made it clear he would in no way take on any of the financial obligation of the loans) for college. Most of my friends' parents were the same way, and did not contribute to their children's college (and I'm not sure where all these kids whose parents are paying for their college are even going, really... or what kind of money those parents must be making to be able to pay outright for college tuition) -- at a top tier U.S. school. In an engineering program. Working at a thrift store full time making minimum wage and going to engineering school full time for the first two years, then doing tech support full time and going to engineering school full time for the last two years was no joke, and I still have debt remaining, two years out of school with a good job. Why should it be the parents' income that anyone cares about? Students are expected to contribute? Don't make me laugh. It's their education, they are of majority age, they likely will be paying for it and then some. How are PARENTS expected to contribute at all? Mine honestly did not and do not make enough money to have any left over after taking care of my two younger siblings (ten years younger), and yet on the FAFSA right there, an "expected family contribution". Edit: they do, of course, make enough money combined that the government expects that they'd want to send their kid to college and could theoretically contribute something to it. They did what they could, but that wasn't what fulfilled expectations laid down by the Powers That Be.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- downandout 12y ago
  It's extremely difficult to gain admittance to a place like Stanford if your parents are not supportive of your educational ambitions. This is both because your academic results earlier in life (upon which admittance would be based) will tend to reflect an unsupportive family, and a place like Stanford wants students with supportive families. That's why parental support matters.
  - sporkenfang 12y ago
    Supportive of one's educational ambitions ~= having the money to pay for one's educational ambitions to be realized.
aabajian 12y ago
Hate to bash Stanford, but as a current master's student in CS, I've found their financial aid to be horrendous. The only real options are RAships and TAships. I don't consider these to be "aid packages" because they entail a tremendous amount of work. My current employer matched what was going to be offered by the TAship with less hours overall. EDIT: Just for kicks, here are some emails here that demonstrate the reality of Stanford financial aid at the master's level. Last quarter: Nov. 17th: Hold on registration due to account balance... Nov. 18th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... [PAYS $10,000 of tuition] This quarter: Feb. 16th: Your Stanford student account has been placed on hold* due to an outstanding balance... Feb. 17th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... Mar. 18th: Student Account Notice... Today: We are sorry to inform you that you are not currently eligible to participate in the StanfordCardPlan...due to financial hold. [PAYS $5,000 of tuition] This cycle has gone on for the past year now. For some context, I take two classes per quarter and live on-campus (on-campus housing is the cheapest you can get in Palo Alto). My total tuition + housing is $15,562 per quarter.
- _delirium 12y ago
  "Financial aid" as such in the U.S. typically means for undergraduate students, not graduate students. Graduate funding is a fairly different system, mostly consisting of competitive fellowships, research grants, and RA/TA jobs.
  - aabajian 12y ago
    Yes, but at Stanford almost every engineering graduate class is 50% undergrad, 50% grad student, save for a few of the 100-series classes.
- philwelch 12y ago
  A CS masters is the last kind of degree Stanford would give good financial aid for. For a bachelors degree, you can get need based aid, and for a Ph.D, it's customary that you're pretty well subsidized, but masters programs are where they get you. I'm not sure why.
TheBeardKing 12y ago
Instead of straight income, would a better method look at AGI, or account for cost of living in some way? Colleges doing this would be a boon for people in small towns like mine, but would offer smaller advantage to those living in high expense cities.
- byoung2 12y ago
  I find myself asking the same question as a resident of Los Angeles, where the cost of living is high, so salary is high. If I moved to San Antonio or Atlanta I could live a better lifestyle on a fraction of the salary and still take advantage of offers like these (and all the tax credits I currently don't qualify for).
  - roel_v 12y ago
    And yet, by staying where you are, your revealed preference is that you value you living there higher than the claimed 'better lifestyle' and foregone grants, subsidies etc... (not a personal attack, just an observation - usually lots of 'grass is greener' talk in this sort of threads, but still urban centers grow at the expense of so-called 'low CoL areas')
borgia 12y ago
I fundamentally disagree with this, and its implementation seems to be a significant attack on dual income, middle class families who are doing well for themselves. This doesn't hit the rich, it hits the middle earner and it hits them extremely hard. It's frankly pathetic but I suppose what can you expect in an era of hard pressed populist socialism.
- philwelch 12y ago
  Statistically, $125,000 is not a middle income household income in the United States.
  - kansface 12y ago
    California, particularly the Bay Area, is quite different. 125K for a family is squarely middle class.
    - harryh 12y ago
      Median household income for SF is 72,947. For San Mateo it's 87,633. For Santa Clara it's 89,064. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income
      - ericd 12y ago
        I would just keep in mind that the difference in housing cost between newcomers and those who have lived here for a long time can be very significant because of prop 13, rent control, and a local housing market that has inflated rapidly over the past 30 years.
      - twoodfin 12y ago
        I bet if you limited the range to households with college-age children, the median would be much higher. Those are peak earnings years for most people.
    - cozzyd 12y ago
pkrein 12y ago
The whole system of need-based financial aid seems to be effectively moving tuition towards perfectly elastic pricing based on how much students can pay. Universities raise the price of tuition, then increase financial aid for the subset of students who can't pay the increase. Incremental revenue for the university still goes up as they get more revenue from anyone who can reasonably afford the increased "base tuition" amount.
- morgante 12y ago
  Yup, it's classic monopolist pricing.
  - whybroke 12y ago
    There maybe a sort of monopoly here but monopolies never set their prices to free (unless they're trying to destroy competitors which is obvious not the case here) There may indeed be grotesque stratification problems with the system but that doesn't mean some part may do the right thing occasionally. Frequently even monopolies moderate their behavior out of fear of regulation. Here perhaps schools fear the reputation hit of graduating too high a percentage of rich dimwits.
    - morgante 12y ago
      I do think it's mostly altruistic in intent, but the outcome is roughly the same as the price discrimination you'd see in a perfect monopoly. Also, I actually think an intelligent monopoly might set their lowest price to 0 (for those who couldn't pay anything). It protects their market domination.
- neilmovva 12y ago
  To be pedantic - you might be looking for "price discrimination" instead of perfectly elastic.
- nkassis 12y ago
  Also state have effectively kept their funding the same or reduced it leading to even more tuition increase costs being shouldered by the students. As it is today, the easiest way for universities to increase funding is through tuition increase and they've been using that method more in recent decades.
bunkydoo 12y ago
Well, when the whole world found out how easy it was to cheat at Stanford this morning - they just said fuck it and made it free. source: http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27799963/stanford-university-reports-allegations-cheating-by-students http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27799963/stanford-unive...
wwwpatrick 12y ago
cool. But is access limited by money to pay, or by a system that can favor kids from fancy schools/backgrounds?
rvn1045 12y ago
Why is this even news?? This happens at pretty much every top tier private/public university. Colleges price discriminate between people of different incomes. The true cost per student is not 50k at a private school, it's probably more like 30k, and people pay between 0 and 50k depending on their income.
wwwpatrick 12y ago
cool. But is access limited by money to pay, or by a system that can favor kids from fancy schools/backgrounds?
sehutson 12y ago
Every time I see this, I get a little sick thinking about the ~$100k in loans I accumulated getting a BA at University of Chicago and Wash U in St. Louis (I transferred). I got some merit scholarships and a good amount of grant aid, but policies like this starting going into effect not long after I graduated. Based on the current policies at Wash U, I would have paid nothing :/
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  I honestly had no idea this existed. I feel like a fool now that I spent over $70k at RIT. Which, don't get me wrong, is a great school...but I could have went to Standford for free?...that's pretty crazy to me. I really really really wish I knew about this before.
- derekp7 12y ago
  I have a feeling that the reason some of these policies are going into effect (or getting expanded) is due to the increased dialog about rising tuition costs. They'd rather make it affordable for those who need the aid, so they can keep on getting the high tuition from those who can afford it. That way, they avoid any legislative action that would crush their money making machine.
  - sehutson 12y ago
    Yeah, I understand why they're doing it, and I think it's great since you can't really expect kids who grew up poor to have that kind of money at 17 or 18. If you're coming out of a sub-par school system and you spent your childhood constantly worried about money issues, you're doing well just to qualify for those kinds of schools. I just wish there would have been SOME kind of retroactive forgiveness for those of us who were well below the family income threshold but were born just a couple years too soon. Don't get me wrong, I understood the implications of taking out huge loans and I'm doing pretty well now (finally making progress on the loans) - but it kills me to think I could have had the same education without the crushing debt.
- hashmymustache 12y ago
  Yea, hopefully there will be more education loan forgiveness opportunities in the future. I'm ~$160k deep on school loans. Yay US education system!
thoman23 12y ago
Man I wish this had been in place in the 90's when I went to Stanford. I grew up lower middle class in the Central Valley. My parents did everything they could to help, but that didn't make a dent of course. Stanford was fairly generous with outright grant money, but I still graduated with enough debt that it really handicapped my wife and I in our early adulthood years, and that was after taking 2 years off to work full time to help save money for tuition. Still, I can't complain. I wouldn't trade my Stanford experience for anything. And for what it's worth, it would have actually cost me more to go to Berkeley as the aid package there wasn't nearly as generous.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
a-dub 12y ago
7,018 undergraduates [1] 9,118 graduates [1] 2,118 faculty [1] 2,872 clerical [2] It appears that Stanford has a very competitive student to bureaucrat ratio. I would think twice before handing them $60k/yr. [1] http://facts.stanford.edu/ http://facts.stanford.edu/ [2] http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/ http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/
rdl 12y ago
I dropped out of MIT both to do a startup overseas (ITAR) and because my parents wouldn't contribute any of the "expected family contribution" and I couldn't get enough loans on my own. Rather than all the crazy games, I'd prefer if education were genuinely market priced, or if individuals could take reasonable debt loads or sign indenture agreements. A commercial organization should be allowed to do something like ROTC; paying an undergrad full college costs in exchange for a guaranteed employee for 2-4y post graduation at market rate.
- TylerE 12y ago
  That doesn't really work when the are already more graduates than jobs in many fields.
  - phazmatis 12y ago
    Heard of STEM?
    - vlasev 12y ago
      What about it? Are there actually more jobs than graduates there?
    - TylerE 12y ago
      Yes, and I see fresh faced engineers and programmers going unemployed for over a year out of school, all the time. Seriously, pretty much the only field right now with a serious demand > supply condition is nursing, and MDs willing to do general family practice rather than higher-paying specialties.
      - rdl 12y ago
        I don't see unemployed vaguely competent cs grads unless they are unwilling or unable to relocate.
        TylerE 12y ago
techtivist 12y ago
I am always conflicted about these. I was fortunate enough to get a full ride (all grants, no loans) to a top University, even as an international student. My parents couldn't afford to pay for my flight here, which the University did. In a way that has allowed me to take a riskier career trajectory by quitting a 6 figure starting salary at a top tech company after graduation within 3 months and starting a startup. So I am ever so grateful for policies like this. But I wonder if universities should offer some sort of deferred payment (5 years after graduation for instance) to students instead (not a 3rd party loan). If you go to Stanford you are pretty much guaranteed a stable income when you graduate. Yes ,granted, a lot of alumni do donate without feeling the necessity to do so, but having such an option will help universities, perhaps more for those with smaller endowments "recover" some of the cost. Universities could always make exceptions some time down the line on a case by case basis, depending on student's current income which will vary violently even for top universities, with some students deciding to work for a non-profit while others choosing a more lucrative job, just like income tax works. Again, I am really not sure, just throwing it out there.
- sytelus 12y ago
  This is very interesting. As far as I know most universities don't even cover first semester worth of expenses for international students regardless of how bright they are. Most international students then find campus jobs and do 18 hour days to fill in for rest of the time in Masters programs. The PhD programs are bit more generous but never heard university paying for the flight.
  - techtivist 12y ago
    Only a handful do, the ones in top 10-20 academically and endowment wise. The university covered tuition, room and board, around $58k annually. I still worked 20 hours a week, to pay for other expenses, send back a little home and save a little.
- mathattack 12y ago
  I heard that Yale had a problem like this, and struggled to collect on it. It put them in a tough position of angering their alums to get their money.
JDiculous 12y ago
My family was making about $150k/yr when I was in school. We didn't get any assistance. It's great that children from lower income families are getting subsidized, but with these kinds of policies there's always a hard cutoff point, and the people just above that cutoff point are the ones who get screwed. Money shouldn't be in education period. If whether or not you can study is even partly determined by the finances of your parents, then the system is wrong.
h43k3r 12y ago
Is this applicable for foreign students. If it is, a lot of Indian wouldn't have to take big loans for doing their masters.
octatoan 12y ago
As an Indian junior, this makes me even sadder. Especially considering that there are like 7 schools in the US that are need-blind for overseas applicants. :/
fapjacks 12y ago
This is what a step in the right direction looks like, folks.
egillie 12y ago
With "typical assets" -- my family was below the income thereshold but didn't receive any aid from Stanford in '06 because our family farm was worth quite a bit. Lots of ways to slip through the cracks with these policies...
- roel_v 12y ago
  Well not to make this personal, but how would you consider this 'slipping through the cracks'? If your family is worth 1mm or 2mm or whatever, would you feel it's 'fair' (for lack of a better word) that you'd get a full ride? 2mm in real estate is enough to retire on, would it be 'fair' if somebody (or their children) who essentially lives off the returns on their capital gets a 'needs based' grant?
  - egillie 12y ago
    Without getting too specific, a family farm like ours is definitely not worth $2mil, and outright selling it wouldn't cover me + siblings going to Stanford. But the key is that it's enough to borrow against -- Stanford just wants you to be physically able to pay, even if that means exorbitant loans, and they'll generally offer you enough grants to get you to the point where loans can cover the rest. Even this 125k threshold assumes a 5k student contribution and doesn't cover the mandatory 15k in room + board for incoming freshmen. It's great PR, though, and still, props to them.
  - wlphoenix 12y ago
    Owning land that has gone through 3 or 4 generations in the same family, while technically an "investment asset", usually isn't treated the same way from a planning perspective as, say, apartments you purchase with the intention to liquidate upon retirement. There may be a lot fewer ways to generate revenue from it, so in all reality you may barely be breaking even on upkeep. You're then forced to decide between giving your children an excellent education which will set the up well in life vs keeping the land which you have a strong emotional attachment to and wish to share with future generations.
jamdavswim 12y ago
Not having this is why I went to Cal.
brador 12y ago
Why use a fixed value and not a sliding % scale? What about the family that makes 126,000 who pays tuition and is now in a much worse position that a 124,000 family.
- rmah 12y ago
  They do use a sliding scale.
curiously 12y ago
well i wasn't smart enough to get into standford and i already paid my student loans so...
airnomad 12y ago
I wonder what chances you have to get into Ivy League in the first place if your parents earn less then 125k.
- stephencanon 12y ago
  Given that all the ivies have need-blind admissions for American students, and half are need-blind for everyone, the odds are about as good as they are for anyone else. Also, Stanford isn't an ivy.
outside1234 12y ago
What does 'typical assets' mean? Parents that haven't saved for retirement?
jlebar 12y ago
I went to Stanford as an undergrad just a few years after this bidding war between top universities began. The additional financial aid I received saved my family and me more than $100k -- that figure would be much higher if we factor in the interest on the loans I didn't have to take -- and I will be forever grateful. I applaud Stanford for expanding this program. But I'm also a little sad about the way this is playing out, because the net effect is to set the top private universities even further apart from the many great universities that nonetheless can't afford policies like this. There's already so much pressure on a lot of kids to get into a top private university, and now many of them are in a position where if they don't get into one of the top four, their only option is a public school. (And yes, there exist public schools, such as Cal, which one can argue deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as H/P/Y/S, but certainly there isn't a UC Berkeley in every state, and going to a public school out of state can be as expensive as going to a private school.) If you really want to be sad, take a look at how short is the list of schools with need-blind admission that claim to meet all demonstrated need: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission#U.S._institutions_that_are_need-blind_for_U.S._applicants_and_meet_full_demonstrated_need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission#U.S._insti... This is a supremely low bar, because schools get to define how much you need; there's no standard for this. And of course schools can meet your need with loans. But even still, the schools on this list are the only ones in the country which even claim to be meritocratic in their admission of US applicants.
shamney 12y ago
seems a little silly to support low income students like this yet continue with class biased "holistic" admissions
anovikov 12y ago
Now at least we have know the real threshold of poverty.
timtas 12y ago
Boy, wanna talk about perverse incentives? How about this "typical assets" business? One more way today's world proves you're a sucker to be frugal and save. Stanford is indeed a luxury, and there's no reason a well-off family should not pay for it. But these free rides are not coming only from endowments. If you're paying full freight, you're not covering just your kid but a couple other kids too. This is a mad way to price products. Only maybe healthcare is less rational.
- teej 12y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but if you pay taxes you are subsidizing a lot more than "a couple other kids" going to Stanford. The incentive is the American dream. Starting from nothing and making it to the top. I'm sad that you're offended by that.
  - timtas 12y ago
    You misread me, and put words in my mouth. I'm not objecting to getting or giving a hand. Consider two families. One makes $100k/year and has $750k saved. They drive modest cars, live in a modest home, take modest vacations and drive their kid across town every day to the public (free to them) magnet school. The other family lives very well, has nothing saved, a house that they can't afford, and debt from paying for private school. Which one should get the free ride at Stanford? Which one will? With real interest rates below zero and a bailout culture, which family is living the modern version of the American dream?
leelin 12y ago
The financial aid site clarifies the definition of typical assets. Seems like families with under $300K qualify, excluding retirement accounts and primary residence home equity beyond 1.2 times annual income. As others have mentioned, it's designed to prevent families who have large savings from manufacturing an artificially low income (an extreme case is retiring early for a few years to show no income). The takeaway is, maxing out retirement accounts like a 401k and dumping savings into paying off the primary residence mortgage are ways to accumulate net worth without accumulating "above-typical" assets. http://financialaid.stanford.edu/site/faq/index.html#faq_20 http://financialaid.stanford.edu/site/faq/index.html#faq_20 =========== What do you mean by "typical assets"? For applicants who report total annual parent income up to $125,000, we generally consider "typical assets" to be an adjusted total net worth of less than $300,000. Adjusted total net worth usually reflects the sum of the following amounts: Cash, savings, checking Investments Home equity, capped at 1.2 times annual income Equity in real estate other than the home Business net worth We do not include formal retirement assets (401k, 403b, IRA, Keogh) in our analysis.
spiritplumber 12y ago
I didn't get to go to Stanford. So, when I got my rejection letter, I replied with "I reject this rejection" like in the Snopes story. Then went to talk to the admissions folks, who thought that I had literally hopped on a plane and flew half the planet just to make good on a joke (I was already in the US for work actually). Ended up working with a Stanford prof for a semester, after which I decided I was done with academia.
plg 12y ago
but you still need a high family income to send the kid to a school (private) where there will be a teacher who will have the connections with ivy league schools so they can write a letter of recommendation that will be read and not summarily discarded at my (private) school the ONLY way to get into an ivy league (no matter how high your grades were) was to get a letter from the teacher with the connection to Harvard ... or the (other) teacher with the connection to Stanford ... or the (other) teacher with the connection to Yale students even decided early on which courses to take so that they would have exposure to these teachers early on
analog31 12y ago
I don't want be a troll, but I am struck by something. I think this may be the first TB thread I've seen, about college education, where there isn't a strong sentiment (approaching 50%) questioning the value of college education at all, dismissing it as "signaling," and demanding "disruption" of the entire higher education system. Is Stanford that powerful of a brand?
- jliptzin 12y ago
  I'm biased, because I went there, but I think people need to break down a college education into two parts: (1) the education you receive (the things you know at graduation minus everything you knew as a day 1 freshman) and (2) the people, friends, and connections you've formed. Part 1 is quickly becoming a commodity for many study topics that are available online, for free or close to it, so it's hard to justify a $200k price tag for something you can teach yourself. Part 2 is much more difficult to supplant with alternative education. The people I've met while at Stanford have been invaluable to me in starting my career, and I don't even consider myself great at networking. There's just such a huge brain trust there it's hard to even question the value of being there. I'm sure the same can be said of the top 20 schools, however that probably quickly drops off past that.
  - analog31 12y ago
    Those are interesting points. I think there are some other factors as well: College provides kids with the experience of face-to-face interaction in an academic setting, which is sufficiently similar to a professional setting. And it also may provide psychological conditions necessary for some kids to actually finish. I would have had a hard time earning my BS degree sitting in front of a screen all day every day for 4 years, while living in a my backwards little hometown. As a thought-experiment, imagine going down the hallway at a large company, talking to all of the new entry level recruits, and trying to guess which ones went to college and which ones studied at home, just from their behavior. Now guess which ones will move up the ladder and which ones won't. If colleges are driven out of business, affluent parents will find other ways to provide their kids with those extras, poor kids won't know why their online education hasn't made them employable, and we'll just be back to the same disparities as before. I'm obviously pushing a particular agenda here, but I think it's worth considering.
nraynaud 12y ago
My girlfriend works in the US education system (in an other state), and there seem to be a trend were the marketing power of those schools is good enough to attract rich kids from foreign countries paying full tuition, so that on the US side they could maintain appearances of some equality (without touching their budget, it's not on the table). Of course, one of the problems is that the selection based on money is very different from selection based on school grades, and the whole sport story is set to play again with Saudi students.
dejv_cz1 12y ago
Although it isn't anything new, it's v good to still work with this idea, coz education shouldn't be limited by money...
shamney 12y ago
how will this make any difference? if you're a non urm who doesn't already know that top colleges provide very generous financial aid, it's highly unlikely that you will have developed the right all round profile to get a place at stanford.
paparush 12y ago
My son goes to UNC Chapel Hill. He was his high school's valedictorian and had excellent SAT's. He won an academic scholarship (The Johnston) that has a needs based criteria as well. My wife (she's disabled and receives Social Security Disability) earn less than $100K. Based on our income, our son's scholarship is whittled down to all of $1000.00 per semester. I'm paying nearly $9,000.00 per semester so he can graduate with no loans.
dbbolton 12y ago
It would seem to me that using a single cutoff like this versus a continuous graded scale incentivizes people just above the cutoff to lie about their income. Even if the expected contribution for a family with $130k is very small, it would be tempting to fudge the number and put that tuition money towards other expenses.
pitt1980 12y ago
I'm conflicted, on one hand this is good in that they are recognizing that debt burdens are a real hinderence to their graduates on the other hand, this is used to pitch the line that 65K tuition is no big deal which you're in line for at the full rate at combined 225K income look, I get that in modern internet culture, no sypathy is supposed to be shown to people with household income over 200K, but that is still really alot its also not at all obvious that the return on any investment of 200K for education is worthwhile I'll just link to: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17159 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17159 http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.. http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.... http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.. http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.... for the general case against also even if it does pay off, you have to work like a dog to make it pay off, its not a passive investment if you're buying a website on flippa, the degree to which your investment is passive or active factors pretty heavily into the price, it should be the same for colleges (I'd also love to see a breakdown of exactly how much of Stanfords admitted class comes form < 125K parent income, between 125K and 225K parent income, and > 225K parent income) -------------------------------------------------------- also, I have a problem with the meme that elite colleges are now cheaper than state colleges I get that merit scholarship vary by college, but students qualified enough to get into Stanford or Harvard will almost certainly qualify for full merit scholarships at most if not all state schools (maybe not at Cal or UCLA, but almost certainly at UCSB or UCD or San Jose State or Fresno State) that meme should stop
rckrd 12y ago
Honest question: Lets take a hypothetical worst case scenario. You are admitted to a top school. However, your parents make well over $125k but are for some reason unwilling to provide any contribution. You are responsible for full payments. Is there no bank that will let you take out these loans? isn't it possible to take out a combination of federal and private loans to cover the cost? Disclaimer: I was fortunate enough to go to a top university and pay nothing for tuition and housing.
- Domenic_S 12y ago
  During my time at school 10+ years ago, the answer was no -- you had to fill out a FAFSA (with your parents' tax information), and you had to take the maximum allowed Parent PLUS loans before you could take federal or private loans in your own name. If your parents would not take the PLUS loan, you were SOL.
- digitalsushi 12y ago
  Worst case scenario, you wait until you're 24 and become a financial independant to the domain of college lending. This is how I did it (as a side effect - I started school at 24 because that's when I felt mature enough)

597 points by Link- 12y ago

This is, of course, good news for many families of current and/future Stanford students. That being said, the upper middle class continues to get screwed in this country. UMC produces most of the GNP, and pays most of the taxes (sorry no carried interest tax loopholes available to those who draw salaries), and then we still have to pay these crazy tuition fees. The oligarchs, of course, don't care who much college costs be it 0$K, $100K or $200K year. Any at cost basis, it just doesn't make a dent in their wallet. Down with the oligarchs!

jsprogrammer 12y ago
The poor upper middle class. Always getting screwed.
- ausjke 12y ago
  The UMC is also the most hard-working class, who is carefully taking responsibilities for their families etc. And guess what, it's the most exploited/punished/screwed class by either tax system or zero-tuition policy like this. it looks like getting divorced, or one couple quitting job before kids are going to apply for college, or having unlimited kids, are the right strategies for the best colleges application than otherwise. I actually know one family did just that, the college-educated mid-age mom quit her job so her daughter got all the financial support from Harvard, and she is walking her dog on the community daily to stay fit now(instead of working). I am not sure if she will be back to work after 4 years when her kid graduates. Basically, the more screwed your (family) situation is, the more helps are there for you for free, even for the most prestigious universities admission! only the sky is the limit.
  - geographomics 12y ago
    > The UMC is also the most hard-working class, who is carefully taking responsibilities for their families etc. I very much doubt the veracity of this broad generalisation. Indeed I'd be most surprised if there was any correlation between hard work and socioeconomic status, given that there are such a wide range of employment roles (including self-employed) in which one can work very hard, yet with such diverse financial rewards.
    - harryh 12y ago
      Prepare to be surprised: http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html
      - geographomics 12y ago
        Interesting paper, thanks for the link. However, I do wonder to what extent the extra hours are voluntary, and if this definition relates to working harder (rather than longer).
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      There's also the conveniently undefined term 'hard-working'. It's likely too difficult to compare 'work hardness' across 'jobs'. Does a farm laborer who gets paid less than minimum wage and spends every day toiling in the fields really work 'less hard' than a lawyer who bills 60 hours a week from his air-conditioned office that he commutes to in his BMW from the suburbs? I doubt it.
  - vacri 12y ago
    And yet, despite being screwed, they're still above the rest of the middle class and the working class. If it's really that onerous, take a pay cut and enjoy a drop to the MMC or LMC. Or join the working class. They don't pay much (individually) in the way of taxes, so apparently they're not screwed much. Life would be pretty sweet there!
claar 12y ago
Yeah, I feel pretty bad for the top 13% wage earners in the US (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...). They really have it rough.
- mg1982 12y ago
  http://s300.photobucket.com/user/Huskrrrr/media/worlds-smallest-violin.jpg.html http://s300.photobucket.com/user/Huskrrrr/media/worlds-small...
bdcravens 12y ago
There has to be a cut-off somewhere. Too many hand-outs would destroy the values that enables a person to get to be upper middle class.
harryh 12y ago
I challenge you to provide evidence supporting your "most of the taxes" claim.
- BrandonMarc 12y ago
  Try this, for 2011 numbers: http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-e... This chart summarizes decades of numbers pretty well: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5033e3e3ecad049417000002-1200/here-are-the-income-taxes-paid-by-the-respective-income-percentiles-note-how-little-the-bottom-half-pay-blue-note-how-much-more-as-a-percentage-of-the-whole-the-top-5-are-paying.jpg http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5033e3e3ecad0494170... ... it's from this article, which gives lots more detail: http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8?op=1
stephencanon 12y ago
Any lower-class parent would be delighted to have the money to contribute to their child's education. Stop worrying that someone else might be getting a better deal than you are and be happy you can afford it. Why does it upset that someone else is getting help? Be happy for them and be glad you don't need it, and get on with your life.

suyash 12y ago

This is interesting, I wonder what does it mean for international students? $125K in family income for students from developing countries, will probably cover most of the students.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
It is ambiguous, but: > Stanford has long been committed to need-blind admissions for U.S. students, supported by a financial aid program that meets the demonstrated financial need of all admitted undergraduate students.
reubenmorais 12y ago
It'd definitely cover all of the international students from developing countries, but I don't think they're included in this policy. IIRC Stanford only does need-blind admission for US students. $125K/yr is an order of magnitude more than upper middle class families in Latin America make, for example. I looked into going to a US university when I was finishing high school in Brazil but the reality is that even with aid packages and all of the assistance you can get, the process involves a significant chunk of money being spent on paperwork (official translations of dozens and dozens of documents are expensive, US visas are expensive, intl travel is expensive, the standardized English exam is expensive, etc.). A free ride to Stanford for me when I was going into college 3 years ago would have put my family in debt. Today I know that I could've remedied that with a single internship in the US, but back then all of the costs intimidated me and I gave up.
- eitally 12y ago
  I just relocated one of my managers from Campinas to Huntsville and I think he paid about $4000 for official translations. I couldn't believe it. The company paid, but even so -- that's insane. And apparently there are different levels of translation, ranging up to about $75/pp.

inthewoods 12y ago

This is a good start. Just my opinion, but I think Harvard should be considered a for-profit company unless all students go free.

fastball 12y ago
If all students were free they would be cashflow negative which is worse than non-profit?
- inthewoods 12y ago
  That assumes no other source of revenue - the endowment generates about $5b a year.
jtfairbank 12y ago
That's not the definition of non-profit. Non-profit companies charge for products all the time, the only requirement is that they reinvest any profits back into their mission instead of distributing it to shareholders. That's why you get non-profits with million dollar CEO salaries- its they only way to funnel money out.
bdcravens 12y ago
I'm sure zero revenue would result in excellent education.
- inthewoods 12y ago
  Who said they have zero revenue? The Harvard endowment is about $36b - generating about $5b in revenue for the University.

tux 12y ago

Looks like Standford is learned something :-) Not everyone that can afford to pay is smarter then the one who can't. Students should be accepted upon knowledge and skills and not there financial situation. I vote for free education!

Futurebot 12y ago

This is a great step. I wonder if there are any plans to expand this to would-be adult learners. That would be amazing. If other top universities follow suit (I'd love to see this at NYU and Columbia, personally), that'd be even better. Not going to solve the student loan crisis, but it'll certainly help a bit. Encouraging to see this. Another thing I like about this is the "only contribute $5000 a year" part (especially if it does expand to adults) - that means if you've built a small personal safety net, you won't have to watch it all go up in smoke instantly. That adds a margin of safety you don't get right now.

acadien 12y ago

Why not just make it a graduated tuition based on parental income?

EduardoBautista 12y ago
What things like FAFSA and even what Stanford is doing never consider is whether or not the parents are even going to help pay at all.
- acadien 12y ago
  Yes, I remember friends having that problem in undergrad in Canada. There was a way around it but it was an application process with an interview. I believe they were concerned with people trying to game the system to get lower tuition fees.
levosmetalo 12y ago
In some, especially Europpean, countries such thing exist, and it's called tax. Besides paying taxes, there's no additional fees for attending university.
- roel_v 12y ago
  "Besides paying taxes, there's no additional fees for attending university." So what countries are that?
  - _delirium 12y ago
    In Europe, these are the countries I know of that either have no tuition, or only nominal fees up to €100/semester or so (for EU/EEA citizens): Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden. Denmark is the most generous, not only charging no tuition, but even paying students about €700/mo to attend university, in order to cover living expenses [1]. [1] http://www.su.dk/english/sider/agency.aspx http://www.su.dk/english/sider/agency.aspx
morgante 12y ago

tacon 12y ago

Rice University (originally Rice Institute) began teaching in 1912 and didn't charge tuition until 1965, as they were also amending their charter to admit other than white students. My understanding is that Rice still provides a relatively large amount of student aid compared to most elite universities.

saryant 12y ago
Anecdotally, a number of my high school friends went to Rice and all claimed to be paying very little or nothing in tuition (2008). My high school girlfriend received a full ride offer there (as she did from Caltech, which is what she chose). IIRC 38 students from my high school graduation class received offers from Rice.
caminante 12y ago
Rice actually has a lower-% of students receiving need based aid.[1] I think a key reason why Rice enters a lot of conversations re: value stems from Houston's low cost of living. [1]http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

ezequiel-garzon 12y ago

What happens for a family making $125,001? Are they expected to pay full tuition? I applaud the initiative in any event.

lkbm 12y ago
> Families with incomes at higher levels, typically up to $225,000, may also qualify for financial assistance, especially if more than one family member is enrolled in college.
- ezequiel-garzon 12y ago
  Thanks for your reply. I would imagine there is some sort of gradual scale from no tuition to full tuition. My goodness, I thought it was a reasonable question, but it earned me a -4 in Hacker News!

mg1982 12y ago

Can any one explain what '...and typical assets means'? I took it to mean the value of normal things you own such as a house and cars. This seems like a massive caveat against the headline (basically anyone who owns their home), but since it's being ignored, I assume I'm wrong.

WalterBright 12y ago
It also implies that parents with modest incomes who scrimp and save for college tuition for their kids are kinda punished for it.
dantiberian 12y ago
I know of one family that run a profitable business and own ~10 rental properties. Their accountant has structured things such that they are making so little profit that they are able to get government subsidies for low income families. The 'typical assets' clause would probably be to disqualify people like that.
morgante 12y ago
Owning your own home would be considered fairly typical for an American household. It's to protect against people who have a million dollars in assets but make "only" $100,000 a year.
- sukilot 12y ago
  And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
- sukilot 12y ago
  And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
- sukilot 12y ago
  And support families who blow their income on fancy cars and vacations instead of saving
12y ago

WalterBright 12y ago

One wonders about the people who make $125,001 - $170,000 who are then on the hook for the full tuition (around $45K). They'd find it cost effective to substantially lower their income.

obastani 12y ago
I'm sure Stanford offers partial aid as well -- this is just the threshold for zero contributions.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
And they can probably afford enough CPA to make that happen.
- sukilot 12y ago
  What is CPA?
  - harryh 12y ago
    Certified Public Accountant
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    A Certified Public Accountant. You pay them to find the best solutions to your taxes. The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) uses the student's family's taxable income to determine if they qualify for aid.
downandout 12y ago
"Families with incomes at higher levels, typically up to $225,000, may also qualify for financial assistance, especially if more than one family member is enrolled in college. Financial aid offers vary by family, but the financial aid expansion for 2015-16 will allow Stanford to reduce the expected parental contribution for many families at these higher income levels."

chx 12y ago

What I find even more important: > In either case, students will still be expected to contribute toward their own educational expenses from summer income, savings and part-time work during the school year. Students are expected to contribute at least $5,000 per year from these sources but are not expected to borrow to make the contribution.

mrowland 12y ago
Agreed. Student earnings requirements aren't much of a problem for CS/engineering students (who can get paid summer jobs related to their field), but they are difficult for students trying to get into industries where unpaid internships are effectively a requirement. You would think Stanford would have made a change to this as well.
- sukilot 12y ago
  The schools pay aid recipients $10/hr to sit in the library and study and help checkout books.
- sloanesturz 12y ago
  I'm a current Stanford undergrad. Most Stanford kids are able to pay for their "student contribution" by getting on campus work-study jobs (like in the Library or career development center), working as dorm staff in the underclassmen dorms, or working as paid researchers in professors' labs.
  - mrowland 12y ago
    I've had on-campus jobs throughout college, and making $5000 from those jobs alone would require working somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours a week. Certainly possible (and many do it), but at that point it starts to have a pretty noticeable affect on your schoolwork and personal life.
    - adevine 12y ago
      What? $5000 a year is a straightforward, achievable contribution, especially with work-study jobs. When I was an undergrad at an ivy league school I made significantly more than that working at the dining hall during the year and the course review guide in the summer, and this was in the mid 90s.

eatonphil 12y ago

This is nothing new. This happens at every top 20 private college/university respectively. I went to Haverford College [1] and paid nothing on tuition. Divorced parents and 10 siblings... That'll do it. A friend from high school went to Duke free too for similar reasons. And another friend went to Penn for free because of her parents' state too. The only sad thing is how few people know about this. Under-privileged students think they can only afford state schools. In truth, I couldn't even afford a state school. Only a private college/university would give me the full financial aid that I needed to attend. Thankfully programs like Questbridge[2] (it's not spam, surprisingly) help facilitate under-priveleged students applying to and attending top private schools. [1] - http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/haverford-college-3274 http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/... [2] - http://www.questbridge.org/ http://www.questbridge.org/

javaun 12y ago
My brother worked at Questbridge for a few years. They place low-income and disadvantaged (but brilliant kids) at top schools, for free rides. The top schools can't get enough of students like you, but they're hard to find. Questbridge's model is similar to executive headhunters. I believe they do approx. 20400 students a year. The challenging part is scaling what they do, since it's very manual labor intensive.
bradleyjg 12y ago
It is true that below some income level many schools will expect no parental contribution, but the $125k / year level announced by Stanford is particularly high. Filling out the calculator at the education department(1) it appears that the FASFA expected family contribution for that income level would be somewhere around $20k (+/- depending on things like assets and family size). Harvard, for example, makes that guarantee only as to students whose parents' income is up to $65,000 a year (2) 1 https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm 2 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426 Edit: In light of dollaaron's correction below, this is much less significant than I thought at first glance. This part "Scholarship or grant funds will be provided to cover these costs in lieu of a parental contribution" is still above and beyond what many schools do, but is similar to Princeton and Harvard, as he points out.

sporkenfang 12y ago

Essentially, colleges (and the government) expecting a family contribution to tuition meant I went into extensive debt on my own, though cosigned by my stepdad (who made it clear he would in no way take on any of the financial obligation of the loans) for college. Most of my friends' parents were the same way, and did not contribute to their children's college (and I'm not sure where all these kids whose parents are paying for their college are even going, really... or what kind of money those parents must be making to be able to pay outright for college tuition) -- at a top tier U.S. school. In an engineering program. Working at a thrift store full time making minimum wage and going to engineering school full time for the first two years, then doing tech support full time and going to engineering school full time for the last two years was no joke, and I still have debt remaining, two years out of school with a good job. Why should it be the parents' income that anyone cares about? Students are expected to contribute? Don't make me laugh. It's their education, they are of majority age, they likely will be paying for it and then some. How are PARENTS expected to contribute at all? Mine honestly did not and do not make enough money to have any left over after taking care of my two younger siblings (ten years younger), and yet on the FAFSA right there, an "expected family contribution". Edit: they do, of course, make enough money combined that the government expects that they'd want to send their kid to college and could theoretically contribute something to it. They did what they could, but that wasn't what fulfilled expectations laid down by the Powers That Be.

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downandout 12y ago
It's extremely difficult to gain admittance to a place like Stanford if your parents are not supportive of your educational ambitions. This is both because your academic results earlier in life (upon which admittance would be based) will tend to reflect an unsupportive family, and a place like Stanford wants students with supportive families. That's why parental support matters.
- sporkenfang 12y ago
  Supportive of one's educational ambitions ~= having the money to pay for one's educational ambitions to be realized.

aabajian 12y ago

Hate to bash Stanford, but as a current master's student in CS, I've found their financial aid to be horrendous. The only real options are RAships and TAships. I don't consider these to be "aid packages" because they entail a tremendous amount of work. My current employer matched what was going to be offered by the TAship with less hours overall. EDIT: Just for kicks, here are some emails here that demonstrate the reality of Stanford financial aid at the master's level. Last quarter: Nov. 17th: Hold on registration due to account balance... Nov. 18th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... [PAYS $10,000 of tuition] This quarter: Feb. 16th: Your Stanford student account has been placed on hold* due to an outstanding balance... Feb. 17th: This is a friendly reminder that you have unpaid charges on your account... Mar. 18th: Student Account Notice... Today: We are sorry to inform you that you are not currently eligible to participate in the StanfordCardPlan...due to financial hold. [PAYS $5,000 of tuition] This cycle has gone on for the past year now. For some context, I take two classes per quarter and live on-campus (on-campus housing is the cheapest you can get in Palo Alto). My total tuition + housing is $15,562 per quarter.

_delirium 12y ago
"Financial aid" as such in the U.S. typically means for undergraduate students, not graduate students. Graduate funding is a fairly different system, mostly consisting of competitive fellowships, research grants, and RA/TA jobs.
- aabajian 12y ago
  Yes, but at Stanford almost every engineering graduate class is 50% undergrad, 50% grad student, save for a few of the 100-series classes.
philwelch 12y ago
A CS masters is the last kind of degree Stanford would give good financial aid for. For a bachelors degree, you can get need based aid, and for a Ph.D, it's customary that you're pretty well subsidized, but masters programs are where they get you. I'm not sure why.

TheBeardKing 12y ago

Instead of straight income, would a better method look at AGI, or account for cost of living in some way? Colleges doing this would be a boon for people in small towns like mine, but would offer smaller advantage to those living in high expense cities.

byoung2 12y ago
I find myself asking the same question as a resident of Los Angeles, where the cost of living is high, so salary is high. If I moved to San Antonio or Atlanta I could live a better lifestyle on a fraction of the salary and still take advantage of offers like these (and all the tax credits I currently don't qualify for).
- roel_v 12y ago
  And yet, by staying where you are, your revealed preference is that you value you living there higher than the claimed 'better lifestyle' and foregone grants, subsidies etc... (not a personal attack, just an observation - usually lots of 'grass is greener' talk in this sort of threads, but still urban centers grow at the expense of so-called 'low CoL areas')

borgia 12y ago

I fundamentally disagree with this, and its implementation seems to be a significant attack on dual income, middle class families who are doing well for themselves. This doesn't hit the rich, it hits the middle earner and it hits them extremely hard. It's frankly pathetic but I suppose what can you expect in an era of hard pressed populist socialism.

philwelch 12y ago
Statistically, $125,000 is not a middle income household income in the United States.
- kansface 12y ago
  California, particularly the Bay Area, is quite different. 125K for a family is squarely middle class.
  - harryh 12y ago
    Median household income for SF is 72,947. For San Mateo it's 87,633. For Santa Clara it's 89,064. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income
    - ericd 12y ago
      I would just keep in mind that the difference in housing cost between newcomers and those who have lived here for a long time can be very significant because of prop 13, rent control, and a local housing market that has inflated rapidly over the past 30 years.
    - twoodfin 12y ago
      I bet if you limited the range to households with college-age children, the median would be much higher. Those are peak earnings years for most people.
  - cozzyd 12y ago

pkrein 12y ago

The whole system of need-based financial aid seems to be effectively moving tuition towards perfectly elastic pricing based on how much students can pay. Universities raise the price of tuition, then increase financial aid for the subset of students who can't pay the increase. Incremental revenue for the university still goes up as they get more revenue from anyone who can reasonably afford the increased "base tuition" amount.

morgante 12y ago
Yup, it's classic monopolist pricing.
- whybroke 12y ago
  There maybe a sort of monopoly here but monopolies never set their prices to free (unless they're trying to destroy competitors which is obvious not the case here) There may indeed be grotesque stratification problems with the system but that doesn't mean some part may do the right thing occasionally. Frequently even monopolies moderate their behavior out of fear of regulation. Here perhaps schools fear the reputation hit of graduating too high a percentage of rich dimwits.
  - morgante 12y ago
    I do think it's mostly altruistic in intent, but the outcome is roughly the same as the price discrimination you'd see in a perfect monopoly. Also, I actually think an intelligent monopoly might set their lowest price to 0 (for those who couldn't pay anything). It protects their market domination.
neilmovva 12y ago
To be pedantic - you might be looking for "price discrimination" instead of perfectly elastic.
nkassis 12y ago
Also state have effectively kept their funding the same or reduced it leading to even more tuition increase costs being shouldered by the students. As it is today, the easiest way for universities to increase funding is through tuition increase and they've been using that method more in recent decades.

bunkydoo 12y ago

Well, when the whole world found out how easy it was to cheat at Stanford this morning - they just said fuck it and made it free. source: http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27799963/stanford-university-reports-allegations-cheating-by-students http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27799963/stanford-unive...

wwwpatrick 12y ago

cool. But is access limited by money to pay, or by a system that can favor kids from fancy schools/backgrounds?

rvn1045 12y ago

Why is this even news?? This happens at pretty much every top tier private/public university. Colleges price discriminate between people of different incomes. The true cost per student is not 50k at a private school, it's probably more like 30k, and people pay between 0 and 50k depending on their income.

wwwpatrick 12y ago

cool. But is access limited by money to pay, or by a system that can favor kids from fancy schools/backgrounds?

sehutson 12y ago

Every time I see this, I get a little sick thinking about the ~$100k in loans I accumulated getting a BA at University of Chicago and Wash U in St. Louis (I transferred). I got some merit scholarships and a good amount of grant aid, but policies like this starting going into effect not long after I graduated. Based on the current policies at Wash U, I would have paid nothing :/

ryanSrich 12y ago
I honestly had no idea this existed. I feel like a fool now that I spent over $70k at RIT. Which, don't get me wrong, is a great school...but I could have went to Standford for free?...that's pretty crazy to me. I really really really wish I knew about this before.
derekp7 12y ago
I have a feeling that the reason some of these policies are going into effect (or getting expanded) is due to the increased dialog about rising tuition costs. They'd rather make it affordable for those who need the aid, so they can keep on getting the high tuition from those who can afford it. That way, they avoid any legislative action that would crush their money making machine.
- sehutson 12y ago
  Yeah, I understand why they're doing it, and I think it's great since you can't really expect kids who grew up poor to have that kind of money at 17 or 18. If you're coming out of a sub-par school system and you spent your childhood constantly worried about money issues, you're doing well just to qualify for those kinds of schools. I just wish there would have been SOME kind of retroactive forgiveness for those of us who were well below the family income threshold but were born just a couple years too soon. Don't get me wrong, I understood the implications of taking out huge loans and I'm doing pretty well now (finally making progress on the loans) - but it kills me to think I could have had the same education without the crushing debt.
hashmymustache 12y ago
Yea, hopefully there will be more education loan forgiveness opportunities in the future. I'm ~$160k deep on school loans. Yay US education system!

thoman23 12y ago

Man I wish this had been in place in the 90's when I went to Stanford. I grew up lower middle class in the Central Valley. My parents did everything they could to help, but that didn't make a dent of course. Stanford was fairly generous with outright grant money, but I still graduated with enough debt that it really handicapped my wife and I in our early adulthood years, and that was after taking 2 years off to work full time to help save money for tuition. Still, I can't complain. I wouldn't trade my Stanford experience for anything. And for what it's worth, it would have actually cost me more to go to Berkeley as the aid package there wasn't nearly as generous.

deleted 12y ago

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a-dub 12y ago

7,018 undergraduates [1] 9,118 graduates [1] 2,118 faculty [1] 2,872 clerical [2] It appears that Stanford has a very competitive student to bureaucrat ratio. I would think twice before handing them $60k/yr. [1] http://facts.stanford.edu/ http://facts.stanford.edu/ [2] http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/ http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/

rdl 12y ago

I dropped out of MIT both to do a startup overseas (ITAR) and because my parents wouldn't contribute any of the "expected family contribution" and I couldn't get enough loans on my own. Rather than all the crazy games, I'd prefer if education were genuinely market priced, or if individuals could take reasonable debt loads or sign indenture agreements. A commercial organization should be allowed to do something like ROTC; paying an undergrad full college costs in exchange for a guaranteed employee for 2-4y post graduation at market rate.

TylerE 12y ago
That doesn't really work when the are already more graduates than jobs in many fields.
- phazmatis 12y ago
  Heard of STEM?
  - vlasev 12y ago
    What about it? Are there actually more jobs than graduates there?
  - TylerE 12y ago
    Yes, and I see fresh faced engineers and programmers going unemployed for over a year out of school, all the time. Seriously, pretty much the only field right now with a serious demand > supply condition is nursing, and MDs willing to do general family practice rather than higher-paying specialties.
    - rdl 12y ago
      I don't see unemployed vaguely competent cs grads unless they are unwilling or unable to relocate.
      - TylerE 12y ago

techtivist 12y ago

I am always conflicted about these. I was fortunate enough to get a full ride (all grants, no loans) to a top University, even as an international student. My parents couldn't afford to pay for my flight here, which the University did. In a way that has allowed me to take a riskier career trajectory by quitting a 6 figure starting salary at a top tech company after graduation within 3 months and starting a startup. So I am ever so grateful for policies like this. But I wonder if universities should offer some sort of deferred payment (5 years after graduation for instance) to students instead (not a 3rd party loan). If you go to Stanford you are pretty much guaranteed a stable income when you graduate. Yes ,granted, a lot of alumni do donate without feeling the necessity to do so, but having such an option will help universities, perhaps more for those with smaller endowments "recover" some of the cost. Universities could always make exceptions some time down the line on a case by case basis, depending on student's current income which will vary violently even for top universities, with some students deciding to work for a non-profit while others choosing a more lucrative job, just like income tax works. Again, I am really not sure, just throwing it out there.

sytelus 12y ago
This is very interesting. As far as I know most universities don't even cover first semester worth of expenses for international students regardless of how bright they are. Most international students then find campus jobs and do 18 hour days to fill in for rest of the time in Masters programs. The PhD programs are bit more generous but never heard university paying for the flight.
- techtivist 12y ago
  Only a handful do, the ones in top 10-20 academically and endowment wise. The university covered tuition, room and board, around $58k annually. I still worked 20 hours a week, to pay for other expenses, send back a little home and save a little.
mathattack 12y ago
I heard that Yale had a problem like this, and struggled to collect on it. It put them in a tough position of angering their alums to get their money.

JDiculous 12y ago

My family was making about $150k/yr when I was in school. We didn't get any assistance. It's great that children from lower income families are getting subsidized, but with these kinds of policies there's always a hard cutoff point, and the people just above that cutoff point are the ones who get screwed. Money shouldn't be in education period. If whether or not you can study is even partly determined by the finances of your parents, then the system is wrong.

h43k3r 12y ago

Is this applicable for foreign students. If it is, a lot of Indian wouldn't have to take big loans for doing their masters.

octatoan 12y ago

As an Indian junior, this makes me even sadder. Especially considering that there are like 7 schools in the US that are need-blind for overseas applicants. :/

fapjacks 12y ago

This is what a step in the right direction looks like, folks.

egillie 12y ago

With "typical assets" -- my family was below the income thereshold but didn't receive any aid from Stanford in '06 because our family farm was worth quite a bit. Lots of ways to slip through the cracks with these policies...

roel_v 12y ago
Well not to make this personal, but how would you consider this 'slipping through the cracks'? If your family is worth 1mm or 2mm or whatever, would you feel it's 'fair' (for lack of a better word) that you'd get a full ride? 2mm in real estate is enough to retire on, would it be 'fair' if somebody (or their children) who essentially lives off the returns on their capital gets a 'needs based' grant?
- egillie 12y ago
  Without getting too specific, a family farm like ours is definitely not worth $2mil, and outright selling it wouldn't cover me + siblings going to Stanford. But the key is that it's enough to borrow against -- Stanford just wants you to be physically able to pay, even if that means exorbitant loans, and they'll generally offer you enough grants to get you to the point where loans can cover the rest. Even this 125k threshold assumes a 5k student contribution and doesn't cover the mandatory 15k in room + board for incoming freshmen. It's great PR, though, and still, props to them.
- wlphoenix 12y ago
  Owning land that has gone through 3 or 4 generations in the same family, while technically an "investment asset", usually isn't treated the same way from a planning perspective as, say, apartments you purchase with the intention to liquidate upon retirement. There may be a lot fewer ways to generate revenue from it, so in all reality you may barely be breaking even on upkeep. You're then forced to decide between giving your children an excellent education which will set the up well in life vs keeping the land which you have a strong emotional attachment to and wish to share with future generations.

jamdavswim 12y ago

Not having this is why I went to Cal.

brador 12y ago

Why use a fixed value and not a sliding % scale? What about the family that makes 126,000 who pays tuition and is now in a much worse position that a 124,000 family.

rmah 12y ago
They do use a sliding scale.

curiously 12y ago

well i wasn't smart enough to get into standford and i already paid my student loans so...

airnomad 12y ago

I wonder what chances you have to get into Ivy League in the first place if your parents earn less then 125k.

stephencanon 12y ago
Given that all the ivies have need-blind admissions for American students, and half are need-blind for everyone, the odds are about as good as they are for anyone else. Also, Stanford isn't an ivy.

outside1234 12y ago

What does 'typical assets' mean? Parents that haven't saved for retirement?

jlebar 12y ago

I went to Stanford as an undergrad just a few years after this bidding war between top universities began. The additional financial aid I received saved my family and me more than $100k -- that figure would be much higher if we factor in the interest on the loans I didn't have to take -- and I will be forever grateful. I applaud Stanford for expanding this program. But I'm also a little sad about the way this is playing out, because the net effect is to set the top private universities even further apart from the many great universities that nonetheless can't afford policies like this. There's already so much pressure on a lot of kids to get into a top private university, and now many of them are in a position where if they don't get into one of the top four, their only option is a public school. (And yes, there exist public schools, such as Cal, which one can argue deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as H/P/Y/S, but certainly there isn't a UC Berkeley in every state, and going to a public school out of state can be as expensive as going to a private school.) If you really want to be sad, take a look at how short is the list of schools with need-blind admission that claim to meet all demonstrated need: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission#U.S._institutions_that_are_need-blind_for_U.S._applicants_and_meet_full_demonstrated_need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission#U.S._insti... This is a supremely low bar, because schools get to define how much you need; there's no standard for this. And of course schools can meet your need with loans. But even still, the schools on this list are the only ones in the country which even claim to be meritocratic in their admission of US applicants.

shamney 12y ago

seems a little silly to support low income students like this yet continue with class biased "holistic" admissions

anovikov 12y ago

Now at least we have know the real threshold of poverty.

timtas 12y ago

Boy, wanna talk about perverse incentives? How about this "typical assets" business? One more way today's world proves you're a sucker to be frugal and save. Stanford is indeed a luxury, and there's no reason a well-off family should not pay for it. But these free rides are not coming only from endowments. If you're paying full freight, you're not covering just your kid but a couple other kids too. This is a mad way to price products. Only maybe healthcare is less rational.

teej 12y ago
I hate to break it to you, but if you pay taxes you are subsidizing a lot more than "a couple other kids" going to Stanford. The incentive is the American dream. Starting from nothing and making it to the top. I'm sad that you're offended by that.
- timtas 12y ago
  You misread me, and put words in my mouth. I'm not objecting to getting or giving a hand. Consider two families. One makes $100k/year and has $750k saved. They drive modest cars, live in a modest home, take modest vacations and drive their kid across town every day to the public (free to them) magnet school. The other family lives very well, has nothing saved, a house that they can't afford, and debt from paying for private school. Which one should get the free ride at Stanford? Which one will? With real interest rates below zero and a bailout culture, which family is living the modern version of the American dream?

leelin 12y ago

The financial aid site clarifies the definition of typical assets. Seems like families with under $300K qualify, excluding retirement accounts and primary residence home equity beyond 1.2 times annual income. As others have mentioned, it's designed to prevent families who have large savings from manufacturing an artificially low income (an extreme case is retiring early for a few years to show no income). The takeaway is, maxing out retirement accounts like a 401k and dumping savings into paying off the primary residence mortgage are ways to accumulate net worth without accumulating "above-typical" assets. http://financialaid.stanford.edu/site/faq/index.html#faq_20 http://financialaid.stanford.edu/site/faq/index.html#faq_20 =========== What do you mean by "typical assets"? For applicants who report total annual parent income up to $125,000, we generally consider "typical assets" to be an adjusted total net worth of less than $300,000. Adjusted total net worth usually reflects the sum of the following amounts: Cash, savings, checking Investments Home equity, capped at 1.2 times annual income Equity in real estate other than the home Business net worth We do not include formal retirement assets (401k, 403b, IRA, Keogh) in our analysis.

spiritplumber 12y ago

I didn't get to go to Stanford. So, when I got my rejection letter, I replied with "I reject this rejection" like in the Snopes story. Then went to talk to the admissions folks, who thought that I had literally hopped on a plane and flew half the planet just to make good on a joke (I was already in the US for work actually). Ended up working with a Stanford prof for a semester, after which I decided I was done with academia.

plg 12y ago

but you still need a high family income to send the kid to a school (private) where there will be a teacher who will have the connections with ivy league schools so they can write a letter of recommendation that will be read and not summarily discarded at my (private) school the ONLY way to get into an ivy league (no matter how high your grades were) was to get a letter from the teacher with the connection to Harvard ... or the (other) teacher with the connection to Stanford ... or the (other) teacher with the connection to Yale students even decided early on which courses to take so that they would have exposure to these teachers early on

analog31 12y ago

I don't want be a troll, but I am struck by something. I think this may be the first TB thread I've seen, about college education, where there isn't a strong sentiment (approaching 50%) questioning the value of college education at all, dismissing it as "signaling," and demanding "disruption" of the entire higher education system. Is Stanford that powerful of a brand?

jliptzin 12y ago
I'm biased, because I went there, but I think people need to break down a college education into two parts: (1) the education you receive (the things you know at graduation minus everything you knew as a day 1 freshman) and (2) the people, friends, and connections you've formed. Part 1 is quickly becoming a commodity for many study topics that are available online, for free or close to it, so it's hard to justify a $200k price tag for something you can teach yourself. Part 2 is much more difficult to supplant with alternative education. The people I've met while at Stanford have been invaluable to me in starting my career, and I don't even consider myself great at networking. There's just such a huge brain trust there it's hard to even question the value of being there. I'm sure the same can be said of the top 20 schools, however that probably quickly drops off past that.
- analog31 12y ago
  Those are interesting points. I think there are some other factors as well: College provides kids with the experience of face-to-face interaction in an academic setting, which is sufficiently similar to a professional setting. And it also may provide psychological conditions necessary for some kids to actually finish. I would have had a hard time earning my BS degree sitting in front of a screen all day every day for 4 years, while living in a my backwards little hometown. As a thought-experiment, imagine going down the hallway at a large company, talking to all of the new entry level recruits, and trying to guess which ones went to college and which ones studied at home, just from their behavior. Now guess which ones will move up the ladder and which ones won't. If colleges are driven out of business, affluent parents will find other ways to provide their kids with those extras, poor kids won't know why their online education hasn't made them employable, and we'll just be back to the same disparities as before. I'm obviously pushing a particular agenda here, but I think it's worth considering.

nraynaud 12y ago

My girlfriend works in the US education system (in an other state), and there seem to be a trend were the marketing power of those schools is good enough to attract rich kids from foreign countries paying full tuition, so that on the US side they could maintain appearances of some equality (without touching their budget, it's not on the table). Of course, one of the problems is that the selection based on money is very different from selection based on school grades, and the whole sport story is set to play again with Saudi students.

dejv_cz1 12y ago

Although it isn't anything new, it's v good to still work with this idea, coz education shouldn't be limited by money...

shamney 12y ago

how will this make any difference? if you're a non urm who doesn't already know that top colleges provide very generous financial aid, it's highly unlikely that you will have developed the right all round profile to get a place at stanford.

paparush 12y ago

My son goes to UNC Chapel Hill. He was his high school's valedictorian and had excellent SAT's. He won an academic scholarship (The Johnston) that has a needs based criteria as well. My wife (she's disabled and receives Social Security Disability) earn less than $100K. Based on our income, our son's scholarship is whittled down to all of $1000.00 per semester. I'm paying nearly $9,000.00 per semester so he can graduate with no loans.

dbbolton 12y ago

It would seem to me that using a single cutoff like this versus a continuous graded scale incentivizes people just above the cutoff to lie about their income. Even if the expected contribution for a family with $130k is very small, it would be tempting to fudge the number and put that tuition money towards other expenses.

pitt1980 12y ago

I'm conflicted, on one hand this is good in that they are recognizing that debt burdens are a real hinderence to their graduates on the other hand, this is used to pitch the line that 65K tuition is no big deal which you're in line for at the full rate at combined 225K income look, I get that in modern internet culture, no sypathy is supposed to be shown to people with household income over 200K, but that is still really alot its also not at all obvious that the return on any investment of 200K for education is worthwhile I'll just link to: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17159 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17159 http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.. http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.... http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.. http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education.... for the general case against also even if it does pay off, you have to work like a dog to make it pay off, its not a passive investment if you're buying a website on flippa, the degree to which your investment is passive or active factors pretty heavily into the price, it should be the same for colleges (I'd also love to see a breakdown of exactly how much of Stanfords admitted class comes form < 125K parent income, between 125K and 225K parent income, and > 225K parent income) -------------------------------------------------------- also, I have a problem with the meme that elite colleges are now cheaper than state colleges I get that merit scholarship vary by college, but students qualified enough to get into Stanford or Harvard will almost certainly qualify for full merit scholarships at most if not all state schools (maybe not at Cal or UCLA, but almost certainly at UCSB or UCD or San Jose State or Fresno State) that meme should stop

rckrd 12y ago

Honest question: Lets take a hypothetical worst case scenario. You are admitted to a top school. However, your parents make well over $125k but are for some reason unwilling to provide any contribution. You are responsible for full payments. Is there no bank that will let you take out these loans? isn't it possible to take out a combination of federal and private loans to cover the cost? Disclaimer: I was fortunate enough to go to a top university and pay nothing for tuition and housing.

Domenic_S 12y ago
During my time at school 10+ years ago, the answer was no -- you had to fill out a FAFSA (with your parents' tax information), and you had to take the maximum allowed Parent PLUS loans before you could take federal or private loans in your own name. If your parents would not take the PLUS loan, you were SOL.
digitalsushi 12y ago
Worst case scenario, you wait until you're 24 and become a financial independant to the domain of college lending. This is how I did it (as a side effect - I started school at 24 because that's when I felt mature enough)