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Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

I've done quite a bit of work with Oberlin College over the years. Some great people there and the campus is beautiful, but the culture is primed for this kind of reaction and I get the impression that the administration doesn't have the guts to do anything but go along with it.

My guess is Gibson's won't see a penny any time soon. There would be a revolt by the student body and they wouldn't be able to afford it.

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Even when I was heading to college in '95 Oberlin was known as the SJW school. It was the "most woke", most liberal, most feminist, most LGBTQ+ friendly, etc. Those aren't necessarily negative attributes, but they are VERY EASY to weaponize, whether intentionally or not ... and things like the situation with Gibson's are the result.

I always thought that was Bard, or perhaps Reed or Hampshire.

Even before then, Oberlin was the first college in the US to admit women on a permanent basis, and one of the first to admit black students. Back before the civil war it was an important sanctuary for people freeing enslavement in the south, with the college and town both providing support and resistance to people trying to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The kind of radicalism it has known for has done a lot of good, though as we see here it can lead to bad as well.

At ~$40k a semester the student body is for the most part operating in a nerfed universe.

Wait … did I read that right? $40k Per semester? Guess I haven't looked at tuitions in a while.

Virtually no one pays full list price for college tuition.

That's not true.

https://www.oberlin.edu/admissions-and-aid/tuition-and-fees

> Each year, more than two-thirds of Oberlin students receive some form of need-based financial assistance. Our three-part award package typically includes grants from the college, low-interest students loans, and work-study jobs.

My school gave $10k "merit-based scholarship" to everyone, as the ACT/SAT score threshold for that aid was well below the threshold for admission.

https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/college-exp...

> As Paul Tough reports for New York Times Magazine, 89% of students don't pay full price, and giving students a break has caused some colleges to operate at a loss.

> The average freshman student in the class of 2018 at one of these private nonprofit universities will get a discount of 50%, he reports.

As a parent who has paid full freight for two children, I’m happy to have saved and I’m happy to command a salary that makes me ineligible for most aid.

That being said, I do not own a house, I do not own a car and while my 401k is reasonably funded it’s my only asset.

I too believed that no one paid full freight until it was my time to step up, and the financial aid package provided was. . . loans.

When they say 89% of students receive aid, the bulk of that is in the form of subsidized loans. And 11% is not an insignificant number.

> When they say 89% of students receive aid, the bulk of that is in the form of subsidized loans.

That doesn't appear to be the case.

https://www.nacubo.org/Press-Releases/2022/Tuition-Discount-...

"In the 2021 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study, 359 private, nonprofit colleges and universities reported an estimated 54.5 percent average institutional tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time, first-year students in 2021-22 and 49 percent for all undergraduates—both record highs. By providing grants, fellowships, and scholarships, these institutions forgo about half the revenue they otherwise would collect if they charged all students the tuition and fee sticker price."

(Note that this article specifically indicates 82.5% received grant aid.)

> And 11% is not an insignificant number.

It is, as much of that will be international students.

So college is now like medical procedures / car dealerships, where the price exists to set a value perception, nobody pays it, and everybody loses?

>they wouldn't be able to afford it.

Oberlin has an endowment valued at approximately $1 billion — this is ~3% of that. (Understanding all those funds may not be liquid, they certainly have some assets.)

Their annual revenue is ~$180M. If any appreciable portion of their student body turns on them it's going to start to hurt very quickly. A sober assessment says that very few students would actually leave but there's a tail risk that it turns into something unsustainable.

Courts don't tend to accept "it'd hurt" as a reason to not pay a judgement.

> My guess is Gibson's won't see a penny any time soon.

Oberlin is acting differently than any other large organization with a judgment like this, you run your appeals, if you can't get it thrown out you try and get it reduced, and in the end if you run out of appeals you pay. This is a dog-bites-man story....

"isn't acting"

The article asserts that there are still effectively boycots taking place. If this was actually organized in any capacity by college officials, couldn't they be found in contempt of court and criminally charged as well?

Only if they're still actively organizing them, and there's an active court order for them to stop doing so, which is unlikely.

This is silly. Oberlin doesn't have a choice. They will appeal as far as they can appeal, and then they will pay.

By "doesn't have a choice" I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly their lawyers could have chosen not to appeal upon reasonable grounds ("we're likely to lose, and that will cause greater fines").

Any defendant assessed a 36MM penalty is going to appeal, to the limit of their ability to appeal, as is their right. Gibson's is going to get 36MM, and they can wait a little while to get it.

I wonder if you could borrow against it. 36MM in the future is a nice thing but doesn't pay your bills today.

Yes you can! Back in the day there was a very famous company that advertised 24/7 to do just that![1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.G._Wentworth

Not quite. That was for structured settlements where the defendant had already agreed to the terms and started paying. The parent was talking about borrowing against a pending matter that hasn’t yet settled.

i’m sure there’s some company that would feel confident in their math and stats to pay out x million to the defendant immediately, rather than 36m, in exchange for having the rights to the claim/pending payment assigned to them?

the only real question is how much lower x million is from 36m.

I agree, I was only speaking to whether JG Wentworth is such a company. It is not.

If you read the article their appeal to the state supreme court actually increased the judgement from $31 million to $36 million, so continuing to appeal may have been a poor choice.

"the administration doesn't have the guts to do anything but go along with it"

The previous administration actually did, but maybe that's why they are now "the previous administration".

Oberlin's general politics makes it all the more surprising that they're represented by none other than Congressman Jim Jordan.

Have you seen his district?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ohio_US_Congressiona...

Sure. I imagine a lot of the students also don't vote either at all or at least not there.

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