
Take that Harvard! Stanford drops tuition for students. - alaskamiller
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/20/MNABV5LHM.DTL&tsp=1
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aneesh
"In the future, Harvard will cost $1 billion a year, and only Bill Gates's
children will pay full price. When anyone else walks through the door, the
message will be 'Special price, just for you.' " \--Greg Mankiw

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simianstyle
I thought this was always the case?

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atoulouse
Well, crap. The only reason I didn't apply to Stanford was because my family
wouldn't be able to afford it.

..but Berkeley's EECS a wonderful alternative, so it's all good, I guess. =)

~~~
trekker7
just make sure you don't spend _all_ your time studying in Soda...

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atoulouse
Indeed. Do I know you? I hang out in the CSUA sometimes.

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trekker7
I just graduated in December, don't know, maybe we've met. Shoot me an email
at keshavs at berkeley dot edu if you want to chat!

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imsteve
1\. If your parents make 100k+ but don't want to spend it on your education,
you're screwed.

2\. If you're not a spoiled only child and your parents have to divide that
money up then you're screwed.

#1 angers me especially. Parents I know don't do that anymore, especially when
colleges rape us with such obscene tuitions while doing relatively little to
improve the education.

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jimbokun
"1. If your parents make 100k+ but don't want to spend it on your education,
you're screwed."

With tuition and expenses running 40k+ a year, I think that could put a crimp
in the budget of a family making a little more than 100k+.

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neilc
Assuming you'd be expected to pay full tuition and board, which you surely
would not.

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imsteve
I did after the first two years.

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aaroniba
See also <http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html>

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bkrausz
Damnit...so went to the wrong school...

Funny how if I went to Stanford it would be profitable for my mom to quit her
job.

~~~
alaskamiller
the rich feed the rich!

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bdfh42
One might or might not be impressed - depending upon the number of students
this is likely to affect. I am sure that Stanford has done it's sums and taken
into account the net impact of attracting applications from bright students
coming from less well of homes.

~~~
jimbokun
"I am sure that Stanford has done it's sums and taken into account the net
impact of attracting applications from bright students coming from less well
of homes."

If you read the article, I think it's clear that Stanford has taken into
account U.S. Senators questioning it's tax exempt status when it has a
ballooning endowment along with big tuition increases.

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pchristensen
I forgot where (Greenspun, I think) but the gist was that non-profits must
disburse 5% of their endowment each year but these mega$$$ universities were
doing more like 3.5%-5%. It's worth giving away free tuition to some middle
class kids to maintain that status. Some of the endowments (Yale, Harvard,
Standford, etc) are so big that they're basically investment funds that run
universities in order to avoid paying taxes.

~~~
anewaccountname
>Some of the endowments (Yale, Harvard, Standford, etc) are so big that
they're basically investment funds that run universities in order to avoid
paying taxes.

If that is what they are, then what is the exit strategy?

~~~
pchristensen
To rule the world?

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apgwoz
The University of Pennsylvania also has a similar policy.
<http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/paying/>

~~~
Xichekolas
Those must be Business students in that picture. No liberal arts or
engineering majors I know (myself included) look that... clean and alert.

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nostrademons
Amherst has done this for a while, but with a much lower cutoff (I think it
was about $40K). They also just eliminated loans for all students last year,
which I think will raise the no-tuition cutoff significantly. I heard several
other Ivies and top liberal-arts colleges were thinking of following suit.

Olin College was also founded on this premise, but they started charging
tuition again when the dot-com bubble burst and most of their endowment
vanished.

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gills
Does it bother anyone else that the sample scenarios mention home equity as a
factor? Maybe college tuition has risen partly for the same reasons as other
items during the last few years: because it can. Cheap credit makes for high
prices. It's a good move by Stanford to pull back now before the home equity
ATM is completely burnt out.

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Xichekolas
I like this policy because I imagine it turns the admissions trend away from
"Rich Kids" and back to "Smart Kids" ... which is what these Universities want
to maintain their cred.

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wallflower
So now most of the costs of getting into Stanford are simply before you get
into Stanford (private school, studying, night school, extra-curriculars)

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Prrometheus
What about grad students?

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lex
are they getting money from elsewhere, or are they just taking fewer students
from those income brackets?

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phil
Their admissions are need-blind, so they can't "just take fewer students" from
a given income bracket.

~~~
lex
I mean it somewhat facetiously. I went to Cornell, and judging by the prices
for books, food (the items that are really marked up), margins are important
to them. Then again, they have less money than Stanford.

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mattmaroon
Bad beat if your parents make exactly $100,001.

