Some small, private colleges struggling to survive

[meggiebeth]

We just have a lot more people and yes as the PP was talking about I meant population differences in terms of numbers.

In a nutshell the UK is set up differently than the U.S. neither system is wrong nor right it's just what works there won't necessarily work here.

Sales tax..that varies so wildly. In my area sales tax runs you 9.5-10.5% total including state,city, county and at times special taxing districts, and that's on everything as we don't have a % break on specific goods plus a higher tax rate for alcohol, cigarette, etc .

Income tax in my state is-- taxable income not over $30,000: 3.1 %, taxable income over $30,000 but not over $60,000: $930 plus 5.25 % of excess over $30,000, taxable income over $60,000: $2,505 plus 5.7 % of excess over $60,000--these are 2018 rates.

Federally for 2018:
View attachment 314250

That doesn't tell the full story as we have adjustments that we can claim on our taxes, etc. We also pay for certain things with our property tax on homes but that at least in my area doesn't go directly to the colleges but rather a portion goes to the state who then distributes a certain portion of that to the colleges. I do however pay over 51% of my property tax towards my public school district (so elementary, middle {or junior high}, and high school) assigned to us in our area and I do pay a portion towards the Community College in my area.

Now private school is funded differently than public school. My comments regarding tuition and raising it due to funding issues were in respects to public.

My point was at a national level the way that our system is set up I cannot imagine it feasibly be possible to have loans where you only make payments on it if you earn over a certain amount, and after a certain period of time has passed, the loan is waived completely. There are loan forgiveness programs but they are not as easy as they sound just by the name and they are restricted to certain degrees from my understanding. Like the PP did mention NY and free tuition should be interesting to watch over time.

Really interesting, thanks. You’ve just confirmed my guess that we pay a lot more income tax. This chart pretty much summarises it; you get about 1.4 USD to our pound (£).

https://goo.gl/images/FuT3Mu

Fuel is incredibly heavily taxed, too. On our trips to the States it’s shocking how cheap it is.

I don’t think the size of the population ncessarily matters much, rather how much money the government has to fund these projects. Seems then that our govt does tax us much more, but we also get a lot more back.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Really interesting, thanks. You’ve just confirmed my guess that we pay a lot more income tax. This chart pretty much summarises it; you get about 1.4 USD to our pound (£).

https://goo.gl/images/FuT3Mu

Fuel is incredibly heavily taxed, too. On our trips to the States it’s shocking how cheap it is.

I don’t think the size of the population ncessarily matters much, rather how much money the government has to fund these projects. Seems then that our govt does tax us much more, but we also get a lot more back.

Well the population does matter..

The thing is I already knew in UK they tax higher on most things..it's how you pay for things. But here..here we don't tax our citizens to the degree you do just for the sake of getting what you get. Maybe eventually who knows down the road it could get that way but on a national level with 50 states and a population that is roughly 5X as much as yours the whole just tax citizens more and boom is unlikely to work.

I just gave you a snapshot of what my state is like with sales tax and income tax..times that by 49 other states who have different laws, different make up of people, different tax rates for State level. Heck every year when our property tax evaluation is given to us the gripes about taxing is brought up, everytime in my area that budgetary issues occur it's not about how to curb unnecessary spending it's about raising sales and property tax instead which doesn't actually solve the issue. As a whole nation we're not really behind the idea of tax us all at a higher rate in order to provide xyz.

Like I said different systems neither is wrong nor right but what works there won't necessarily work here.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Wow! This was big news on Friday in our area - UMass Amherst acquires Mt Ida College in Newton; current Mt Ida students being allowed to transfer to UMass Dartmouth without losing credits, and continue to live with and attend classes with eachother.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...ory.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ReadMore_Pos4

A few interesting tidbits in the article, including one person quoted who said the college had recently told them everything was going well there. (I guess it was!) And that some students chose it because of the financial incentives they were given by the school.

(I can't help but wonder if the writer of the original article last week knew this was coming.)

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Yikes, reaction from Mt Ida students:

https://www.necn.com/news/new-engla...s-of-Mount-Ida-College-Closing-479068053.html

MA Attorney General's office looking into closing on behalf of affected students:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/04/mount_ida_deal_hit_kids_like_a_ton_of_bricks

 

[debster812]

I have a niece who is currently a Junior at Mt. Ida. Her major is NOT offered at UMass Dartmouth. And although UMass D is a terrific school, the atmosphere is vastly different between the 2 campus'. (Umass D was on DS's initial list of applied schools). From a strictly superficial point of view, the Dartmouth campus is nearly ALL concrete buildings, and pretty ugly. Mt. Ida is a very pretty suburban campus, with lots of character and charm.

It just sounds like it was handled incredibly poorly all the way around, up to and including continuing to take deposits for incoming accepted Freshmen. Those kids have got to be absolutely shattered, and scrambling now to figure out what to do in September

 

[Pea-n-Me]

And yet another investigation, this time by the DOJ, investigating early decision practices by some elite colleges.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...ng-early-decision-admissions-at-elite-college

"The system has been criticized as favoring students from wealthy families, who are able to commit to attending a university without knowing what financial aid they will receive."

Equity considerations related to early decision have long been a concern within higher education, but this is the first time in my memory that the issue has come up in the context of antitrust concerns," the American Council on Education's Terry Hartle told Inside Higher Ed.

 

[Colleen27]

And yet another investigation, this time by the DOJ, investigating early decision practices by some elite colleges.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...ng-early-decision-admissions-at-elite-college

"The system has been criticized as favoring students from wealthy families, who are able to commit to attending a university without knowing what financial aid they will receive."

Equity considerations related to early decision have long been a concern within higher education, but this is the first time in my memory that the issue has come up in the context of antitrust concerns," the American Council on Education's Terry Hartle told Inside Higher Ed.

I can see where the information sharing would need to come in, since those are schools with binding early decision policies. If they don't share information, there would really not be able to be a binding policy because schools would have no idea if students had applied to multiple binding-admit schools. But I also see how it would favor the wealthy - Wellesley is on DD's short list but I wouldn't even think of encouraging her to apply early decision because it is binding and financial aid will absolutely be part of our decision-making process.

 

[georgina]

Early decision can be broken by the student if sufficient financial aid is not received for the student to attend. The student has basically wasted an early decision chance elsewhere in that case, and may not have the chance to attend other schools in the same league.

www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/...
Most colleges will release students from early decision offers without penalty if applicants receive a financial aid package that doesn't make it feasible economically for the student to attend.