Posted on 03/27/2012 11:23:21 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
"Amazing what happens when you shine a light into a dark room ... you just don't know what you will find. It has been recently discovered that Iowa's Regents Universities have a "tuition set aside program." That means that they take a percent of the tuition from paying students and set it aside for scholarships. While the percents vary with each institution and program, at the University of Iowa, 1 in 4 (24%) [of the] dollars undergraduate students spend on their tuition (or repaying their student loans) goes to subsidizing tuition for other students. Shouldn't this be disclosed to the students and their parents?"
Whether it's an official program or not, all universities have been overcharging non-Eric Holder's students to subsidize Eric Holder's students.
Well, it was news to me. That’s why I posted it.
Does any nation in Africa send the US foreign aid?
It’s why tuition has gone up 900% since 1978.
This is normal.
Its been done for, literally, ages.
All universities have had scholarship students, certainly going back to medieval times. Or earlier.
I know for sure all Catholic schools from parochial K-5 on up do this.
The only problem I see here is whether these scholarships/financial aid/what have you are awarded to the poor but deserving, or are used for political purposes.
This is normal.
Its been done for, literally, ages.
All universities have had scholarship students, certainly going back to medieval times. Or earlier.
I know for sure all Catholic schools from parochial K-5 on up do this.
The only problem I see here is whether these scholarships/financial aid/what have you are awarded to the poor but deserving, or are used for political purposes.
Our daughter attended George Washington University from 2007-2011. The President of GWU came to San Francisco and invited parents to meet him at the home of another parent. I went. While there he bragged that he was using tuition money from parents paying full tuition (which my husband and I were doing) to subsidize other students. I was infuriated. It was a struggle to pay the tuition. He justified this by claiming that “most” students received “some form of tuition aid”. Then he had the gall to have their fund raisers follow up and try to hit us up for another contribution. Not on my life! I would like to know the extent to which this is true elsewhere. I think every tuition-paying parent has the right to know just exactly what amount of the tuition they pay is being diverted to pay the tuition of others. There should be an opt-out, or at minimum, the right to deduct it as a charitable expense!!!
You don't see any problem, at a publicly-funded university, with taking a quarter of the money paid by one group of folks and handing it over to others?
This isn't a matter of scholarships, it is a matter of who is paying for those scholarships.
Nobody is saying that folks can't give to a scholarship fund of their own free will.
It’s certainly part of the reason.
Most of the “presidents” of GWU over the past 20 years or so have either been certifiably crazy, leftwing wackos, or a combination thereof.
GWU was and probably is a good school but it has been made into a leftist bastion over the past several decades. I went there for one course in the Fall, 1970, on the “Psychology of Communism”, but left during the first third of the semester to go to Vietnam and Cambodia for a special research tour.
When I came back, the professor, a nice but very pacifist (Quaker) person, asked me to give a 5 minute talk on what I had seen (he had written a book on VN which we used in the class - “Nobody Wanted War: Perspectives from Both Sides” paraphrased title). After half an hour, I finished, and was suddenly supported in my observations by 4 Vietnam combat veterans in the class (who I had not known were in it).
I had demolished the professor’s thesis/book but he was a nice person and a professional for which I thank him.
I wonder if I could have done this in today’s GWU.
One question not asked here is whether it is fair or unfair for students to subsidize other students re tuition, esp. if some students/parents have to take out private loans to pay for it in the first place.
This places a double financial burden on them, i.e. not only paying for their child’s tuition (by the loan), but also paying for someone else’s child (who does not repay the loan).
Triple, actually. They also pay taxes. These schools are state-funded to a great degree.
The practice doesn’t surprise me.
The huge percentage DOES!
This is criminal.
Note that public universities normally provide subsidized educations for all students. Tuitions are partial payments against the actual costs (absurdly inflated though these are, granted). The rest of the costs of maintaining the public universities comes from the taxpayers. Its not that some get subsidized and others don’t, its all a matter of degree. Some students are subsidized more than others.
If it is the policy of the state to provide subsidized higher education (many question this, but as all US States have this institutionalized lets take it as given), and if it is in the state’s interest to have an educated population (also taken as given), and if it is in the states interest to spend money in the best possible way to get the most out of the available funds and talent (ditto), it makes perfect sense to disproportionately assist those who are poor but talented.
Once we are down the path of public higher education (and can’t go back), we must maximize its effectiveness.
My only problem with this policy (given all the givens, see above), is the criteria for obtaining a larger subsidy. If this benefit is granted due to irrelevancies or politics, as in preferences for race and gender, etc., then this is an illegitimate use of public money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.