Why can't universities have a flat tuition where everyone pays the same?

[Anonymous]

First, it’s not free for low income. For excellent students, there is merit scholarships. Merit is open to anyone. If a student with higher income parents wants to work hard to earn merit, they are welcome to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the very rich schools will soon move to a tuition-free model. And no aid for room and board (but require living on campus).

It solves a lot of issues, they could cut an entire FA department. Even if you're a broke 19yo, you could get some Pell money, make 5k a summer, and borrow the last 10k a year. For Harvard or Princeton or MIT, that's totally reasonable.

That’s hardly going to touch the tuition of $80,000 + a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the very rich schools will soon move to a tuition-free model. And no aid for room and board (but require living on campus).

It solves a lot of issues, they could cut an entire FA department. Even if you're a broke 19yo, you could get some Pell money, make 5k a summer, and borrow the last 10k a year. For Harvard or Princeton or MIT, that's totally reasonable.

That’s hardly going to touch the tuition of $80,000 + a year.

Well…tuition free of $0 will touch it. Did you miss PP’s lead?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Harvard all of a sudden charges a flat-rate tuition of 90k while Yale charges 90k sticker price with generous income-based financial aid like it has always done, Harvard will find it difficult to compete with Yale for lower/middle-income but bright students. The denominator in Harvard's acceptance rate will drop significantly, making it appear to be much less selective. The GPA distribution and SAT range of Harvard's accepted students will also drop quite a bit, since it will be drawing from a much smaller pool of applicants who almost certainly won't all have near 4.0 and 1500+. This will likely lead to a drop in ranking, slowly killing the aura of Harvard. It will also gradually develop a bad rep as "the school for the rich and only the rich," which is horrible optics that will be hard to undo. Yale's model may not be ideal nor fair to DCUM UMC families, but the alternative as suggested by OP is almost certainly going to bring down a top private school like Harvard.

Exactly this.

Presently, there's a positive feedback loop at the more elite universities. Top students are able to attend regardless of family income. Those brilliant middle class kids are what provides the university with its academic strength, which is the foundation of its brand. In time, those middle class students often become wealthy adults and donate generously to their alma mater.

If you were to make this college only available to the fairly small percentage of families that have $400,000 in cash available to pay for it up front, the feedback loop closes. The academic quality of the school will plummet. The brand gets tarnished. Future donations go way down because the quality has fallen dramatically and there's no value added to the the college experience. All the vitality and energy is gone. And the university becomes a boring finishing school for rich children. It's a very quick path to mediocrity and irrelevance.

Universities need bright middle class students. Without them, Harvard becomes Pepperdine very, very quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, it’s not free for low income. For excellent students, there is merit scholarships. Merit is open to anyone. If a student with higher income parents wants to work hard to earn merit, they are welcome to.

First, merit is just a part of the whole thing.
Obviously you don't know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do universities have to social engineers, giving free tuition to adults with low income parents and overcharging adults with higher incomes?

An adult with higher income parents more than likely has to finance the whole education with debt. Why does that adult deserve to be buried in debt when an adult who gets the same education, same career prospects, but parent make less, pays nothing?

Dcums gonna Dcum!

It is always hilarious to hear the UMC/UC complain how rough they have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are wealthy your kids should not be taking loans. You should have saved for them. This is 100% on you if your kids have loans.

Poor families cannot save enough so they get a break on the parent contribution part.

I grew up poor and had a full merit scholarship. but started college savings for my kids when pregnant. Make better life choices and your kids won’t be burdened. The burden in YOUR choice.

A LOT of rich parents don't agree with you. Even my own parents told me that they were rich and I had nothing. Parent's money is not the same thing as a kid's money.

My own DH does not want to pay for our kid's colleges. He pontificates about them having skin in the game, working during the summers, and making sure they choose good majors. I just nod and pump up their 529s. My children will not be paying for college. I would withhold money for bad grades though.

Unrealistic for MC/UMC kid (no need based financial aid) to work way through college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, it’s not free for low income. For excellent students, there is merit scholarships. Merit is open to anyone. If a student with higher income parents wants to work hard to earn merit, they are welcome to.

First, merit is just a part of the whole thing.
Obviously you don't know what you are talking about.[/

FA is often limited to pell grant and small supplement grant. The merit can be 25,000-50,000 a semester. With more than one in college on generous merit scholarships, I do have experience.

[Anonymous]

They should definitely do this if they want to have rich people schools instead of smart people schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The business term is "price discrimination" and extracting as much as possible from each tier of customer, based on their ability/willingness to pay.

For example, international students pay full fare (not eligible fro financial aid).

You see the same with airlines, and even movie theaters. Why does the same movie cost half the price when you see it during the weekday matinee compared to Friday night? It's the same movie after all.

Let’s bring it to an extreme: STEM, CS, and Econ students should be paying 3x as much, and humanities students 1/3. After all, those CS majors make for a very crowded airplane.

maybe but they should only fund the humanities programs by the lower tuition or the better idea is to charrge more to keep the department running

If there is no demand for humanities studies by students why should they exist?

There is huge demand. These are the majors where the jobs are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are wealthy your kids should not be taking loans. You should have saved for them. This is 100% on you if your kids have loans.

Poor families cannot save enough so they get a break on the parent contribution part.

I grew up poor and had a full merit scholarship. but started college savings for my kids when pregnant. Make better life choices and your kids won’t be burdened. The burden in YOUR choice.

The parents already pay a lot more taxes for the society.

They shouldn't be liable for adult kid's higher education.

Something is working with the system in this country.

What does a parent paying more for taxes have to do with private colleges?

Seems like you really want the US to become like the rest of the world and effectively nationalize private colleges.

All the top international universities are public. However, even schools like Toronto or Cambridge or Oxford provide FA…it’s just that rack rate is much lower for citizens.

Where have you been??
Private colleges became crybabies when Trump took away funding from them.
The private colleges are utilizing my tax money.

I don't care what other countries do.
In this country, if you are rich, you are careless and if you are poor, they get free pass.
Hardworking taxpaying middle class is severely getting punished and fukced.

It isn’t *your* money. It’s the government’s money. What a weird take on taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, it’s not free for low income. For excellent students, there is merit scholarships. Merit is open to anyone. If a student with higher income parents wants to work hard to earn merit, they are welcome to.

First, merit is just a part of the whole thing.
Obviously you don't know what you are talking about.

FA is often limited to pell grant and small supplement grant. The merit can be 25,000-50,000 a semester. With more than one in college on generous merit scholarships, I do have experience.

The private schools charge different amounts in the first place based on parental incomes.
You have limited experience and don't know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:.................

because college shouldn't be limited to the wealthy???

Jesus, op.

+1000

All these idiots explaining demand based pricing completely missing the mission of higher education. No, it’s not to make sure your child can get a $100k job upon graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are wealthy your kids should not be taking loans. You should have saved for them. This is 100% on you if your kids have loans.

Poor families cannot save enough so they get a break on the parent contribution part.

I grew up poor and had a full merit scholarship. but started college savings for my kids when pregnant. Make better life choices and your kids won’t be burdened. The burden in YOUR choice.

The parents already pay a lot more taxes for the society.

They shouldn't be liable for adult kid's higher education.

Something is working with the system in this country.

What does a parent paying more for taxes have to do with private colleges?

Seems like you really want the US to become like the rest of the world and effectively nationalize private colleges.

All the top international universities are public. However, even schools like Toronto or Cambridge or Oxford provide FA…it’s just that rack rate is much lower for citizens.

Where have you been??
Private colleges became crybabies when Trump took away funding from them.
The private colleges are utilizing my tax money.

I don't care what other countries do.
In this country, if you are rich, you are careless and if you are poor, they get free pass.
Hardworking taxpaying middle class is severely getting punished and fukced.

It isn’t *your* money. It’s the government’s money. What a weird take on taxes.

"What does a parent paying more for taxes have to do with private colleges?"

The private colleges are utilizing the tax I pay.
It has a lot to do with a parent paying taxes and the private colleges utilizing the taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are wealthy your kids should not be taking loans. You should have saved for them. This is 100% on you if your kids have loans.

Poor families cannot save enough so they get a break on the parent contribution part.

I grew up poor and had a full merit scholarship. but started college savings for my kids when pregnant. Make better life choices and your kids won’t be burdened. The burden in YOUR choice.

The parents already pay a lot more taxes for the society.

They shouldn't be liable for adult kid's higher education.

Something is working with the system in this country.

What does a parent paying more for taxes have to do with private colleges?

Seems like you really want the US to become like the rest of the world and effectively nationalize private colleges.

All the top international universities are public. However, even schools like Toronto or Cambridge or Oxford provide FA…it’s just that rack rate is much lower for citizens.

Where have you been??
Private colleges became crybabies when Trump took away funding from them.
The private colleges are utilizing my tax money.

I don't care what other countries do.
In this country, if you are rich, you are careless and if you are poor, they get free pass.
Hardworking taxpaying middle class is severely getting punished and fukced.

Wow, what a whining crybaby you are. Unreal that you can't see it.