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

(news.mit.edu)
581 points gnabgib | 6 comments | 20 Nov 24 16:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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TheJoeMan ◴[20 Nov 24 19:26 UTC] No.42197249[source]▶
This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the family business for the college fund, which was a non-starter.

Small businesses are allegedly the backbone of America, and I feel these tuition support programs overlook this segment of the middle-class.

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JumpCrisscross ◴[20 Nov 24 20:00 UTC] No.42197538[source]▶
It’s incredibly difficult to structure these rules in a way that doesn’t discriminate against small businesses while not opening a giant loophole for the rich.
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dragonwriter ◴[20 Nov 24 22:09 UTC] No.42198632[source]▶
The reason is because small business owners are often, by any measure that doesn’t explicitly discount ownership of the business, actually rich.
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1. potato3732842 ◴[20 Nov 24 23:43 UTC] No.42199367[source]▶
How so? I know a guy who has literally millions of dollars tied up in shit that moves dirt and rocks and another mil tied up in some gravel pits.

The free cash he has, the house he lives in, the lifestyle he can afford is on par with "normal" white collar professionals (i.e. not people who get a bajillion monopoly bucks to implement linked list traversals for faang). He works 60hr weeks during construction season and has government agencies up his ass regularly (MHSA regulates him like he's running a pit mine, it's a huge f-ing farce). If you don't place insane value on being your own boss it's kind of a shitty life.

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2. no_exit ◴[21 Nov 24 00:17 UTC] No.42199647[source]▶
> MHSA regulates him like he's running a pit mine, it's a huge f-ing farce

Not as much of a farce as getting silicosis and dying at 50 because your idiot gravel pit boss refuses to maintain a sprinkler system.

3. dragonwriter ◴[21 Nov 24 02:31 UTC] No.42200486[source]▶
> How so? I know a guy who has literally millions of dollars tied up in shit that moves dirt and rocks and another mil tied up in some gravel pits

Having literally millions of dollars in productive assets is rich by any reasonable standard.

> The free cash he has, the house he lives in, the lifestyle he can afford is on par with "normal" white collar professionals

And he has decades of support at that level of wealth in and realizable from the assets. Choosing to use it to generate a a “normal white collar professional” (i.e., reasonably well off to start with) income doesn't change that it is an enormous store of value that he owns.

4. thfuran ◴[21 Nov 24 03:05 UTC] No.42200692[source]▶
A few million bucks is all you need to immediately retire with the expectation of being able to draw a us median income from your investments in perpetuity.
5. fragmede ◴[21 Nov 24 03:13 UTC] No.42200740[source]▶
He could probably sell that business to the right buyer for a few million dollars and walk away. Just go sit on a beach somewhere, drinking Mai Tai s for a year, and then get bored of not working and then go back to working.

That you don't envy his current lifestyle doesn't mean he's not rich.

6. krisoft ◴[21 Nov 24 08:28 UTC] No.42202249[source]▶
> another mil tied up in some gravel pits

> MHSA regulates him like he's running a pit mine

Sounds like he does? As per your own comment.