All their employees pay income taxes What other income taxes would Stanford pay?
Well, Stanford is likely taking in more than $1B per year in investment income, so that might be a place to start.
Other taxes colleges that operate like yacht clubs providing a benefit/preference for their members/children should be paying:
- Property taxes
- Sales taxes on items used in operations
- No more tax deduction for "donors" - ie the "donations" that serve to give your kid a better chance at admissions are recognized for what they are - providing a donor benefit not a 100% charitable gift
@roycroftmom @milee30 - are any of those INCOME taxes?
Yes, investment income such as income from rent or interest is considered ordinary income and subject to tax.
Charitable contribution to these universities are not taxed and the individual taxpayer who made the donation can can a deduction off their income taxes owed some in some ways the U.S. taxpayers are paying for this donation.
Also, a new law was passed by Congress in 2017 that large endowment private colleges (e.g. Harvard) will have to pay an excise tax on their investment income. It’s estimated that 25-30 of the largest private endowed colleges will pay this additional tax.
I don’t have a problem with this but I also want to point out that colleges like Stanford, educate students who are the ones creating new businesses, technology, medicine, health care products, expanding the arts, etc. that will benefit the masses. They are not just “educating the wealthy” as some claim.
Yes, a whopping 1.4 percent tax for those colleges with endowments exceeding 500k per student, as PP pointed out.
Colleges are not exempt from sales taxes in California…if they purchase paper and printers for staff use, they would pay sales tax on such items.
(the only time that they could be exempt is if they are playing a middle-man and still tax the end user. For example, a college purchases a bunch of water bottles from high tech water bottle company so the the college can print its own logo on the water bottle and then sell it to alums @ retail. The original purchase from the water bottle manufacture might be exempt as long as the college collect sales taxes at its retail/online store.)
“More recently these elite male schools also started to admit a lot of brilliant students who don’t come from wealthy families. Gasp: some were even Jews, Black and even female!”
So Harvard is not some kind of leader wrt social reform and they probably don’t want to be. Women had to fight to get admission, the first women who tried got this from Harvard: "We were told not to disturb the present system of education which is the result of the experience and wisdom of the past,”. It was actually the grad schools at Harvard that accepted women early on, not Harvard College.
“Yes, a whopping 1.4 percent tax for those colleges with endowments exceeding 500k per student, as PP pointed out.”
It’s a start, that’s basically a hedge fund they operate.
@MWolf First, I made a mistake. It was the daughter of Jane Pauley & Garry Trudeau.
I didn’t say anything about “poor little misunderstood rich kids.” I felt sorry for one particular rich kid because, even in an article based solely on the poor roommate’s version of events, it was obvious that the richer kid had really tried hard to be nice to her & the poorer kid had shut her out. Some rich kids are utterly oblivious, but many others aren’t. BTW, some of the most oblivious do learn when they come into contact with poorer classmates/teammates/orchestra members, etc.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about none of the poorer kids feeling just plain jealous of “the haves.” IME, some do. Some don’t. IME, those who don’t tend to succeed in life more than those who do. Again, just my experience, but the dynamic isn’t all that different than that sometimes suffered by the exceptionally beautiful, especially exceptionally beautiful females. There are some people who will dislike them without knowing them at all, just because they are beautiful & they are jealous. (And the world of “incels” who hate the “Chads and Staceys” is frightening.) There are poor people who are convinced that anyone with a lot of $ is evil.
I agree that it’s harder to be poor than to be rich. But your statement that
is just not true IME. Most of the poorer kids who end up at top schools have been told their entire lives that they are very, very special–and they are. It’s true that many worry about fitting in socially, but I don’t think there are many poor kids at H whose best hope is that after graduation they will just escape poverty. Believe me, many of them are EXTREMELY ambitious–that’s why they applied to H in the first place
Nor did I say that I thought it was wrong for the roommate to befriend the cafeteria workers because she felt as if she had more in common with them than most other kids at Yale. However, I DO think the fact that she seemingly failed to make friends with any other students at Yale said quite a bit about her. She wasn’t the only kid at Yale on financial aid and, again, while I’m basing this on one article, it didn’t seem as if she’d made ANY effort to find “her people” among the student body. (Working in the dining hall is considered one of the better work-study jobs at Yale.A lot of Yalies work in the dining hall but she apparently didn’t become friendly with any of the others. )
An important point–which you’ve ignored–is that the socioeconomic divides don’t just exist at HYPS. They ALSO exist at many, if not most, public flagships. Poor kids often feel “alienated & alone” at public Us too.Again, if you don’t believe me I suggest you read “Paying for the Party” which is about Indiana U.
How do you know most rich kids who end up at top schools have lived in a bubble? Do you have any statistical data to backup that statement? I agree that a lot have; I’m just not sure it’s “most.” Assume you’re right…why do you think the rich kids who end up at state Us who have worked hard to attract wealthy Out Of Staters who will pay full tuition are less likely to have grown up in a bubble of rich people? Do you think that the rich kids at Dalton or Harvard Westlake or Grottlesex who end up in the middle of the class or can’t break 1300 on the SAT with extensive tutoring for both classes and the test and therefore end up at Indiana U or U of Colorado or U of Vermont are nicer or more humble than the rich kids at the same secondary schools with better grades & higher test scores? If so, please explain how you reached that conclusion?
IME there is more intermingling among the haves & have nots at some top colleges than at some state flagships. Most top colleges require students to live on campus for at least 2 years; some require more. Housing is usually more or less randomly assigned. At some flagships, you can pick your freshman year roommate. You can also pay more money for nicer dorms which tends to segregate kids by family income. You can often move off campus earlier & often there are expensive apt complexes with lots of amenities that cater to the wealthiest group. Some even have Greek rush before class starts & often the Greek group is much wealthier than the student body as a whole. At others, different sororities & sororities are divided by family income levels. At some flagships, you need letters of recommendation from alumnae who belonged to that sorority in order to rush or at least rush with a chance of getting in. How much of a barrier do you think that is for poor kids?
Again, I’m NOT claiming that there aren’t socioeconomic divides at top schools. It’s just that IME those divides are no bigger than at most state flagships.
The previous post just doesn’t actually reflect reality for most public institutions though.
Brown average family income 204,200, 70% from the top 20%, 19% from families earning over 630K per year (the 1%)
Yale average family income 192,600, 69% from the top 20%, 19% from families earning over 630K per year (the 1%)
Ohio State average family income 104,100, 46% top 20%, 2% earning over 630K (the 1%)
Indiana University average family income 95,800, 42% top 20%, 3% over 630K (the 1%)
SUNY Buffalo average family income 99,400, 43% top 20%, <1% over 630K (the 1%)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility
@jonri I agree that many of the flagships suffer from similar issues of socioeconomic divides, and that sometimes it’s even worse. Since the thread is about the private “elites”, I spoke about the private “elites”. The more “elite” public universities are fairly similar in regards to segregation by income.
You spoke about poor kids at “elite” private colleges who were being unfriendly, so that is why I also spoke about these colleges.
I also didn’t say that the rich kids aren’t nice. In fact, most try to be nice, especially in smaller colleges. They simply do not speak the same language.
As for the alienation and loneliness of poor kids at “elite” private colleges? This isn’t something new or unknown. This isn’t some controversial claim that has been argued over many times. It is well known and well accepted, and it is one of the things that some “elite” colleges have recently been attempting to address.
In fact, Deborah Bial, MacArthur Genius awardee (among other awards), established an organization in 1989 specifically to help students with this, by making sure they attend college with a group of kids they know. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Posse Foundation.
How do I know that the very wealthy live in bubbles? Where will a kid growing up in a very affluent suburb meet and interact with poor kids? Where will a kid in a wealthy gated community attending a private school meet poor kids?
I have known a good number of fairly wealthy people, and I have known a good number of people who grew up wealthy. Most of them did grow up in a bubble until they got to college. My brother lives in such a community, and his kids and their friends have definitely grown up in a bubble.
Agree, and everything about different levels of housing, Greek life etc exacerbates this divide.
The “growing up in a bubble” stuff is so subjective. I can recount anecdotes of students who IMO did and didn’t, but that means just about nothing.
@MWolf I’m familiar with Posse. Many of its programs are at colleges that I personally don’t consider among the most elite. The only Posse kids I know —they’re siblings–went to Lawrence U in Appleton, Wisconsin. Here is a list of the Posse colleges. https://www.possefoundation.org/supporting-scholars/college-university-partners Some are what I would consider elite; some are not. Additionally, some of the Posse colleges are public institutions.
So, I don’t think the program’s existence supports the argument that the socioeconomic divide is somehow more of a problem at the most selective private colleges than it is at other schools. Nor do I think it’s worse at U Michigan and Berkeley and UVa than it is at U of Colorado, Indiana U or U Vermont. (As a NYC resident, the latter 3 are among the ones I’m aware of as being attractive to “not in the least academic” offspring from wealthy families who are near the bottom of the class at independent schools and whose parents just want them to get a degree and are well able to pay OOS sticker price.)
@MusakParent I don’t think how much kids from poor & wealthy kids interact at a given college is determined by the median family income and/or the percentage of kids from families in the top 20% or top 1%. (Moreover,there’s one heck of a difference between a household income of $100,00 in Cleveland or South Bend and NYC or Boston or San Francisco.) There are schools which are structured in such a way that students from all sorts of backgrounds interact. At others, they don’t. For example–I don’t know if it’s still the case, but it used to be that at Swarthmore no on-campus events could charge students admission. So, student theatre and musical productions were free. So were all on-campus movies and sporting events. This in and of itself allows students from different socioeconomic backgrounds to socialize with one another, at least to some extent. ( I assure you that the kids at my offspring’s selective NYC high school were told about this policy by the high school GC; that’s why I know.) So, while the median household income at Swarthmore is high and the percent of those who come from the top 20% is high, Swarthmore tries hard to make campus events accessible to all.
As for growing up in a rich kid bubble…I agree with @OHMomof2 , it varies. Not every rich kid lives in suburbia and even some who do don’t spend 100% of their time there. My offspring attended a selective NYC public school. The full range of socioeconomic backgrounds was represented. Even at the most expensive independent NYC schools & elite boarding schools, there are kids on heavy financial aid.
You ask
Do any of those kids participate in ECs? I’m neither rich nor poor and I live in NYC, so I can’t opine much about suburbia. But through participation in ECs, my offspring met kids from very diverse backgrounds from all over New York City, New York state and even nationally. Some of them even lived in suburbia!
In any event, my main purpose in posting this is to assure kids from less affluent families that IF you’re child can get into Harvard or Princeton or Stanford or Yale or Brown, don’t let the feeling that they won’t fit in with the “rich kids” make them pass it up. Yes, there may be some awkward moments, but in all honesty, I doubt there will be more of them than at your public flagship.
Our family experience has been along the lines of what @Jonri describes above. Both kids went/go to “elite/wealthy” private schools, but their friends are pretty diverse. D lived on campus all 4 years and has close friends running the entire gamut of the SES spectrum. Their common denominator was they either were on the softball team or shared my D’s major. Same with S, who has some incredibly wealthy friends (he watched Crazy Rich Asians the other night to see what world some of his friends come from, lol) as well as friends with 0 EFC. Meanwhile, most of their HS friends who went to State U have less diverse friends. For many of the girls, their social circle has been dictated by their sororities which are very much driven by family SES and connections (many required LoR’s of alumnae). For the boys it has been both fraternities and off campus living situations.
Sure some of the uber rich self segregate in college, but so do athletes, students within certain racial or ethnic groups, students within majors, students who are deeply involved in certain causes, even students from the same geographic area. Kids 18-22 form groups mainly from shared interests and rarely from just the size of their parents’ bank account or their personal trust fund.
SES segregation can vary quite a bit. Having attended Stanford, I didn’t see the large divide between rich and poor than many posters have alluded to. At my HS, my home town, and nearly everywhere else I have lived there appeared to be far more of an SES class divide than at Stanford.
In the vast majority of cases at Stanford, I had little idea how wealthy or poor a student’s parents were since I didn’t know the parents and hadn’t grown up with the students or visited their parents’ houses. I didn’t ask about wealth or parents, and kids rarely volunteered such information. Rather than talk about wealth or their parents, students talked about their classes, what was going on with other students in the dorm, and various other things specific to the college. My family was lower income than the vast majority of students. Maybe some students guessed I was lower SES than most because I didn’t have a computer, didn’t wear designer clothes, mentioned attending a high school that offered few AP classes, etc. However, I don’t know for sure as I cannot recall any kind of class isolation or negative treatment by other students due to SES.
After graduating, I learned that some of my freshman dorm members came from wealthy families via social networking, such as learning they are working at their father’s well known company, etc. I can’t recall any of these extremely wealthy dorm members isolating or being isolated based on SES class. Instead cliques and friendships often formed around some combination of interests, values, shared activities/academics, living proximity, and race. For example, the wealthy kid I mentioned above used to have frequent parties that all dorm members were invited to, leading to friendships with the dorm members that chose to regularly attend and enjoyed partying.
Financial aid is available for many families with incomes of $200k or greater, which often involves a campus job. Some students also pursue campus work for reasons other than financial aid. So seeing someone work a campus job was not a meaningful indicator of being lower income. In freshman year, one of the more common jobs was working in the cafeteria as a hasher. It wasn’t unusual to befriend cafeteria workers, as the majority of cafeteria workers appeared to be students in the dorm. I am not aware of anyone being treated different because of SES implications from working a campus job, including hasher.
After freshman year, undergraduate dorm selection is done by “the draw”, which is sort of like a lottery rather than segregating by wealth. Students who draw the lowest number get their choice of the most popular dorms. Almost all undergrad dorms have the same cost. The main exception is co-ops, which get a small discount to reflect the students doing their own cooking, cleaning, etc. Few live off campus. Grad housing is a different story, which I won’t get in to.
Most students spent the vast majority of their time on campus. Few had cars, including the students I later learned were very wealthy. As such, I saw little isolation due to not being able to afford meals at an expensive off campus activities.
As I touched on above, one more common area of isolation and segregation was by race. For example, I had a Black roommate during my 2nd year. He had many friends from a variety of backgrounds (likely both high SES and low SES), including one well known athlete that most on here would recognize, if i stated the name. As best I could tell, all of his many friends were Black. Only ~7% of students at Stanford are Black (IPEDS definition), so this was clearly a biased selection.
I’ve known some groups of Asian students that had a similar apparent racial segregation. Some athletes also self segregated, as did some other groups that were more visually obvious than SES. Stanford encourages this to some extent, with race themed dorms and similar that have a high concentration of a particular race of students, language & culture themed dorms, international themed dorms, etc.
@jonri - First, I didn’t say that the divide was worse at private colleges. In fact I didn’t talk of the divide, but of the difficulties that low SES kids face at “Elite” colleges. My main point with talking about the 'bubble" is that it makes it difficult for rich kids to speak with poor kids, which is part of the issue of isolation.
My point has been, and stays, that at colleges at which there are a small percent of poor students, they often experience alienation and isolation. The “elite” colleges simply have more wealthy kids and fewer poor kids than other colleges, and are therefore the places where poor kids are most likely to be part of a very small group of kids. Large flagships may have more segregation, however, there are more poor kids by numbers, and therefore are less isolating than smaller private colleges.
Please note that I have been referring to the experiences of poor kids at “elite” colleges, not the experiences of middle class or wealthier. So the experiences of middle class kids at “elite” colleges neither support nor contradict what I wrote.
Regarding large public universities - Posse also sends kids to public universities, like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Berkeley. As for the selectivity of their colleges, they have a array. Of their partner colleges, about 1/3 are “elite”, 1/3 are “selective” (acceptance rates < 40%), and about 1/3 are less selective. That way, the Scholars can be matched to colleges based on their own academic skills, as well.
BTW, you really don’t need to explain Posse to me, thank you. I’m very familiar with the program. I also know a bunch of Posse scholars, including one who’s attending Cornell, one who’s attending Pomona, and 10 who are attending Middlebury.
I can tell you a lot more about Posse, if you have more questions.
@Data10 What did the low SES kids tell you about their experiences?
Here is an interesting read:
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976894
Or you can read the summarized version here:
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/17/05/poor-privileged
In this, I agree with you 100%.
Top privates like Posse kids, too. Or other mentoring programs.
You realize how much stereotyping of rich and poor is rampant in this thread? This notion the twain can’t meet? Extreme “bubbles.” inabilities to keep up socially, assumptions rich kids have only rich kid interests, and poor kids are babes in the woods, deer in headlights.
Not.
Among the things top colleges look for, expecially when a kid hasn’t been middle or UMC privileged, are resiliance and the ability to self-advocate. Many are strikingly qualified. It’s a real shame to see them described as tokens, unable. And rich kids painted as all self-centered, all the time.
As I touched on earlier, in the overwhelming majority of cases, I didn’t know who was low SES. I expect the same was true for most students, which limits the ability to segregate. There are only a small group of students that I knew well and am confident were low SES, all of whom are probably not good representations. Among this limited group, their experiences appeared to be quite different from the tone of this thread.
For example, I dated an international student who came from a family that was well into low SES by US standards, but well above the median among families in her lower income country. She was able to attend due to receiving an external scholarship that covered the cost of her education, as well as cover some other costs.
She was outgoing and had a diverse group of friends among students, including ones with different backgrounds, different races, varied SES, and varied genders – far more friends that I had and far closer friends than I had. I did not sense that she was trying or forced to segregate by SES. She did make a special effort to befriend students from nearby countries to hers (regardless of SES), and participated in related cultural activities.
She mentioned her share of negative things about the college, but none closely related to SES. One roommate in particular stands out, with disputes so extreme that administrators needed to get involved. Her side of the room was clearly more frugally selected than her roommate. She was big on frugal clothing selection as well. However, as I understand it, this type of SES differences had nothing to do with the disputes. Instead it more related to incompatible personalities, and both refusing to back down. We ended our relationship for similar reasons.
Some professors gave her special opportunities or mentoring due to her unique background, and she did well academically. If she had major SES related problems, I wasn’t aware of them. Her mother, however, did appear to have SES related problems, which she joked about. For example, one of her close, wealthier friends once visited home with her, to see her birth country. Her mother, went out of her way to hide evidence of being lower SES from the friend during the visit, which both of the students found funny. Her mother also encouraged certain things with our relationship in response to what is likely SES concerns.
I knew another low SES student reasonably well from my sports team. He was also international. He saved money on room & board by having a huge number of roommates, which violates campus policy. He was friendly, outgoing, and seemed to get along with everyone on the team; many of whom were aware of his housing situation. He was confident enough to run for a position in student government, and was successful in an engineering major. He had some issues paying for college, as noted, but I didn’t see evidence of SES segregation.
Re: lower SES students at elite colleges
Note that different elite colleges may differ. For example, http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22235103/#Comment_22235103 is one student’s impression of Harvard on a visit and why he did not choose it (chose Stanford).
Note that state flagships can also vary. For example, Michigan has a Pell Grant student percentage similar to that of elite private schools (i.e. on the low end compared to most).