Town residents pooled together their money to provide scholarships for everyone

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/08/the-town-that-decided-to-send-all-its-kids-to-college/401618/

by DarkContinent • 11 years ago

62 45 11 years ago

citylab.com

melling• 11 years ago

“In America, a quality education cannot be a privilege that is reserved for a few.”

A few being 65.9 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/business/fewer-us-high-sch...

Then we have that other problem:

"Grad-School Loan Binge Fans Debt Worries Graduate students account for 40% of borrowing; many seek federal forgiveness"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/loan-binge-by-graduate-students-...

afarrell• 11 years ago

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies...

michaelchisari3• 11 years ago

"As an online discussion of macro-economics grows longer, the probability an oversimplified analogy is offered approaches 1"

I'm going to call it Rothbard's Law.

michaelchisari3• 11 years ago

How many of those 65.9 percent can reasonably afford the loans they take out in order to go attend college?

Seems to me the issue is loans in general, and that free public university is a proven way to provide education without extraordinarily inflating the costs.

coryrc3• 11 years ago

How many of those 65.9 percent are learning something useful to society? Because those that are will not have a hard time paying back loans.

logane4• 11 years ago

Public universities are super cheap - in my state (Massachusetts), UMass Amherst is less than 10k a year if you graduate with above a certain (easy to attain) GPA. I think one of the largest issues is with people deciding to forgo cheap, good public schools like UMass, UVM, etc and going instead for more expensive private schools that offer the same or worse quality education, such as Elon, Holy Cross etc.

On the other hand, schools like MIT, Harvard, Yale etc all offer generous scholarships - regardless of your income, you will be able to afford one of these schools. Not to mention that after college, higher paying jobs are easier to get if you go to one of these schools.

If you want to just go to a decent college for cheap, it's not too expensive if you work it out right - either you can get accepted to a top school, or you can go to your state's flagship program (UC Berkeley, UMass Amherst, UNC Chapel Hill, GATech, UT Austin, and others come to mind).

devhead• 11 years ago

so much human in one story, great job Baldwin!

djb_hackernews2• 11 years ago

When I graduated high school I made a list of things I wanted to do in my life. One of them was to start a scholarship for students at the high school I graduated from.

A few years ago I first offered the scholarship. It's only a one time $1000 scholarship and my alma mater definitely didn't have the higher ed access issues it sounds like this town did, but one of the criteria is the student CAN'T be in the top 10 of the graduating class.

This mostly bore out of the fact that during my awards ceremony the top 10 absolutely cleaned up, some getting full ride scholarships they weren't even going to use. I get you want to reward hard working students but I worked very hard in high school but I just don't think the system I was in was perfect for me and, several years later, I'm contributing just as much to society on average as the top 10 students from my class. My point being, high school isn't a great predictor of future success on a few different levels.

If anyone out there has experience starting scholarships for high school students and expanding them, please reach out to me. I definitely have big plans but I could use someone that's done this before.

Nicholas_C• 11 years ago

I want to start scholarships for students from my high school that are from humble backgrounds and want to attend community college for the beginning of their college careers. Eventually I would like to start a scholarship fund. I haven't really found a lot of good resources for starting a scholarship. How did you go about setting up your scholarship?

ics• 11 years ago

I've wondered the same and finally remembered to search thanks to this story. I'd be interested in hearing the parent's response but it's also a surprisingly easy thing to search. Here are some links:

How to Start Your Own College Scholarship - http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023037596045790934...

Grant Space: What resources are available for setting up a scholarship fund? - http://grantspace.org/tools/knowledge-base/Funding-Resources...

djb_hackernews2• 11 years ago

What I did was contact the school guidance department for help. What they offered made things super easy. I have total control over who gets the scholarship, they send me candidates that fit my criteria and once I make a decision I cut a check to the towns scholarship fund and they cut a check to the student. I present the scholarship at an end of year awards night. In fact I just today received a very nice thank you note from this years recipient.

In the future I expect this to change and create my own 501c/trust if I want to raise additional funds outside of my own, which I fully intend to do but the system works for me for now.

jpollock• 11 years ago

In New Zealand, the Southern Institute of Technology [1], one of the universities runs a zero-fees program [2]. This, I believe, is funded from local businesses who see substantial benefits from having students around with money to spend.

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

[2] https://www.sit.ac.nz/Fees-Enrolments/Zero-Fees

djrobstep• 11 years ago

SIT is not a university</pedanticnitpicking>. It is a good scheme nonetheless.

grecy• 11 years ago

It's almost like American's are crying out for a nation-wide system where college is funded for everyone.

In Australia, everyone that wants it gets a tax-free, interest-free loan for university, which is something around $5k/year for tuition (My 5-year engineering degree was $22k). You only have to pay it back if you earn over $45k/year, and you just pay a few extra percent tax until it's paid off. If you're short on money for food/rent, you will be paid that too.

refurb3• 11 years ago

The US ain't all that different. It's more complex, but it's possible to get deferred interest loans, interest paid by the gov't and income-based payments.

That said, the free flowing money is a big reason why private school cost $200K/yr for a 4-year degree.

justinkramp• 11 years ago

I'm not familiar with AUS loan mechanics, however, "deferred interest" <> "interest free". There aren't federal 'interest free' education loans in the US that I'm aware of. All the federal programs I see have interest rates of >4%. Granted, it seems like that's a relatively low rate for borrowing money.

US federal un-subsidized college loans can accrue interest even if paying interest or principle is deferred. Not at all the same as interest-free.

Additionally, with some federal student loans, there are fees of 1 percent and up that are actually removed from the loan amount prior to disbursement that you're on the hook for repaying in entirety.

Also your $200k number isn't accurate; unless you're counting room & board which is different matter not directly tied to education. I don't disagree that the availability of funds seems to contribute to the cost of education, but that number is a bit high.

From teh google:

According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2014–2015 school year was $31,231 at private colleges, $9,139 for state residents at public colleges, and $22,958 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.

Town residents pooled together their money to provide scholarships for everyone

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