Hacker News Reader

Comment by pedrogrande | Hacker News Reader

I have trouble understanding the logic of making education so expensive. Isn't it obvious that making education free, or at least cheap, allows the country to grow, both economically and intellectually. Sure, have your private universities for the elite. But the government should be subsidising education for the rest of the population in the interest of improving the life of everyone. In Australia it only costs about $10,000 per year and that is even outlaid by the government and only paid back when the student is earning over about $50,000 per year (as a small percentage added to their tax). If you never earn over $50K, you never have to pay it back.

View on HN

> Sure, have your private universities for the elite

If you mean the financially elite, then actually in the US the top private universities are often more affordable for the non-elite. For instance, if your family income is under, I believe, $100k, Stanford waives tuition. If it is under something like $70k, they also waive room and board.

It's actually the top state schools, such as the University of California, that are the hardest for the non-elite to afford (especially for students from out of state).

Unless you have no contact with your parents, of course. Or they're just assholes who refuse to provide you with their tax returns. Most private schools won't give you aid unless you fill out their own specialized financial aid forms, like the CSS profile. Even if you're classified as an independent student on the FAFSA (like I am), 99% of the private universities I've talked to say I'm ineligible for all of their scholarships/aid if I don't provide my parents' info. (Note: I'm age 24. Have been financially independent and living on my own since age 18.) If you're from a jerk family that won't help you with college, either by paying your tuition or providing their tax info, you're pretty much just fucked. It's also entirely possible to have a $0 contribution on the FAFSA and then like $30,000 or something on the CSS profile--private colleges can ignore the FAFSA and use their own definition of calculation of "financial need," to ensure that you aren't found "needy."

Also, many of the top private universities don't take transfer students--non-elite students often have to work for a few years before attending college, and it's unpleasant to find out that having tried to take what community colleges you can afford in terms of time and money while holding down a full time job to keep a roof over your head has literally made you ineligible to apply almost anywhere except a state run university (who also tend to heavily discriminate against transfer students).

Even for your example, Stanford, transfer admissions are significantly more selective than normal admissions processes:

"Transfer admission is considerably more competitive than freshman admission. In recent years, the admit rate for transfer students has ranged from 1% to 4%. Between twenty and fifty transfer student spaces are typically available each year."

This further increases the ability of Stanford to keep its student body composed of financial elites--while touting its "generous" financial aid policy. Plus, even an 18 year old applying to Stanford requires SATs, extracurriculars, etc that most of the non financial elite are unable to afford. Most college applications are at $80/pop nowadays; if you can only afford one college application, why pick the university you probably won't be accepted to?

"This further increases the ability of Stanford to keep its student body composed of financial elites--while touting its "generous" financial aid policy."

This just isn't true. The student body has a diverse range of incomes, and the financial aid policy is indeed generous sans quotes. The aid packages of Stanford and its peers made them cheaper than in-state tuition minus financial aid at the University of Texas for me.

There is considerably moral hazard in allowing students to omit the financial information of estranged parents. People would "disown" their children to get free tuition.

There are also considerable ethical issues in assuming that people with estranged parents are somehow undeserving of a college education.

If you have no family support, you need college more, not less. Of course, places like Stanford are far more concerned with turning a profit than enrolling poor people.

You'll note that the median family income of a Stanford student is $125,000, which is more than double the median family income in the US as a whole. Maybe that's not a lot to you, but it's almost inconceivable to someone who was raised, say, in a family making 12-20K/year.

(You complain that people would disown their children to get free tuition, but forget the fact that before it became profit oriented, Stanford used to have free tuition for everyone--no disowning required.)

And yet, America does much better at the high end of education than Australia does. I have known a few professors who tried working on Australia for their careers and were not very impressed by the infrastructure and opportunity of research, nor the general caliber of students in their classes. I'm not saying cheap education is not useful, but I don't think it is a panacea, and the issue is much more complex than it appears.

The UK has a lot of prestigious universities for its size, and HE used to be free (and now is extremely inexpensive compared to the US)...

It depends, a lot of Americans could go to Australia for college.

How much is the non resident tuition? How would you afford the living costs in a foreign country if you can't get a work visa? (It seems a lot of countries have severe work restrictions for students.) A poor US person might not even have enough money for the plane ticket. :/

A lot of Chinese go to Australia for college. It is seen as the fourth option if they can't afford or get into a nice school in the USA/Canada/or UK.

Australia was colonized quite a long while after the US was, and still only has 22m inhabitants. It'd be surprising to me if it weren't a few decades behind the US for another 10-20 years.

Throwing more money at these universities will not drive down the cost of education. The answer is MOOCs of course. If you want personal treatment, you pay to go to a university. If you just want the curriculum and the credit, you use a MOOC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com