Not sure that I agree.
Sure, an Ivy school is a good banner to have on one's resume... but the real value is what students put into their education. After all Calculus and Physics are the same at Harvard or Podunk CC, are they not?
Is It Time to Tax Harvard’s Endowment?
- Thread starter rmorse
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Not sure that I agree.
Sure, an Ivy school is a good banner to have on one's resume... but the real value is what students put into their education. After all Calculus and Physics are the same at Harvard or Podunk CC, are they not?
rmorse
Sponsor
Yes, the quality of the education you get is often tied to the effort you put in. But the opportunities that open up to you at top schools has a lot of value. Another question would be, do you go to college to learn, or get a good job? Different for everyone. I went to college because I was expected to by my parents and to get a job. The learning meant little to me. I went to grad school for me.
Agree, that's a high value asset. So, why should that be free? If resume cred has value, shouldn't you have to pay for it? After all, you can get the same "learnin'" elsewhere if you make the effort.
As a Harvard/top school grad you may get an "initial shot" or two with the help of your resume... but you're only going to stick/advance based upon what you know and can produce.
(I'm not putting kids through college, but having worked my way through on my own, I'd be thinking something like this....
1. Go to Community College for 2 years and get good grades.
2. Transfer to some State college for the next 2 years of your BS degree and graduate Cum Laude or better.
3. Do the above, and I'll pay for grad school so you can get that plum on your resume from any college you want.)
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rmorse
Sponsor
I was not saying that education should be free. I'm saying that these schools are nonprofit institutions. They charge tuition to pay the expenses of the school. If they can get these fees covered by investing, they should lower or get rid of tuition. Imagine if some hedge fund right now started a school to be tax exempt. Then paid themselves big salaries. If it were done the other way around, they would not be issued tax exempt status on their for-profit activities.
Most of tuition at most top schools is paid for by the endowment, not student's parent's cutting checks. So what you're advocating for is already the status quo.
I say the colleges should ban financial aid altogether - no more hand-wringing of which shade or impoverished background is most worthy of today's sensibilities. But then they would have to charge everyone the same price, and that price would have to be reasonable instead of massively inflated. It's like medical billing - they quote you $1000 for an aspirin and if you're lucky you can negotiate them down some, gee how generous of them!
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I'm sympathetic to your frustration with what is essentially a fake tuition number provided which as you pointed out is much like the essentially fake price for medical procedures.
However, I as an alumni donated money to our endowment specifically so that my university would provide free tuition and room and board to students who come from families who would otherwise not be able to afford it. I'm not sure you can or would want to ban me from doing that. Its my money and generally in free societies like ours we can spend it however we want as long as it's not hurting anyone.
Should the government effectively subsidize/multiply that with tax free status; that's a much harder question. I'd tend to say probably not and would support revoking that status, but only as long as it is accompanied by revocation of tax free status for the portion of donations for religious entities that goes to perpetuation of the religion, i.e. the money donated to pay the minister's salary isn't tax deductible, the money used to run the soup kitchen is.
not every valedictorian gets into an ivy league school because grades are not the sole criteria at a private school. their parents assuming they are telling the truth make too much
money to qualify for a tuition free scholarship, 60k t0 100k income. their financial affairs based upon some formula by the college might be a burden they don't wish to endure. then again this is the plight of the middle and upper middle class of the US. they pay and get squeezed by the government and in this case perhaps by private schools but much less so by the Ivy schools.
by the way, the US government should show financial acumen by running a surplus like Harvard instead of massive deficits burdening future generations.
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The rigor , pace and peer competition of a calculus course varies greatly from Dry Gulch U. to
Harvard to MIT.
The sorting process is clear. It would be pointless of MIT to accept a student who cannot compete. There are fat tails of course, the savant in a tent, but overall the system works to seperate the best and brightest, as it should.
Harvard to MIT.
The sorting process is clear. It would be pointless of MIT to accept a student who cannot compete. There are fat tails of course, the savant in a tent, but overall the system works to seperate the best and brightest, as it should.
rmorse
Sponsor
Of course I agree to this. There are more HS in america than spots in Ivy schools. That does not include foreign schools.