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.

---

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.

It's always the middle class that gets ****ed!

aggie93 said:

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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.

---

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.

---

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.

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But MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are all private. They can do whatever they want for all I care.

texagbeliever said:

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Actually tax payers are giving free education.

If texas (and A&M) have such great endowments why should the state give them any money?

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Those endowments don't come close to covering the cost of attending A&M or tu. I looked a few years ago and found that the A&M Endowment was about $250k/student. At that time my daughter was considering Vanderbilt and their endowment was like $730k/student. For comparison Notre Dame's was like $1.2m/student. Harvard has the biggest endowment at $50B which is like $2.3m/student. Total cost of attendance is like $33k at A&M so it would take close to $500k/student to have an endowment big enough to cover everything for every student. That doesn't count the taxpayer dollars which I think is about 25% of the budget.

Vanderbilt is one of those schools that will pay up to 100% of the cost based on need. For our specific case we were looking at a total cost of $80k/year and an out of pocket of $30k/year which is obviously on par with A&M and tu. What we learned about Vanderbilt is that part of their formula is that all undergraduate students must live in the dorms unless they are married. Simply put it's a cost control measure.

When Universities make tuition free for students under a certain income threshold, all it means is families with an income over that are paying double.

GrandStand93 said:

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aggie93 said:

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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.

---

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.

---

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.

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But MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are all private. They can do whatever they want for all I care.

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I don't disagree. What I don't like though is Texas and A&M are emulating them and we have completely different missions and funding. What we are doing is far worse on several levels, for instance Stanford has about 5% of students graduate with any college debt at all because of how they do their aid and the others are similar.

The way we are doing things encourages people who have low income to attend which is fine generally, though many are Top 10/5% types from bad HS's that are the most likely to flunk out and you still have a lot of other expenses with school (those kids are more likely to succeed staying closer to home and going to a school they are better academically prepared for though there are plenty of exceptions). You also have massive amounts of upper middle class kids graduating with huge debt because they have to pay $120-150k for their degree and a lot don't have it. Oh, and many won't qualify for more than the minimum $5500 Federal Loan so they get to take out private loans at higher interest that can't be forgiven and accrue interest immediately.

It's the "donut hole". People that make too much to qualify for aid but don't have enough money to pay for college. It's a big freaking hole filled with people that played by the rules and pay a boatload of taxes.

aggie93 said:

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GrandStand93 said:

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aggie93 said:

---

Backyard Gator said:

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

But MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are all private. They can do whatever they want for all I care.

---

I don't disagree. What I don't like though is Texas and A&M are emulating them and we have completely different missions and funding. What we are doing is far worse on several levels, for instance Stanford has about 5% of students graduate with any college debt at all because of how they do their aid and the others are similar.

The way we are doing things encourages people who have low income to attend which is fine generally, though many are Top 10/5% types from bad HS's that are the most likely to flunk out and you still have a lot of other expenses with school (those kids are more likely to succeed staying closer to home and going to a school they are better academically prepared for though there are plenty of exceptions). You also have massive amounts of upper middle class kids graduating with huge debt because they have to pay $120-150k for their degree and a lot don't have it. Oh, and many won't qualify for more than the minimum $5500 Federal Loan so they get to take out private loans at higher interest that can't be forgiven and accrue interest immediately.

It's the "donut hole". People that make too much to qualify for aid but don't have enough money to pay for college. It's a big freaking hole filled with people that played by the rules and pay a boatload of taxes.

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I highly doubt someone paying a boatload of income taxes cannot afford to send their kids to a state university.

More likely, it is someone making between $100k and $200k and is not paying a boatload in taxes but still cannot afford to send their kids to a state school very easily.

LOYAL AG said:

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texagbeliever said:

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Actually tax payers are giving free education.

If texas (and A&M) have such great endowments why should the state give them any money?

---

Those endowments don't come close to covering the cost of attending A&M or tu. I looked a few years ago and found that the A&M Endowment was about $250k/student. At that time my daughter was considering Vanderbilt and their endowment was like $730k/student. For comparison Notre Dame's was like $1.2m/student. Harvard has the biggest endowment at $50B which is like $2.3m/student. Total cost of attendance is like $33k at A&M so it would take close to $500k/student to have an endowment big enough to cover everything for every student. That doesn't count the taxpayer dollars which I think is about 25% of the budget.

Vanderbilt is one of those schools that will pay up to 100% of the cost based on need. For our specific case we were looking at a total cost of $80k/year and an out of pocket of $30k/year which is obviously on par with A&M and tu. What we learned about Vanderbilt is that part of their formula is that all undergraduate students must live in the dorms unless they are married. Simply put it's a cost control measure.

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Yep, it's a totally different model. A&M's endowment also has all kinds of restrictions (especially PUF money) but they get additional money from the State. It's apples and bananas. There is also a significant difference even between Vanderbilt and Harvard/MIT/Yale/Stanford in terms of revenue models and number of students.

My biggest question on this type of stuff is whether it actually promotes parents getting divorced to hit a target. I imagine it does somewhat, but no idea to what extent. Even if a small rate, that's not a good social policy, imho.

Tom Fox said:

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aggie93 said:

---

GrandStand93 said:

---

aggie93 said:

---

Backyard Gator said:

---

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

But MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are all private. They can do whatever they want for all I care.

---

I don't disagree. What I don't like though is Texas and A&M are emulating them and we have completely different missions and funding. What we are doing is far worse on several levels, for instance Stanford has about 5% of students graduate with any college debt at all because of how they do their aid and the others are similar.

The way we are doing things encourages people who have low income to attend which is fine generally, though many are Top 10/5% types from bad HS's that are the most likely to flunk out and you still have a lot of other expenses with school (those kids are more likely to succeed staying closer to home and going to a school they are better academically prepared for though there are plenty of exceptions). You also have massive amounts of upper middle class kids graduating with huge debt because they have to pay $120-150k for their degree and a lot don't have it. Oh, and many won't qualify for more than the minimum $5500 Federal Loan so they get to take out private loans at higher interest that can't be forgiven and accrue interest immediately.

It's the "donut hole". People that make too much to qualify for aid but don't have enough money to pay for college. It's a big freaking hole filled with people that played by the rules and pay a boatload of taxes.

---

I highly doubt someone paying a boatload of income taxes cannot afford to send their kids to a state university.

More likely, it is someone making between $100k and $200k and is not paying a boatload in taxes but still cannot afford to send their kids to a state school very easily.

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This is a very naive statement.

Lots of people who pay high taxes didn't always make a lot of money and are hitting peak income at the wrong time and are also trying to save money to retire someday. Let's say you have 3 kids of similar age. So that's $4-500k to send them to school or a couple of years of income (before taxes). Folks in that bracket get virtually no deductions and they qualify for no aid or programs, they pay full price for everything.

The student is also the one responsible for the cost here not the parents. So you are assuming that anyone making say $300k and getting raked on taxes with no deductions and doesn't qualify for any programs simply has several hundred thousand dollars sitting around and they are ready to spend it on their kids college. Some of those folks haven't made that kind of money for long. Some had other financial burdens to deal with. Some are trying to play catch up to retire someday. There are many other reasons. Let's not forget you are penalized in FAFSA if you have saved money or have investments too so if you save you better have saved enough. If you show you have no savings you get rewarded with free money.

The larger point is that this is all socialism and social engineering. The price should be the same for everyone and kept as low as possible for a state school. If there are outside scholarships or merit scholarships that's great but this is raising the price for one group to have them pay more for others to go for free. Oh, and the kid pays the price for their parents decisions.

nortex97 said:

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My biggest question on this type of stuff is whether it actually promotes parents getting divorced to hit a target. I imagine it does somewhat, but no idea to what extent. Even if a small rate, that's not a good social policy, imho.

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It all depends on the opinion of some administrator at the school who gets to decide how you should have lived your life and what you should pay in the end. Even if they have the best of intentions it's a terrible idea to have them involved in those decisions.

The only thing I am arguing is that the middle class pays a "boatload" in taxes. They do not. I agree with the rest of your statement. This seems to be a common misconception.

We absolutely agree that scholarships should be based on merit alone.

I have gone from around $120K to > $850K in income in the past 6.5 years. So I am aware of the tax consequences at each income band. I am now 50 with a 13 and 10 year old and have not been making great money for very long. However, I get the privilege of paying right at 30% to income taxes. So well over $200K and at $300 if you include FICA.

A family making around $150k if they use their IRA contributions and some 401K contributions will pay right around 10%. Exactly what every single American should be paying in net federal income taxes. Then we are equals.

Tom Fox said:

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The only thing I am arguing is that the middle class pays a "boatload" in taxes. They do not. I agree with the rest of your statement. This seems to be a common misconception.

We absolutely agree that scholarships should be based on merit alone.

I have gone from around $120K to > $850K in income in the past 6.5 years. So I am aware of the tax consequences at each income band. I am now 50 with a 13 and 10 year old and have not been making great money for very long. However, I get the privilege of paying right at 30% to income taxes. So well over $200K and at $300 if you include FICA.

A family making around $150k if they use their IRA contributions and some 401K contributions will pay right around 10%. Exactly what every single American should be paying in net federal income taxes. Then we are equals.

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I said "upper middle class", so someone in the $200-400k range and they hit the higher brackets. They also are probably maxing SS, paying a ton in property taxes, etc.

Let's go with your assumption of $150k though and assume they are "only" paying $15-20k because they can afford to take advantage of other deductions (which you shouldn't assume because everyone is in a different situation). So that person should have 3x their income saved to send their 3 kids to college plus retirement and other expenses? Of course they likely haven't been making that kind of money for that long so they had to have been very savvy investors to that point. Hope they don't have any medical issues or have to help out other family members.

The problem is the idea itself of deciding what you think people should pay based on income. Every person and family is different and it puts immense power in some administrator with the school to make those decisions based around a very flawed FAFSA form. Even if that person has the best of intentions that's just wrong. Reward the irresponsible and penalize the responsible or more accurately the children of those groups. It's also a system filled with holes and ways you can game it depending on how you get your income and how willing or able you are to move your money around. It's just wrong. Make the price as low as possible for everyone and have merit scholarships. If someone wants to apply for additional needs based aid so be it as well but how much money your parents make shouldn't be the main driver of what you pay for college.

aggie93 said:

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Tom Fox said:

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The only thing I am arguing is that the middle class pays a "boatload" in taxes. They do not. I agree with the rest of your statement. This seems to be a common misconception.

We absolutely agree that scholarships should be based on merit alone.

I have gone from around $120K to > $850K in income in the past 6.5 years. So I am aware of the tax consequences at each income band. I am now 50 with a 13 and 10 year old and have not been making great money for very long. However, I get the privilege of paying right at 30% to income taxes. So well over $200K and at $300 if you include FICA.

A family making around $150k if they use their IRA contributions and some 401K contributions will pay right around 10%. Exactly what every single American should be paying in net federal income taxes. Then we are equals.

---

I said "upper middle class", so someone in the $200-400k range and they hit the higher brackets. They also are probably maxing SS, paying a ton in property taxes, etc.

Let's go with your assumption of $150k though and assume they are "only" paying $15-20k because they can afford to take advantage of other deductions (which you shouldn't assume because everyone is in a different situation). So that person should have 3x their income saved to send their 3 kids to college plus retirement and other expenses? Of course they likely haven't been making that kind of money for that long so they had to have been very savvy investors to that point. Hope they don't have any medical issues or have to help out other family members.

The problem is the idea itself of deciding what you think people should pay based on income. Every person and family is different and it puts immense power in some administrator with the school to make those decisions based around a very flawed FAFSA form. Even if that person has the best of intentions that's just wrong. Reward the irresponsible and penalize the responsible or more accurately the children of those groups. It's also a system filled with holes and ways you can game it depending on how you get your income and how willing or able you are to move your money around. It's just wrong. Make the price as low as possible for everyone and have merit scholarships. If someone wants to apply for additional needs based aid so be it as well but how much money your parents make shouldn't be the main driver of what you pay for college.

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I agree completely.

I actually think tax payer money shouldn't go to education at all. Leave that money with the taxpayer and let them decide how to spend it.

Make all schools private and let them decide how to distribute aid money.