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    Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

    (news.mit.edu)
    581 points gnabgib | 12 comments | 20 Nov 24 16:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    araes ◴[20 Nov 24 18:26 UTC] No.42196753[source]▶
    Started looking and found out there's some much worse, and far more obvious cases that need to implement these reforms. [1]

    UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence.

    BTW, amazing site to be horrified by gun violence (and vaguely fascinated). Look upon the awfulness of Philadelphia. [2] Sitting in their safe little haven while East and South is wounding murder land with overlapping murder / wounding statistics. (12k from 2014-2023, 190/100000 urban) [3] Northwestern and the violence everywhere South in Chi-town is maybe a personal second choice. ($13,700,000,000, +74%, 26.9k, 280/100000 urban) [4][5]

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...

    [2] (Guns, Philadelphia) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

    [3] (Location, UPenn) https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+Pennsylvania...

    [4] (Guns, Chicago) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

    [5] (Location, Northwestern) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northwestern+University/@4...

    replies(11): >>42196780 #>>42197216 #>>42197243 #>>42197247 #>>42197346 #>>42197616 #>>42198654 #>>42198833 #>>42199711 #>>42200472 #>>42200996 #
    rs999gti ◴[20 Nov 24 20:08 UTC] No.42197616[source]▶
    > UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence.

    Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? This is Philadelphia's problem, the university is just a business operating in the city.

    replies(4): >>42197884 #>>42198004 #>>42198417 #>>42198422 #
    1. Spivak ◴[20 Nov 24 20:54 UTC] No.42198004[source]▶
    UPenn is a land-grant institution, they are not "just a business" they were given land and money specifically to serve the public good. They're why we have engineering degrees, the government specifically wanted institutions that taught practical marketable skills and to do research in those fields.
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    2. blackhawkC17 ◴[20 Nov 24 21:01 UTC] No.42198071[source]▶
    > They were given land and money specifically to serve the public good.

    Their duty is to deliver education. It's not solving political problems meant for elected officials (and the population at large).

    replies(1): >>42198194 #
    3. dleary ◴[20 Nov 24 21:15 UTC] No.42198194[source]▶
    If their duty is to deliver education, why are they sitting on a $20B hoard?

    Presumably they could spend a little bit of that to deliver some more education, couldn’t they?

    replies(4): >>42198235 #>>42198649 #>>42198717 #>>42198897 #
    4. FactKnower69 ◴[20 Nov 24 21:20 UTC] No.42198235{3}[source]▶
    there are many, many people who are paid a lot of money to pretend to believe that the universities should actually be spending less and keeping more for their endowments because that strategy would enable the biggest impact at some indeterminate point in the future
    5. alephnerd ◴[20 Nov 24 21:56 UTC] No.42198534[source]▶
    > UPenn is a land-grant institution

    It isn't.

    Despite the name, it's actually a private university.

    Penn State is Pennsylvania's land grant university.

    6. vonmoltke ◴[20 Nov 24 22:01 UTC] No.42198560[source]▶
    > UPenn is a land-grant institution

    The University of Pennsylvania is one of the nine colonial colleges founded before the United States existed. It predates land grant institutions by over a century. I think you are confusing it with Pennsylvania State University, which is a land grant institution.

    7. blackhawkC17 ◴[20 Nov 24 22:11 UTC] No.42198649{3}[source]▶
    They spend $9 billion annually on exactly that. This "hoard" can, checks notes, fund barely two years of operations.

    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/231...

    8. IncreasePosts ◴[20 Nov 24 22:18 UTC] No.42198717{3}[source]▶
    In the short term, yes. Just like an orchard owner can chop down his trees and sell firewood to make a little more money this year.
    9. etempleton ◴[20 Nov 24 22:41 UTC] No.42198897{3}[source]▶
    Endowments are not just slush funds that can be used at leadership’s discretion; they are often from donated monies with specific stipulations set by donors on how, where, and what those funds can and cannot be spent on.
    replies(1): >>42199585 #
    10. culi ◴[21 Nov 24 00:10 UTC] No.42199585{4}[source]▶
    college endowments are invested. Managing these investments is a huge focus of universities
    11. morganf ◴[21 Nov 24 01:48 UTC] No.42200233[source]▶
    Wow an actual topic on HN that I know about. I spent 3.5 years studying the history of UPenn - including writing my thesis in its history - and it is definitely not a land grant university.
    12. kjkjadksj ◴[21 Nov 24 02:54 UTC] No.42200637[source]▶
    If they are like most other schools with a low income neighborhood nearby, they probably offer an entire k-12 education sequence for these kids ran under their education major’s department. Likewise their hospital probably treats low income people in the community. And of course the school itself is a massive jobs program for low income people in the area as well, who might qualify for reduced or no cost tuition for themselves or their kids.