Free Lunch? Free College Is Better
What is it about the word “FREE?”
It is likely the most-used term in marketing, the one least likely to be believed and, if true, almost sure to come with qualifications.
Still? FREE college? Yeah, kinda, sorta.
The article, which was originally written for Mental Floss, but migrated to the WSJ in some kind of weird “new press/old press transaction showed me that there are many ways to skin the tuition cats (sorry, PETA). There are minor, “catches. ” Books and fees are generally not included, performance of a four letter word: W-O-R-K is required at a few of the institutions, and the schools tend toward specialization: law, music, engineering. Yet, at bottom, it is true. These schools all offer free, full rides for all their students. I had no idea that this existed or was possible.
And that raises an interesting question for me around higher education in general. Though only two of the schools mention “endowments” as a source of funding (the money has to come from somewhere!), I suspect that a large, extant base of capital is the source of funding for all. So…if tiny Olin college can use its $400 million to educate its 300 students, why can’t Harvard and other high-end schools use substantially more of their BILLIONS to fund student tuition? Yes, I know that many of these schools, including Harvard, have in the last few years launched more aggressive grant programs, and found other ways to cut student debt, but let’s do a quick calculation here and now.
Harvard’s endowment is $30 billion. Now I don’t know how much of that comes with donor “strings,” like “for the school of Law,” or “library only,’ but using 2/3 of that amount, $20 billion, at a 5% annual return allows for $1 billion, or at least $50,000 per student, which happens to be Harvard’s “total package for tuition, room and board for 2009-2010. What is Harvard allocating for “need based” education? $147 million. Hmmm.
Many other “name” schools have rich endowments like Harvard. Yale, Stanford, Princeton, to name a few. I would guess that all schools have endowments rich enough to do more to attract and educate our kids. The question is, do they do enough? If not, why don’t they? Fiscally responsible or fiscally Scrooge?
What are your thoughts? Care to respond, Harvard?
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