Now that DS is well into his college career, I think this idea has some merit! If you’re going to spend 4 years living somewhere, then I think the food in the cafeteria, local restaurants or entertainment nearby should matter at least a little bit. On the thread comparing MIT to Caltech, for example, both schools are just outstanding tech schools. So why not go where you like the surrounding area or weather better? It’s been an entertaining thread, but I hope noone is really going to make a decision based on all of these comments? It’s really just an entertaining debate, right?</p>
<p>Not again! Why should schools give a free ride to children of millionnaires and billionnaires. You know the adage:" Ask and you shall receive." Well, here we have, “Don’t ask, and you shall receive anyway.”</p>
<p>Harvard has 6,000+ undergraduates. At 45k per year per student, it would be subsidizing all 6,000+ to the tune of $270million per year. Even its $30billion endowment (much of which is spoken for and cannot be used for undergraduate education) would vanish faster than the snow in Cambridge.</p>
<p>My son has steadfastly said the dorms and food won’t matter to him. He’s had his own room amd short-order-chef (me) all his life. I think he knows whereof he’s speaking, but we’ll see.</p>
<p>I agree with Marite that this free ride for all is not a good idea, but I think reflectivemom was wondering what would happen if it was actually offered. I think the school (if it remained the same in all other ways besides removing fees) would remain as prestigious or become even more so, and would receive many more applications and thus become even more selective.</p>
<p>Kirmun, I have a ranch and have a small solo law practice. My wife also works outside the home. My hours are restricted by health issues. We also live on our by Texas standards small ranch. As such we get slaughtered by Profile and treated roughly like someone earning twice as much as we do.</p>
<p>You just do not understand the scale of the endowment Harvard operates. Last year, the earnings alone on the endowment were in excess of 2.5 BILLION dollars. Vanish faster than snow? Hardly.</p>
<p>But, the millionaires and billionaires could “gift” rather than pay tuition.</p>
<p>Kirmum - This is sort of off the topic the thread is on at this moment, but, I had a thought based on your earlier post about your firm only hiring graduates of certain very prestigious law schools. Curm’s daughter is interested in medical school and/or biomedical research. These fields are close enough to my own professional field that I feel I can comment knowledgeably. In my opinion, there is no possible career/professional goal or achievement that Curm’s daughter is precluded or even hindered from attaining because she chose to accept the full scholarship with great benefits from a great LAC versus attending one of the top “elites”. You can look up the educational backgrounds of the top biomedical researchers and physicians, and easily see that they attended a wide variety of public and private undergraduate colleges and universities. Your own professional world sounds a little different, so that may help explain your perspective on things.</p>
<p>Kirmun, Yep, that was the “fill out these very very detailed forms and send your essay, too” evaluation. And he was spot on. I have told everybody it is well worth twice the price. Detailed and thorough beyond my expectations. FA was not something reported on in any detail that I remember other than to mention that she would need FA and/or merit above our $15-16K budget (that’s $16k inclusive of all loans and work study and summer contribution for D and us).</p>
<p>Oh gosh. I wasn’t ever leaving as in not coming back.</p>
<p>And beururah, I don’t understand why you say I was ungracious to say I would not send my son anywhere to save money. I just meant me. That’s me, because of my situation. The money is in one of the 52whatsit accounts. It’s for school. </p>
<p>I talk about my family financial situation because I want to make sure the information I give is in context. If revealing the facts of my life make me ungracious, well then I guess the guilt I have always felt for the privilege I grew up in is justified. I try to be a generous soul. As some know.</p>
<p>I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me about growing up with money. I’m not quite that neurotic. But it’s not very nice to call me ungracious for trying to explain my comments and my family’s decisions.</p>
<p>The only things I am saying and will not stop saying that I believe is controversial in this discussion is that Harvard is not equal to San Diego State for a humanities major interested in some more recondite areas. And that there is such a thing as smarter than. Which is by no means always the same as wiser than or more valuable than or more committed than or more interesting than.</p>
<p>Those are my opinions. The rest of it, like my financial situation, is my life. If I tell you about my life I am maybe dumb and suckered into believing in such things as Internet communities. But I still don’t think that’s ungracious.</p>
<p>Many (if not most) European universities are essentially free, subsidized by the state. Or they were. Now many have been told by the governments they have to start generating more money on their own, become more entrepreneurial in the style of American schools, even the public ones. My H, back in his days as university administrator, served as advisor to large universities in England, Moscow, Germany & Beijing who wanted to create money-generating programs to start weaning themselves from government subsidies. This is in response to the ‘what would happen if schools were free’ idea floated earlier.</p>
<p>Motheroftwo, this is something I wrote earlier so I apologize to those who’ve read the whole thread. My son is a BME major at UCSD who started college wishing to become an MD. Like many others, he’s changed his mind. For what he hopes to do an MBA from a top program will help. At the company he presently interns for, most top people are JHU and Duke grads. That makes him a little insecure as many of the interns are as well. Anyone can do well from anywhere. Do some people have an advantage? Yes IMO.</p>
<p>kirmun, are you saying he can’t into a Top MBA program from a well respected UC? I wouldn’t think that would be the case. At least I hope the heck not. That would truly suck.</p>
<p>kirmun, my D worked her :eek: off for over two years pretty solid gathering data and making lists (started with an expando file in the 7th grade). I did what I could to help and I drove the bus. We were a pretty good team.</p>
<p>EdIt: But for those that are thinking it was the system that produced the dividends - the first part of the system is always : You have to have a kid with the groceries.</p>
<p>He has a good GPA, but when you look at the admit list at top B schools, his school doesn’t do very well. It’s all a big guess, maybe many are not applying OOS.</p>