MIT to be tuition-free for families earning less than $75,000 a year
web.mit.edu
web.mit.edu
Students had a higher degree of personal commitment, and motivation to succeed at the uni level. Who knows if this will be the case at MIT, but this is just what I happened to experience when the disparity of income became as overt as it did
Our society doesn't do a good job of serving kids who just want job training and don't have an academic bent. Right now we lump together the people who want vocational training and a certificate of competency with the people who are passionate and want to learn. This leads to a mixed weird situation where too much irrelevant stuff is "taught"[1] from the perspective of the vocational students, and the course work is largely busy work from the perspective of those who want to learn.
That "Mathematician's Lament" that appeared on here recently is a great exposition on this problem. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
1. I use the word "taught" loosely here to refer to the process of memorization and regurgitation that is standard in the formal education system.
This definitely happened to me with math. I liked math as a kid and enjoyed it, but in HS and college math just became total monotony and boredom. I'm now taking time to study some of it on my own and getting a lot more out of it, as I actually understand and appreciate what I'm reading.
so now, rather than getting the message and being cool about it, you and curi are incessantly belly-aching instead.
in pg's place, i'd be thinking it's about time to ban both of you altogether.
I still don't think giving NSX2 20 upvotes was a very big deal. After Paul told me to stop, I did, then he took away my voting rights three days later. He didn't like my reply to his nasty email telling me to stop upvoting. My reply was "Sometimes you take yourself too seriously." Paul interpreted this as a "Fuck you." Which it really wasn't, though in the context of the email he sent me, I could see why anything other than "Yes sir, I'm sorry" could be interpreted as "fuck you." He has since ignored my attempts to apologize.
the / is like an irc command or various other places.
PS your profile says to email you but doesn't give an email address.
For what it's worth, students like this get weeded out of MIT rather quickly.
Thanks for that tidbit.
On a side note, a lot of psychological studies as well as common sense suggest that people wherever they are and whatever they do are less motivated if they don't get consideration. No wonder why the students that have the perspective of a Harvard or MIT diploma are much more motivated than those who attend to community college.
[FYI,here in Kerala a decent beef steak costs $7 , 320 gram pack of Top Ramen Noodles cost $1.1 and a litre of petrol @ $1.24 ]
What if your parents make 76000?
If you have two parents working and they're earning less than $75,000 per year combined, I kind of wonder how they're going to afford the kind of things an MIT-caliber mind needs, growing up.
Besides, what does an "MIT-caliber mind" need growing up? I would like to think of myself as an MIT-caliber mind (99.5 percentile PSAT/NMSQT, 35 ACT, 1500 SAT), and I didn't have anything special growing up. We qualified for reduced lunches, I worked at least 20 hours a week, played sports, did a lot of work at home (my family completely renovated our first house ourselves (everything from plumbing and electricity to siding), and we also had a dog-breeding business we were starting up), and still did well enough in school to be valedictorian. And before you get the wrong idea, I don't think I'm anything special; I simply have an inquisitive mind that my mother (no college) was smart enough to stimulate at a young age. After that it's just hard work and good habits.
The implication that intelligence requires some material object is off mark.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I have seen lots of insanely smart children whose parents were not rich. But, unfortunately, to get into these top colleges takes more than brains.
Nowadays the average MIT freshman has had a lifetime of parents indulging their curiosity and ambitions, prep tests and tutors, and this takes money. Not to mention (in the USA) the expense of living in an area where the schools are good enough. These days, sometimes it's the difference between a microscope or just a textbook. Sometimes it's the difference between a textbook and NO textbook. Many parents risk bankruptcy just to move to a district where their kids get a little better education.
Finally, there is the problem of not having connections. A family making less than $75,000 in household income probably doesn't have elite connections -- unless they are a family of academics or artists. Which is why I mentioned that.
When I was a kid, just buying a home computer was the equivalent expense of 10% of a laborer's salary. My Dad was able to do that because he was a bit richer, and it changed my life.
Today, maybe the couple consisting of a cleaner and a day laborer could buy a decent computer for the whole family -- but their kid is competing against a richer kid that had two or three of their very own, to play with and take apart.
If you want to believe in Horatio Alger and that anybody can do anything given enough willpower, fine. But in my opinion, when the children of the rich are often essentially coasting into such schools on a small measure of precocity, it should not require superhuman effort for the poor geniuses to get in.
In my ideal world, we'd have something like Swiss policy; ensure that all primary and secondary education is up to snuff, no matter where you live, and kindergarten to Ph.D is free as long as you can make the grade.
Forget about growing up. At age 17, they need someone to walk them through the college admissions game. Most poor/middle class folks don't have that.
When I applied to college, I figured it was grades and SAT's. I didn't have anyone to tell me to engage in activities to fit the admission's office checkboxes (i.e., "leadership experience" or "community service" looks better than "programmer at a .com"). No one told me that "ambitious, will try to graduate college early" doesn't make admissions officers happy.
Overall I'm quite happy where I wound up. But admissions coaching would have helped if I were rich enough to have it.