Some way shape or form the taxpayers paying for it

But here's the deal college has become unaffordable, it's become elitist. It's not a good value. If you don't $150,000 into your son becoming a master plumber and helping him start a business. He'd make three times as much as your son we're getting a degree and almost every area. Yes there's some exceptionally gifted people that can get into private equity they can get into investment banking they can get into petroleum engineering

The Collective said:

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My wife's parents got divorced when she was 16. It was not a good / convenient situation - her mom had been a stay at home mom for many years. The fed/state government essentially handed her grant $, because everything was based off her mom's income when she attended A&M. It is a crazy system that her dad was completely ignored in the equation.

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I think it's wrong to based a college student's financial need on their parent's income/wealth. They're an independent adult, and some parents refuse to pay for their kids' college on that basis. It's not a legal obligation for parents to pay for their offspring's college. That can really shaft a young adult who's trying to get an education.

Fwiw, I paid for all three of my kids' college because it was important to my wife and I that we help them get started in life. But that was a choice, not an obligation. I feel for these people that get caught in the trap of well-to-do parents who decide not to fund their kids' college -- or only a small portion -- yet the youngster can't get access to all the loans they need because of "rich" parents.

MemphisAg1 said:

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Tom Fox said:

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redcrayon said:

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Sounds like TX works out great for you! I definitely wouldn't move if I were you.

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I wouldn't. Georgia is a poverty ridden shlthole controlled by Atlanta. I never saw true generational poverty until I policed in Savannah.

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There are plenty of nice parts of GA. I've lived in both ATL and SAV and saw the same stuff you reference, but it's really not any different than parts of Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio. As we both know, there are still many great parts of TX outside those areas.

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I was a fed in Dallas, San Antonio, and Savannah.

I never saw anything like Yamacraw, Hitch Village, Katen Homes or Frazier in either Dallas or San Antonio.

Someone shot a police K9 while we were walking through Yamacraw.

MemphisAg1 said:

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The Collective said:

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My wife's parents got divorced when she was 16. It was not a good / convenient situation - her mom had been a stay at home mom for many years. The fed/state government essentially handed her grant $, because everything was based off her mom's income when she attended A&M. It is a crazy system that her dad was completely ignored in the equation.

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I think it's wrong to based a college student's financial need on their parent's income/wealth. They're an independent adult, and some parents refuse to pay for their kids' college on that basis. It's not a legal obligation for parents to pay for their offspring's college. That can really shaft a young adult who's trying to get an education.

Fwiw, I paid for all three of my kids' college because it was important to my wife and I that we help them get started in life. But that was a choice, not an obligation. I feel for these people that get caught in the trap of well-to-do parents who decide not to fund their kids' college -- or only a small portion -- yet the youngster can't get access to all the loans they need because of "rich" parents.

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This here. Also there are all kinds of circumstances that make this a flawed system. What if you had Grandparents that had always said they would contribute and then don't? What is you tried to save money but not nearly enough because of a million different life situations, that money is actually used AGAINST you in determining what you pay. As you said many parents may make plenty of money but not feel like they should pay for college and some do, how is that on the kid?

In the end the kid is the one who pays the bill or is responsible for it not the parent unless the parent chooses to pay or is able to pay. You can also cause huge resentment within families when parents tried to save but didn't save enough. Then you have another kid over here that had parents that didn't even pretend to care about saving anything and they get a free ride. So the kid who had parents who tried to help and paid taxes having their kid graduate with a bunch of debt and the kid who had parents who didn't help, didn't save, and often paid minimal taxes graduating debt free.

It's socialism.

By letting them frame the issue, they have already won.

Tax cuts and individual responsibility are always the correct answer.

Any money provided by the school should be merit based only.

Tom Fox said:

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By letting them frame the issue, they have already won.

Tax cuts and individual responsibility are always the correct answer.

Any money provided by the school should be merit based only.

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I agree. The problem is we are completely in the opposite direction. Everything at A&M and Texas is based around means and First Gen with very little merit aid. Thus the majority pay higher rates so that a minority can go for free. That includes some illegal aliens btw even in Texas.

It's also lunacy that many kids who can get into A&M can go to multiple OOS Flagship schools for less.

Our priorities are completely out of whack but as you said the framing has people arguing about the wrong things and ignoring what should be obvious.

Sorry to be a cynic, but the more stuff they make free, the less valued it becomes, and the more expensive and corrupted it gets. They need to do that for trade schools, instead.

And we are paying. Public colleges sit on a gold mine and use other funding while continuing to take tax $. Reduce your state budget requirement instead of giving away freebies.

Yesterday said:

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Click here

Quote:

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Students whose families make less than $100,000 annually will get free tuition and waived fees at any of the academic universities in the University of Texas System, the board of regents announced Wednesday.

The initiative is an expansion of the Promise Plus Program, a needs-based financial aid program approved by the board in 2022. The UT System expects that more than 7 million Texas families will meet the income requirements for the new program, officials said.

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Apparently it is coming from their endowment and not public funds....but....if they distributed this money to every student they could lower tuition for everyone. Thoughts?

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This is their attempt to counter the new DEI prohibitions that were passed in the last legislative session. They are circumventing the recent Supreme Court decisions regarding this issue.

MAROON said:

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Sorry to be a cynic, but the more stuff they make free, the less valued it becomes, and the more expensive and corrupted it gets. They need to do that for trade schools, instead.

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They are

Arlington
Dallas
El Paso
Permian Basin
San Antonio

MIT joins the party with free tuition for families less than $200k a year.

We seeing a move in some direction with all this.

Schools got fat off that student loan money for 2-decades now they guilty about it.

This the same as Purdue Pharma offering free treatment to opiod addicts.

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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MIT joins the party with free tuition for families less than $200k a year.

We seeing a move in some direction with all this.

Schools got fat off that student loan money for 2-decades now they guilty about it.

This the same as Purdue Pharma offering free treatment to opiod addicts.

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This isn't anything new.

Yale and Harvard offer similar need-based aid, if your family income is below $70k a year, you attend free. The endowment pays your tuition/fees/room/board, the only thing you pay for is books. If you're admitted to Harvard/Yale and decide to attend, you can find the $3k annually to pay for books.

They've had these programs for a quite a while now.

Backyard Gator said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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MIT joins the party with free tuition for families less than $200k a year.

We seeing a move in some direction with all this.

Schools got fat off that student loan money for 2-decades now they guilty about it.

This the same as Purdue Pharma offering free treatment to opiod addicts.

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This isn't anything new.

Yale and Harvard offer similar need-based aid, if your family income is below $70k a year, you attend free. The endowment pays your tuition/fees/room/board, the only thing you pay for is books. If you're admitted to Harvard/Yale and decide to attend, you can find the $3k annually to pay for books.

They've had these programs for a quite a while now.

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Stanford is similar. Essentially all of the big research private schools with small undergrad populations. The reality is the truly elite schools have twice as many grad students as undergrad and the undergrad population is relatively small. Stanford is about 8k. They have plenty of monster donors but they get massive amounts of research spending and other ways they make money. In the end the money they get from undergrad tuition is a smaller and smaller part of their revenue.