Tuition free MIT? [NSFW] | Hacker News Reader

Tuition free MIT? [NSFW]

philip.greenspun.com

33 pointsyummyfajitas19 comments

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... 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.

Sigh, me too. Sigh. I applied to BYU and USF and gt 1.5-2x rides to both. Really wanted to go to MIT but didn't apply because tuition was as much as my mom's salary. Sigh.

Ditto. Ithaca and Ursinus offered me a full ride, and I stopped even looking at schools after that.

what's a ride? full tuition waiver?

full ride means full scholarship. So yes, full tuition waver. I'm not sure, but I think you still need to pay room and board though.

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.

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/

"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

"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.

What, you ditched class that day?

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.

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.

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.

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 :~/ .

vladimir.slepnev at gmail

nsfw (picture).

I know I would have appreciated "nsfw" in the title.

Shock! horror! I might see a picture of a human!

Sorry about that. Didn't notice the pic when I posted.

Glad you pointed it out though, it's a beautiful picture.

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