<p>Not true. But I looked at the numbers, and thought 'Why not?'</p>
<p>Giving all 6000 undergraduates a full ride at the $45k price would mean a $270M outlay on paper. However, Harvard already has an $80M scholarship budget for undergraduates, which means they'd only have to come up with an extra $190M to even it out. Most importantly, Harvard has a roughly $20B endowment. Assuming a fairly conservative yearly increase of 5%, that means $1B in gains per year.</p>
<p>To give an Harvard students a full ride, they would only have to spend roughly a quarter of the increase of their endowment.</p>
<p>Surely it's an absurd idea. Somebody tell me why.</p>
<p>Why would you give away something for free when 52% of your market is willing to pay full freight for it, and would be willing to pay more (as is shown each year when tuition goes up?)</p>
<p>Will that do ya?</p>
<p>(The new Harvard policy affects precisely 111 students.)</p>
<p>I have been glad to read in some of Mini's posts that apparently MIT does share its wealth better than most of the Ivy League schools. And I agree with Mini's reasoning (the first reply in this thread) about why no school of that kind has gone over entirely to tuition-free billing.</p>
<p>Harvard paid ONE of its endowment fund managers - they are the only school that actually manages it own money - more than $30 million in salary and bonuses last year and they have a lot of people investing the $22 billion endowment. Kinda puts the $80 million in institutional finaid in perspective. </p>
<p>The question I have for mini (and everyone else) is why are we subsidizing Harvard with public financial aid for its students when the school is well able to subsidize them itself?</p>
<p>Of course a smilar question could be asked in many areas.</p>
<p>Why are we fighting so hard to get into "elite" schools when we have just spent roughly $200 billion in Iraq. </p>
<p>I saw a study here in Texas estimating we could create a flag ship university out of Tech Tech , the University of Houston or some of the other established state schools in Texas for an estimated $100 million apiece. As usual there was the lament that the cash strapped state government had no money.. I think the $100 million is low. Let's say $1 Billion to do it right.</p>
<p>Imagine 200 more flagship universities, including at least one or two more for each state. This is only what we are wasting in Iraq in the last two years.</p>
<p>Because tuition is still a significant source of income. The idea is that some people will always be able to afford expensive tuition (especially at a place like Harvard which attracts mainly upper-class applicants), and as such those on the other end of the spectrum get better financial aid.</p>
<p>I don't see any reason why a family like mine, which can pay, ought to get something for nothing. Harvard already subsidizes the fees for everyone (the tuition price only covers about half of the college's operating costs for a single student). Why should Donald Trump's kid get a free education?</p>
<p>I'd like to see a fee scale even more income-based than the present one -- 100millionaires should pay the REAL full price, and a lot more middle-class people should pay less than they do now.</p>
<p>Hanna, welcome to this board. You're a wellspring of helpful information. I'd like to see you post more often. Your personal epic from the Bryn Mawr days always makes good reading.</p>
<p>I suppose that's a paraphrase of the "it's a business just like anything else" argument. But the cases are not parallel. Yes, it's got to have money to stay afloat, and just like some people will pay for a Mercedes, some people will pay for Harvard. However, Harvard as an institution is not there to make money (unless you take the most cynical view, which you are certainly allowed to). Its primary mission is to educate.</p>
<p>"I'd like to see a fee scale even more income-based than the present one -- 100millionaires should pay the REAL full price, and a lot more middle-class people should pay less than they do now."</p>
<p>I've posed that before. Slowly, but surely, they are moving deliberatly toward that now, and they will get there, as tuition increases well outpace inflation.</p>
<p>So who should pay more, those of us who make more than $155K but live in places with average home prices of $700K and send kids to private school because we rank 48th in the nation for public schools? I know, I know, we're rich!</p>
<p>If you have a $700k home that continues to appreciate in value, you have a form of fixed savings that many would envy. Every month you put more and more money into your "savings account", saving for college. It is no different than someone putting money into a 529, except some colleges don't even count it as an asset (or at least not it's full value), appreciating at a rate far greater than a 529, AND you get to live in it. (The usual argument, which is one you didn't use, is that you HAVE to live in the $700k house so that you could send your kids to good PUBLIC school.)</p>
<p>As for the poor public schools, well you've put your finger on one of the reasons not too many end up at HYP. YOU are willing to spend oodles of money to give your kids a private school education (and more power to you; I might do the same, except my house is worth about a fifth of yours, we have no additional funds, and we homeschool), but not likely into property taxes to raise the status of the schools from 48th to 45th. And money matters - it is no accident that the nation's flagship university is also its richest.</p>
<p>Actually, though, folks with $155k incomes would likely benefit from higher tuitions, as more would fall into the financial need category. (In fact, some already do.)</p>
<p>This isn't my plight so I don't bring passion to the arguement, but I think the assumption that people wwith a lot of home equity can really tap into it is problematic. Let's face it, most people are not that mobile. Picking up and moving to someplace with cheaper house prices isn't going to happen for many. Refinancing and having a larger mortgage is also impossible for most in places like CA. They have stretched so much to buy the $700K house in a decent school district that larger monthly payments aren't an option. So their kids head off to the over crowded, under funded State U, fight their was through the red tape, get little exposure to anything new.....sad.</p>
<p>Oh please. People who are dirt poor or Bill-Gates-rich are the ones who don't have to worry about a thing. It's always the little guy in the middle of the financial spectrum that gets shafted.</p>