Peter Joy

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since June 22, 2005

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June 22, 2005, on Tuition-free MIT:
How about MIT grads paying the way for current undergrads? Set up a system where every undergrad signs a contract agreeing to send, say, 5% of all their future earnings over $50,000. You would end up with a system where people pay what their education actually ends up earning them. I'm sure someone making $250,000 a year would balk at having to pay $10k a year for decades, but the majority making $50-80k probably wouldn't mind $1-2k for the peace of mind that knowing they get to study whatever they want and not have a financial cloud hanging over their head for years gives them. If someone ends up doing really interesting science somewhere but isn't making any money off it, then MIT gets nothing though, so I suppose this would make MIT tend to steer undergrads into fields where they are more likely to earn a big paycheck. However, you would get an increasing pool of earners supporting a fairly constant group of undergrads. In 20 years, maybe the percentage would drop to 1%? So...