Comment by jadence | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jadence | Hacker News Reader

I read this article w/ very mixed reactions.

Part of me was all for the price discrimination to help "level the playing field."

Another part of me just cringed. By making price discrimination like this the norm, the incentive to work hard for your children is greatly diminished. I know my grandparents scratched and clawed their way for every penny they could earn/save to pay for my parent's/aunt's/uncle's educations. They in term did the same for myself, my siblings, and my cousins. I am doing the same for my future children (My friends often tell me to live a little and comment about my dumpy apartment, my used furniture, etc while my savings and investments grow. No, I never skip out on the bill, not chip in for drinks, group gifts, etc)

If there is going to be price discrimination as described in the linked article why should I live so frugally for my future childrens' education? My future kids rich peers' parents will cover the extra expenses while I live lavishly now! Why should I save now and be the sucker?

How can the system help those who are disadvantaged while not indirectly encouraging people to be financially irresponsible? My gut reaction is to make educational "cheaper" for the rich while still accessible to those who really want it. Yes, I know this thought is antithesis to the linked article.

On the other hand if your grandparents and parents hadn't had to save so much to send their kids to college, what else could they have done with the money? Sure they might have "wasted" it on lavish living, but they might also have invested in something (like starting a company) which could have grown and given their children an even better future.

I don't buy that "forcing" people to work hard and live frugally if they want to their kids to go to college is in any way a good thing.

Who said they didn't start their own companies? My grandparents did as did several of my aunts and uncles, as did I.

And those who didn't start their own companies didn't simply throw money under a mattress. The money was indeed invested w/ thw childrens' future as the primary reason.

I think you missed my point. I'm all for investing for your kids future and think it would be a lot easier and more efficient to do so if you didn't have to save up to pay their exorbitant college fees as well.

> How can the system help those who are disadvantaged while not indirectly encouraging people to be financially irresponsible?

I think that the point is that financially irresponsible people will always be so. These people exist at all income levels. The person that 'lives it up' today usually is the person that isn't too interested in planning for the future.

From the individual's perspective, this is a valid point. However, the price discrimination decision is made by the institution, and it clearly has benefits to the institution.

In addition to raising more money, price discrimination also serves to attract better students by competing aggressively on price for students who are good but price sensitive. In this sense, the average student benefits from price discrimination.

Finally, even raising prices for the least price sensitive students increases the tuition to a small fraction of the true economic cost of education. For example, at the private school I attended the $30k/yr of tuition (this was 10yrs ago) covered approximately half of the $60k/yr per student it cost to run the school (the rest came out of the endowmment). There's a broader point here; the cost to California taxpayers of a UC education is well, well in excess of $10.3k/yr.

How can the system help those who are disadvantaged while not indirectly encouraging people to be financially irresponsible?

I'm going to take a potentially unpopular opinion here, but I think that a public system of education shouldn't concern itself with either of those two problems, and should instead operate on the principles of: (1) providing education, (2) to everyone, (3) equally.

The current trend of tuition hikes tend to violate (2) and compensating for this by engaging in price discrimination tends to violate (3).

To achieve all goals, tuition for a public university needs to be something that a graduate from said institution can reasonably repay without an undue burden; all students should pay the same rate; any further subsidization of a particular student's tuition by the public should be based on performance or assisting students in particular disciplines; and loans should be offered to all students.

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