Take that Harvard! Stanford drops tuition for students.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/20/MNABV5LHM.DTL&tsp=1

by alaskamiller • 18 years ago

50 46 18 years ago

sfgate.com

bkrausz• 18 years ago

Damnit...so went to the wrong school...

Funny how if I went to Stanford it would be profitable for my mom to quit her job.

alaskamiller2• 18 years ago

the rich feed the rich!

atoulouse2• 18 years ago

Well, crap. The only reason I didn't apply to Stanford was because my family wouldn't be able to afford it.

..but Berkeley's EECS a wonderful alternative, so it's all good, I guess. =)

trekker72• 18 years ago

just make sure you don't spend all your time studying in Soda...

atoulouse2• 18 years ago

Indeed. Do I know you? I hang out in the CSUA sometimes.

zeantsoi• 18 years ago

I stubbed my toe many a time at the Soda volleyball court. It's called sand, people... get more of it.

geebee• 18 years ago

Money was the reason I didn't apply to Stanford, but my grades and SAT's were the reason I didn't get into Berkeley ;)

Oh well. At least I got to go there for grad school (Berkeley, that is).

aneesh• 18 years ago

"In the future, Harvard will cost $1 billion a year, and only Bill Gates's children will pay full price. When anyone else walks through the door, the message will be 'Special price, just for you.' " --Greg Mankiw

simianstyle• 18 years ago

I thought this was always the case?

lex2• 18 years ago

are they getting money from elsewhere, or are they just taking fewer students from those income brackets?

alaskamiller2• 18 years ago

they have 17 billion dollars in cash from donations and various other means. they're now disbursing that through the free tuition process.

phil• 18 years ago

Their admissions are need-blind, so they can't "just take fewer students" from a given income bracket.

lex2• 18 years ago

I mean it somewhat facetiously. I went to Cornell, and judging by the prices for books, food (the items that are really marked up), margins are important to them. Then again, they have less money than Stanford.

Xichekolas4• 18 years ago

These Universities have huge endowments.

Harvard's stands around $35 billion (http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/08.23/99-endowment....). At a conservative 4% draw rate, this could fund 40,000 students per year at $35k/yr tuition, forever. So really, free tuition is chump change for them. Obviously they have a lot of other stuff to support with their endowment, but they only have about 6700 undergrads (http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/harvard.asp), so it's not really an issue.

anewaccountname2• 18 years ago

They probably just decided to scale back the budget by 5% on one "monument to some architect's ego".

bdfh42• 18 years ago

One might or might not be impressed - depending upon the number of students this is likely to affect. I am sure that Stanford has done it's sums and taken into account the net impact of attracting applications from bright students coming from less well of homes.

jyothi• 18 years ago

This will definitely welcome a lot of foreign students to apply where the rich middle class barely earns $30000 - including the IT industry which has the fattest pay packages.

jorgeortiz85• 18 years ago

It's unclear whether this policy also applies to foreign students.

Typically, Stanford's financial aid to foreign students has not been "need-blind".

Does anyone have further info on this?

jimbokun2• 18 years ago

"I am sure that Stanford has done it's sums and taken into account the net impact of attracting applications from bright students coming from less well of homes."

If you read the article, I think it's clear that Stanford has taken into account U.S. Senators questioning it's tax exempt status when it has a ballooning endowment along with big tuition increases.

pchristensen2• 18 years ago

I forgot where (Greenspun, I think) but the gist was that non-profits must disburse 5% of their endowment each year but these mega$$$ universities were doing more like 3.5%-5%. It's worth giving away free tuition to some middle class kids to maintain that status. Some of the endowments (Yale, Harvard, Standford, etc) are so big that they're basically investment funds that run universities in order to avoid paying taxes.

apgwoz• 18 years ago

The University of Pennsylvania also has a similar policy. http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/paying/

Xichekolas4• 18 years ago

Those must be Business students in that picture. No liberal arts or engineering majors I know (myself included) look that... clean and alert.

imsteve4• 18 years ago

1. If your parents make 100k+ but don't want to spend it on your education, you're screwed.

2. If you're not a spoiled only child and your parents have to divide that money up then you're screwed.

#1 angers me especially. Parents I know don't do that anymore, especially when colleges rape us with such obscene tuitions while doing relatively little to improve the education.

mrtron• 18 years ago

Lets say your dad makes 55k and your mom makes 55k, I think your family would save a ton overall by having your mom or dad take an early retirement.

randrews• 18 years ago

In case #1, were you better off before this change?

It is possible to become not-a-dependent through paperwork-fu, also, in which case a student would qualify if they make under $100k (likely).

jimbokun2• 18 years ago

"1. If your parents make 100k+ but don't want to spend it on your education, you're screwed."

With tuition and expenses running 40k+ a year, I think that could put a crimp in the budget of a family making a little more than 100k+.

neilc2• 18 years ago

Assuming you'd be expected to pay full tuition and board, which you surely would not.

imsteve4• 18 years ago

I don't know how much you paid for your school -- but with math like that I'm sure you paid too much.

But anyway, how the heck can you blame the kid if the parents are tight with their money?

Xichekolas4• 18 years ago

3. If your parents make 100k+, but through financial stupidity, have nothing saved up for your education and no disposable income.

Happened to me. Here is a financial tidbit for anyone out there... don't buy a $40k car every two years. They tend to depreciate severely and leave you with nothing to show for it and a big monthly car payment. </bitter>

natrius• 18 years ago

"2. If you're not a spoiled only child and your parents have to divide that money up then you're screwed."

Financial aid calculations typically take siblings into account.

imsteve4• 18 years ago

Didn't for several of my sisters, FYI.

far33d• 18 years ago

If your parents make $101k, they don't charge you full price.

Xichekolas4• 18 years ago

I like this policy because I imagine it turns the admissions trend away from "Rich Kids" and back to "Smart Kids" ... which is what these Universities want to maintain their cred.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

What about grad students?

aaroniba• 18 years ago

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

Bad beat if your parents make exactly $100,001.

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

Amherst has done this for a while, but with a much lower cutoff (I think it was about $40K). They also just eliminated loans for all students last year, which I think will raise the no-tuition cutoff significantly. I heard several other Ivies and top liberal-arts colleges were thinking of following suit.

Olin College was also founded on this premise, but they started charging tuition again when the dot-com bubble burst and most of their endowment vanished.

wallflower• 18 years ago

So now most of the costs of getting into Stanford are simply before you get into Stanford (private school, studying, night school, extra-curriculars)

gills• 18 years ago

Does it bother anyone else that the sample scenarios mention home equity as a factor? Maybe college tuition has risen partly for the same reasons as other items during the last few years: because it can. Cheap credit makes for high prices. It's a good move by Stanford to pull back now before the home equity ATM is completely burnt out.

Take that Harvard! Stanford drops tuition for students.

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