

Tuition free MIT? [NSFW] - yummyfajitas
http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html

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Xichekolas
... and this was written in 1998.

I got into MIT but eventually decided against it because KU gave me about two
full rides, and MIT wanted $30k a year. I got lucky that I essentially got
paid to go to college, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't really _really_
want to go to MIT. I think it was any nerds dream for people my age.

Today I think Stanford or UC Berkeley would be my dream schools if I had it to
do over again, but I never applied there, so who knows if I'd even have gotten
in.

I think the argument for free tuition at such prestigious schools is an easy
one. Tuition is a tiny portion of their income, and by charging outrageous
tuitions they end up with all the rich kids (which may be smart) instead of
all the smart kids (which may be rich, but may not). Like Greenspun points
out, if you are going to such a place and plan to come out with a huge debt,
then it kind of forces you to chase a high paying job, instead of one you
might like better... so yeah, tuition that high just distorts things.

~~~
gopalakrishnans
what's a ride? full tuition waiver?

~~~
Xichekolas
Generally a full ride is understood as not having to pay tuition and fees. If
you live on campus, some people consider room and board part of that, but I
never did, so when I think full ride I think just tuition and fees. KU gave me
about double what I needed for tuition and fees for four years, so the rest
got spent on rent and books and such. I still worked full time in the summer
to get by, but thankfully I could find work programming, so I never had to
spend a cent of my parents money.

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tomh
Interesting to point out that he went on to fund ArsDigita University, which
was, in fact, tuition-free. The lectures are still online: <http://aduni.org/>

------
Hexstream
"We will live in a society where the best educated engineers are not designing
anti-lock brakes. They are either managing comparatively poorly educated
people who are designing anti-lock brakes, stitching up wounds in people who
were injured by faulty anti-lock brakes, or defending companies that got sued
for their anti-lock brake systems that didn't work."

 _puke_

------
pius
_"I have decided to stop personally participating in the system of extracting
money from MIT kids and their families. On Thursday, March 12, 1998, I guest-
lectured an MIT class (on designing database-backed Web services). I
calculated that the students were paying about $80 in tuition/lecture-hour. I
withdrew a stack of $100 bills from my BankBoston account and I handed one out
to each undergraduate in the course. I then proceeded to give my talk, telling
the students that I was happy to teach them but I was not going to take their
money."_

Phil Greenspun owes me about $1000.

~~~
apathy
What, you ditched class that day?

~~~
pius
Nope, I attended a couple weeks worth of lectures (6.171) before dropping his
class due to time. Of course, I had his class in 2003, so maybe he reversed
himself on this issue.

~~~
zach
Well, 1998 was in the heyday of ArsDigita, so that may have been why that
policy went the way of Slashdot's Beanie Awards.

That or lecture halls crammed with belligerent hobos.

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cousin_it
Love his writing style. Pity we don't have "creative writing" here in Russia:
I only recently realized that I can't write or talk effectively.

~~~
ph0rque
Hey cousin_it, can you post an email in your profile to get in touch with you?
Couldn't find any way to contact you privately without signing up for
livejournal :~/ .

~~~
cousin_it
vladimir.slepnev at gmail

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gills
nsfw (picture).

~~~
puppetsock
Shock! horror! I might see a picture of a _human_!

