
Rice University Says Middle-Class And Low-Income Students Won't Have To Pay - webwanderings
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/649160232/rice-university-says-middle-class-students-wont-have-to-pay-tuition
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sct202
I wonder what the distribution of parental income is of the students at Rice
that they can offer such generous grants. Even with a household income between
$130-200k, they're offering at least half off tuition. An income of $200k+ is
well over the 90th percentile of households.

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bytematic
Roman Mars talked about this with another Ivy League where they offered free
tuition. It ended up affecting a single digit amount of students.

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dfee
Rice is not an Ivy League school. It is an academically great institution
though!

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overcast
Not technically but it's tuition surely is reaching those heights.

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psychometry
Why does seemingly every university rolling out these sorts of plans set hard
cutoffs instead using a simple equation for doling out aid? Under the current
plan, if your family makes $130,000/year, you go for free. But if you make
$130,001/year, you pay thousands? It's so absurd.

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yardie
Give $2 to non-profit or political campaign. Your income is $129,999. Better?

This sort of horse trading happens everyday in our tax system.

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psychometry
No, that's asinine and not better at all since it doesn't address the problem.

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mhb
When there are reports about these programs, they only talk about income. The
Rice site doesn't mention this either, but do they only look at income and not
savings that families might have?

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rhcom2
They include assets but not retirement funds.

[https://financialaid.rice.edu/rice-investment-
faqs](https://financialaid.rice.edu/rice-investment-faqs)

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RickJWagner
Kudos to Rice for this one.

FWIW, I took a game programming MOOC from Rice. (I knew nothing of game
programming going in.) It turned out to be a great experience, I really
enjoyed it.

Thanks, Rice!

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j45
Besides access to education, is there much that can lift the quality of life
for generations than meaningfully transferable education to a career path.

Having access to meaningful, transferable and applicable education (one that
can be equally applied without a huge saddle of student debt) is a life
changer, less so for those who already enjoy privilege and access to
opportunity.

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colordrops
A huge problem I find with financial aid policy at many educational
institutions, from elementary school all the way to university, is that the
aid is often cut off at a specific threshold. For instance, if you are making
$149,999 a year, you might qualify for $20k financial aid. But if you are
making $150,000, you get none. So the two families with nearly identical
situations are given grossly different treatment.

I don't understand why it's not a continuous scale that just approaches zero
at a certain point, rather than these hard cut-offs.

edit: just saw that someone else made a similar comment. Mine is referring to
education in general and not the article specifically, and in fact I have
personally run into this situation. It seems that educational institutions
would be by definition smarter about how they handle this.

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Someguywhatever
Well you could make it a ratio of:

[your income]/[maxincome] * [MaxFinancialAid]

But then you would end up with situations where people can borrow $500 which
is useless. So they just allow it up to 150k and then make it a hard cut off
as they feel that anybody who makes that much should absolutely be able to
pay, and the administration costs of loaning < 10k could be a waste of time
lets say.

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colordrops
But $500 is still a lot to a family who's margins are very tight. Or $2000 for
a family that is closer to the threshold.

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Someguywhatever
Nobody would administer a loan for $500 though, the juice isn't worth the
squeeze for financial institutions

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geebee
This is interesting, and I think it may explain why so many members of my own
family growing up (and now) have gone to University of California schools.

This article from the NYTimes really drove it home: Top Colleges are Cheaper
Than You Think (Unless You're Rich).

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/05/opinion/colum...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/05/opinion/columnists/what-
college-really-costs.html)

The data is very interesting. They analysis breaks down family income into
different socioeconomic categories, poor, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle,
affluent, and very affluent.

Well, it turns out the analysis is largely correct - there is substantial
reduction in costs for all but the last two categories, "affluent" and "very
affluent."

But look at the graph - it's fascinating. There's a meaningful break for every
income, but very little difference between what the "Affluent" (family income
$186k) and "Very Affluent" ($246k a year).

If you look at the graph, there's a big drop in what you pay below affluent,
but "affluent" and "very affluent" pay roughly the same amount.

Here's the thing - that's true at publics as well as privates, but top publics
max out at about half the rate of a private (the only one considered here is
university of Virginia, UC schools are left off, not sure why). In other
words, even if you pay full freight, there's a limiting factor to total costs.
The pattern of what various economic groups pay as a percentage of max is the
same for UVA and more expensive privates like the ivies, it's just that the
whole thing is compressed into a 0-30K/year range instead of a 0-75k/range.

I think that this upper limit appeals immensely to people in the "affluent"
but not "very affluent" category. Because they'll be paying "full costs", but
are still limited in resources compared to the "very affluent" group, the
actual upper limit ends up mattering a great deal.

I grew up in that economic band (affluent but not very affluent), and want to
be sure I'm clear on this, "Affluent" as defined here is most definitely not
an oppressive place to be from. Actually, it's harder now, in my day (grew up
in the 1970s), the equivalent of affluent had no trouble buying a pleasant 3-4
br house in nice if unfashionable part of San Francisco (now: no)

But it does mean 3 kids at an ivy may be cost prohibitive, even for an
"Affluent" family. UC schools (or UVA or others), on the other hand, have an
upper limit (we were all in state) that makes it more possible. In short,
state schools work as equalizers between the affluent and very affluent.

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mankash666
Why is financial aid tied to family income? Why isn't it granted in order of
merit?

Under the current system, if the most meritorious student's family makes over
$130K, he/she is saddled with debt, regardless of how good he/she is.

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darawk
It should be pretty self-evident why financial aid is tied to family income:
to equalize opportunity.

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mankash666
No - this isn't equal opportunity, it's equal outcome. The outcome mandated is
college admission.

True equal opportunity would grant aid on a merit system. Unless your argument
is that familial wealth impacts merit, which I'd like to see evidence of, it's
the fairer way to administer aid.

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wgerard
> Unless your argument is that familial wealth impacts merit, which I'd like
> to see evidence of, it's the fairer way to administer aid.

There's just assloads of studies showing high correlations between familial
wealth and pretty much every measure of academic success we have ("merit", in
your parlance).

I mean just searching "wealth impact test scores" on Google returns like 20
results that'll give you the evidence you're looking for.

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mankash666
Ah, so you routinely do not hire the _best_ candidate for a job at your
company? Mind you, "Best" doesn't necessarily mean code-ninja, just the
overall best-fit (behavioral, experience, academic, ...) - you know what we
all call "merit".

Or are you saying your definition of "best" includes familial fiances of the
applicant? Why doesn't
[https://www.headlightlabs.com/](https://www.headlightlabs.com/) include
applicant's finances as a parameter?

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wgerard
It seems like you're more interested in arguing semantics and defending your
viewpoint than having an actual discussion, so I'll leave you to it.

Definitely feel free to point me to the studies showing familial wealth has no
effect on whatever "merit" might mean to you, though. I've shown you how to
find plenty to the contrary.

