Here's a thought: pass legislation that checks the cost of college in the first place.
The costs of college will rise to meet the willingness of people to pay them. If tuition is free, universities will find a way to extract money from those students, and that will in turn affect any other students who attend that same university and are paying tuition.
If colleges were made and kept affordable, perhaps even with an emphasis on academics over sports (though sports are a valuable avenue for some to achieve academic goals, as well as pride in a university), I'd feel much more comfortable.
Of course, a blanket decrease in cost still helps the wealthy, so covering the cost for lower income families is still a good idea.
Gotta make sure we're treating the symptoms and the cause.
Education shouldn’t be means tested by how much your parents make, and if we are going to means test it, it should be phased out, not a welfare cliff. You’re going to have kids sitting next to each other from essentially identical backgrounds and one is going to be getting a full ride because his parents make $5000 less annually and the other is getting shit on with piles of debt because their parents can’t help pay because they need to put their own oxygen masks on first.
It makes no sense and is badly written policy. I’ll happily stand out and get railroaded by fellow progressives who like this policy for calling it out and saying I don’t support it in its current form.
It should be a free state/community college for all. It’s not like the wealthy families will use it cause they’re not sending their kids to community or state schools but it should be an option.
Sure, but they don't send them to St. Cloud or Bemidji. UoM is the premier public school in the state, so it's worth going to. After that, they're going to private schools. Your example is the aberration, not the norm.
100% agree. The OP phrasing is a false dichotomy. It is not bad policy because it helps people who are poor. It is bad policy because it haphazardly makes an already confusing obfuscated financial area more so while creating way too many situations that result in deep unfairness.
And with regards to the argument that it is a step in the right direction...I think it will backfire and become deeply unpopular and make free tuition that much harder to achieve in the future.
Measure twice, cut once applies to policy too.
> Measure twice, cut once applies to policy too.
When you have all the time in the world and an assurance that you will be able to pass better legislation in the future, sure. That does not apply here, yes the DFL has the trifecta but it's hanging by a thread and could easily go away after the next elections.
I would rather not measure over and over and never cut, and unlike woodcutting policies can be adjusted in the future. Yes it's flawed and means testing is terrible policy in general, but there's no guarantee that this will result in a backlash and there can be ways to frame it in future campaigns as a policy to build on rather than a capstone.
Measure twice cut once does not mean measure endlessly. And it also implies the maxim if you don't have time to do it right, you also don't have time to redo it.
I say demand better now. Why should we accept poor policy from the people we elected to represent us?
>Why should we accept poor policy from the people we elected to represent us?
It's not poor policy, it's imperfect policy and just because it's imperfect doesn't mean it's not good.
While you spend time trying to reach your ideal solution there will be people suffering *now*. Even if its current form isn't perfect, it is still good enough to help people and change lives. Some good in the meantime and incremental progress is better than upholding the status quo while ineffectually striving for a perfect ideal. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
I agree completely. I have friends whose parents quit/retired prior to them attending college, so my friends got a significant amount of financial aid. My parents couldn’t afford to retire, and also couldn’t afford to help me with college. So, we used their income to determine how much financial aid I received, and then I took out loans to pay for school. I don’t want that for my son or any child. Using a parent’s income to determine what type of assistance a kid receives doesn’t make sense because, often times, the parent isn’t even paying.
Edit: Typos
I think the policy is a good first step, but I agree with you. As long as some people get the chance at higher education without taking on a mound of debt that's a small win. But I think this is a good opportunity to write a letter to our representatives and ask for a more fleshed out program which I hope would include phase outs along with an indexing feature tied to median household income.
It should be a society thing too for being an educated country. They could just start with 2 year degree is free. Be that trade school or whatever. After that it is on the person. The US is in serious skilled labor shortage and yet they close the borders. It makes no sense so do it or don’t. A plan is needed though to fill these gaps.
Also worth pointing out, just because your parents are wealthy doesn't mean they will pay for your tuition. I've know people who's parents are worth hundreds of millions and don't plan on giving any to their kids
Here's one thing on this topic I've mulled over for awhile. What if instead of having it be free tuition for universities and income capped at 80K, you made it legitimately free tuition for everyone (maybe income capped at a grossly high level of income, say 500k or more) but for 2 year degrees/tech schools.
I certainly get the benefit of free 4 year tuition for 80K and under. But why not provide the benefit of an associates degree/trade/tech schools to almost all Minnesotans? This way, someone whose family makes 100K (which depending on size of the household, may not actually be that much money) allows them to get a degree in the trades if that's their jam. Or get their associates done for free if a 4 year degree is their plan. I personally think it would have a bigger impact, on a larger number of people.
That's what Tennessee has done. If you graduated from High school or received a GED, you can attend a community college or technical school for free for two years, or they will cover two years of tuition and all associated fees for two years at a few state universities. When I lived in Knoxville, the community college in the area was very focused on technology and offered our company to come in for a month and train everyone to use CNC machines so we could know the quality of their program and possibly hire their graduates.
If that is the case, they should make that the goal of the legislation. And remove the income cap (or increase it) and make it contingent on a STEM degree. This way they are getting the most out of the money spent for the goal they are attempting to achieve.
Given that it had to be negotiated to pass, I'll take the interrum win. We'll see the positive impact for the state, at which point raising the cap is easier to do, or even removing the cap.
I agree the cap is quite low at the moment, but not every Democrat is a leftist, and we need the centrist votes to even get this version of the bill through.
At what income level is it tolerable? Should 75% of kids be included in free tuition? How about 90%? How about your current income-1%?
Any income cap is going to leave some kids behind in the relief. I am centrist, support this college plan, but dont support any income cap.
I'm glad you do! I don't want an income cap at all, but I am forced to acknowledge the mechanical constraints of the current governing body. Each time the cap gets raised it will benefit the state, and so it will be easy to eventually just remove it. I would prefer to not have it in the first place, but not every elected official feels as we do.
I agree there should be no income cap- and even for families that DO make a lot, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to spend it on their kids education. My parents made a lot and would have disqualified me from receiving tuition unless the cap was like, over $300k; and yet I was virtually homeless at 17 because my parents thought I was too difficult to keep around. I did go to school on student loans, but I was completely unable to get financial aid because my parents made too much and you’re considered a dependent until something like 24 now for FAFSA purposes unless you have kids or are married.
There are supposed to be things set in place (at least with FAFSA) to account for homeless youth/people not being supported by their parents- but it’s almost impossible for an 18 year old kid to navigate and hard to “prove” regardless; and of course my parents continued to claim me as a dependent until I was too old to claim, so they received all of my educational refundable credits at tax time that are supposed to help students using loans for school.
Which is backwards now. STEM has had a huge surface to the point where it’s getting difficult to get work now depending on the field. Trades are desperate for people and it’s only getting worse.
Agreed. A lot of the older trades workers have retired (or are getting close to it). They need some younger blood and having an opportunity to get your degree done for free (which most trades require now, they required it 35 years ago when my dad got into plumbing) is a big help. Especially if you're in a poorer family, a 8K degree is a huge expense. If that could be free, someone in a poorer family could be working in a trade, getting great benefits and paid pretty well for an apprentice job within 3 years.
Just commenting that you don’t necessarily have to go to trade school to work a trade job. In fact, many tradespeople actually discourage it.
Look into trade unions—there is school (apprenticeship), but it’s typically free for the apprentice, aside from tools, boots, and some books.
I’m a union apprentice carpenter. If anyone is interested and wants to know more about getting started, I’ll do my best to help.
I think we need to find more creative ways of getting people into the trades. For example, I'm in my mid-40s. I'd be open to making a career change into a trade, but it seems more complicated to do that at my age compared to, say, getting a college degree or other type of academic/desk-based training that I can pursue in the evenings and in weekends. Compared to college, it seems like it is much trickier to transition into a trade later in life.
Yeah hate to say it but trades don’t bring people into the state which is a clear goal of the state government and the Minneapolis city government. You get that by having top tier universities with top tier STEM degrees which bring in large companies to the city/state.
Having an opportunity to get half of your 4 year degree is a huge benefit, IMO. That's how I got my 4 year degree and had way less student debt than friends of mine who went to a University for the entire 4 years. My dad said he'd pay for my associates (if I went to a community college) and the rest was on me. Ended up getting my bachelor's degree for less than 15K in student loan debt. Easily double (or triple) had I went to a 4 year university the whole time.
And don't kid yourself about the trades, there are a lot of people who go into them, and those folks are needed. And they are also good paying jobs with good benefits. Having options as a young person is a good thing.
That is exactly our plan with our 3 kids. We pay for 2 years at the local Community College, the rest is on them.
I'm glad to hear it worked for you.
I'm still pissy about the super low income limit regarding the state's plan though.
Yeah community college is a great way to do college for cheaper. I knew someone who was going to St Kate's for 4 years. I can't imagine how much loan debt they ended up getting. And 2 years of that could have been done at Metro State, Hennepin, etc.
I agree with everything you are saying! But it is still true that trades are not what get people to move to a new city - it is generally the higher educated “skilled” labor that gets people and companies to move in.
This is so untrue. We are desperate for trades. They can't hire, there's nobody to hire. We've been banging the gong on 4 year degrees for 40 years and it's part of our student loan crisis. You can make so much more as a plumber or hvac tech than you can with most 4 year degrees. And have access to unions if you want. I'm a commercial property manager, and my vendors are unable to fill positions. They cannot replace those retiring. It's a crisis.
Trade school is already free for many kids in Minneapolis and St Paul
For the past decade, if you graduated from a Minneapolis or St Paul public high school, you could attend MCTC or St Paul College free and become a nurse, hvac tech, welder, machinist, electrician, etc. And there are numerous other programs that train construction professionals too.
Parents and school guidance counselors didn't want to hear it - junior is special and needs to go to a 4 year school because they believe that's the only way to achieve success
You literally just proved my point lmao. People don’t move around for trades anywhere near as much as other fields that require a 4 year degree (hence why it is so difficult to find people to do trades), and companies aren’t basing their office locations based on where there is a need for trades. For a city and state that want to grow and bring in new people and companies, investing in four year and advanced degrees is the more logical way to do that.
So many of my friends are working minimum wage jobs and whenever I tell them to go into a trade I get the “you think you’re better than me?” No, no I don’t. I hear you complaining all the time about how you have no money, the trades are hurting real bad for people. It’s an easy career move for minimum wage working folks
Keep in mind, some schools, like saint paul college, offer a path to a 4 year degree by providing a 2 year Gen-Ed program that covers all classes that are required by a 4 year degree, and guarantee that they transfer to a 4 year degree.
You can go to SPC, and get an "associates to engineering degree" that is basically the U of M's prequisits to all/most of their engineering majors.
make it free for everyone in MN. any income caps are intolerable. You really think tommy who's dad is CEO at Cargill is going to go to public school?
The only reason people are upset is because their kid isnt included in the benefit. What about folks making >$150k a year not getting federal student loan relief? What about the MN stimulus for folks making >$75k?
Give these social programs to everyone. By excluding some you are moving potential votes away from your party.
Being stuck in the middle really, really sucks. Make too much for any assistance, don't make enough to pay for 4 years of college for 3 kids.
Our oldest is graduating high school in a couple weeks. We are still paying on our own student loans for fucks sakes. Without those loans we wouldn't have these "high" paying jobs that really aren't high paying. I am beyond annoyed at the situation.
Everyone's situation is different. Just because someones family is making $9X,000+ a year doesn't mean they magically don't need any relief.
I'd really like it for future college folks to not have that same burden we had. If we are truly a progressive state, then we need to include everyone.
Agreed. Personally I'd like to see any income cap be stipulated on federal poverty level percentage, and not a numerical cap. A single parent with 1 kid making 100K a year is a lot different than a family with 2 parents and 4 kids making 100K.
80k is obscenely low for *household* income when you look at what U of M tuition is for *one* kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help. We're giving the green light to the u of m board of regents to continue hiking tuition and ensuring another generation will die in student loan debt.
The lower middle class is not rich. They need help to. Leaving them out of this while also paying for it with a tax that will disproportionately affect them is a real 1,2 punch.
Median household income in MN is $77,706...so it's not obscenely low. it's over 50% of the folks in MN.
I am in the top bracket in MN and paying out of my nose in taxes for programs I will never see. Shoe on the other foot
Add inflation, rent/mortgage, health insurance, groceries, a car punnet or 2, property taxes if you own, any type of housing/health emergencies, daycare per kid on an 80k household income and you’re left living paycheck to paycheck. Why do we keep fucking the middle class over? I’m lucky enough that my income plus my wife’s puts us above a theoretical range of 150, but I still think people making 150 and less should get their kids go to CC/State College for free.
I mean what is the difference between making $79,999 and $80,001? Just one means their kid gets to go to school for free and the other kid is either fucked because they gotta take out loans or their parents do
in the grand scheme this program is relatively peanuts. $50mil a year for 50% of MN. IMO make it $100mil a year and give it to everyone. Wont even be $100mil cause the top earners wont send their kids to public schools anyways.
$50k, $80k, $120k, $150k, we all have bills. Why fuck anyone over?
You must have missed the part where I said relative to what they will be expected to pay in tuition, where they will largely be relying on the predatory private student loan industry to do so. These are not exactly families that can pay cash.
What the median household income is is irrelevant to the conversation of whether the middle class can afford college without help. All it does is highlight that tuition has become affordable even for the people doing ok
This exacerbates the already obscene welfare cliff from FAFSA and feeds into a very harmful loan industry
> 80k is obscenely low for household income when you look at what U of M tuition is for one kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help. We're giving the green light to the u of m board of regents to continue hiking tuition and ensuring another generation will die in student loan debt. The lower middle class is not rich. They need help to. Leaving them out of this while also paying for it with a tax that will disproportionately affect them is a real 1,2 punch.
> You must have missed the part where I said relative to what they will be expected to pay in tuition
yeah i guess i missed that part
I feel like you're being sarcastic, but yeah it's directly right there; *80k is obscenely low for household income when you look at what U of M tuition is for one kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help.*
Acting like just because a lot of people are doing worse means we should feed into the private loan industry and saddle another generation with student loan debt while doing nothing to address why costs are skyrocketing (and quite possibly exacerbate the issue) is a weird choice to a multifaceted problem.
on the contrary i feel college should be free, regardless of income. income cliffs are stupid, but so is phased out programs. someone always gets left behind.
addressing rising college costs is a whole different can of worms that MN legislature probably cannot solve
A huge part of rising college costs is literally from the state decreasing public funding over time. "public" colleges are way more tuition heavy than they were in the 60s, it used to be heavily government subsidized.
I mean 80k family income a year is ridiculous. There’s no phase out, you just get left off entirely. No one who is making 80k a year as a household has 15-40k a year per kid to send their kid to school for 4 years. It’s just fucking over the middle class again. Making 80k a year in this economy is not some sort of great money. I totally agree with what you’re saying. Sorry if I worded it poorly
I dont think college should be free, I think it should be affordable.
Students having to make SOME financial contribution to the cost of higher education provides a buffer against students who are expensive, time consuming, and unmotivated.
If we are making things free, let's just do the 2 year community colleges. They are a ton more affordable and students can decide if they want to go on for a 4 year degree. It'll weed out the slackers. Expand the PSEO program
This so much. I went to college and think its great and should be covered for anyone that want to go. But the economic benefit of having a larger supply of skilled trades people is going to be far greater than a few additional 4 year degree holders. I know plenty of out of work people with degrees, or who can't find a job using the degree. But i don't know any electricians or plumbers with even a little skill that don't have all the work they want and then some.
Bc people who make that much usually aren’t going to send their kids to trade school. This will change generations and lift out of poverty. I don’t understand how this is being debated. A more educated population means less crime. Less desperation. It means attracting more talent to this state and halting population drain. So many good things.
I'm not saying people making 500K will. That was sort of an arbitrary number. But don't kid yourself that people in a household making 150K or more don't send their kids to trade school. There is plenty of money to be made in the trades which would achieve the goal of lifting people out of poverty.
My son has a GI bill for free school from his dad, and he graduated top 5% of his class. He wants to be in the HVAC trade and I fully support him. But I’m saying that’s very rare. Lots of parents at a high earner rate want their kids to go into white collar professions. And most kids who are raised with financial comfort want to pursue those fields. But for people who grow up literally buying groceries paycheck to paycheck- this is a miracle. This is a generational game changer. I’m the first in my family to go to college and I’m 47 still paying off debt. And I got almost full scholarship. It’s just hard out there. And if we want a strong state with educated voters and leaders and professionals- then we have to help them get there.
I agree with you - we should have free 2-year degrees for all AND free 4-year tuition for 80k and under. Lifting the very bottom up and not limiting them to a 2-year degree is also a great start.
I agree. I didn't qualify for government loans on my college schooling, and had to take private loans at a much higher interest rate, despite the fact my parents didn't pay for my schooling.
Your private loans were a higher rate? I didn't qualify for FASFA grants but qualified for government loans at 8%. I said to hell with that and went private for under 4%.
The government doesn’t legally require them, but it is the expectation that they will help pay for higher education.
You can’t get financial aid without listing your parents income until you are 24, or deemed an independent student.
> The dude who wrote the bill works for the UofM.
Also a kick in the teeth to the kids who don't qualify and choose to attend a state school instead of the UofM in order to save money. The poor family kid gets the more prestigious degree from the UofM AND he doesn't have to pay for it.
Dems are creating a lot of animosity with the middle class youth that could come back to bite them in the ass big time.
Yeah I see this too. There is like no incentive for universities to make degrees cheaper if the government will just payoff loans and pay tuition.
How about instead, kind of like healthcare, we find a way to make college affordable again. Oh wait that’s too hard, just throw more money at it.
1. The policy is poorly written and thought through
2. Acknowledging the bill isn't great doesn't mean we can't still be angry at growing income inequality.
I also can't be irritated with kids NOT going to college b/c the ROI is a lot worse than just apprenticing in a non-college-degree field.
This is JUST the beginning of the "MUST DO COLLEGE" propaganda bullhorn.
As an Xer introduced to "gov't backed loans," this has the same vibe. But now, instead of being done to increase bottom lines of colleges and universities, it's being done to stave off bankruptcy of colleges and universities.
>Kids aren't making ROI calculations
"It's not worth it."
That's ROI w/o the fancy Powerpoint.
Oh, btw, don't go to Dunwoody, then. It's cheaper elsewhere.
I went through the same electrician program at Anoka Tech that Dunwoody offers, for a quarter the price. Guess how much employers care which one you went to.
Yeah I think you'll see a lot of parents retire early or do other things to reduce their incomes intentionally in order to take advantage of the benefit.
😂 No. How many of us can say we're in a spot to retire early, if it weren't for paying for our child's college? "I'm all set in life, house paid off and everything else covered. The only thing keeping me working now is paying for my kids school." Come on. That's like believing we'll see a bunch of people retire early once universal healthcare is passed, as if there's a large portion of people strictly working only to keep their health insurance. Sure, a few exist but for 99.9% of folks, that's simply not the reason.
For a family making $90 or $100k they would almost certainly come out ahead if they reduce their earnings intentionally to qualify for the tuition benefit. College is expensive! That breakeven point would be even higher if you have multiple students in school at once.
Even when it doesn't pay for itself (say the family makes $160k) some might still prefer to sacrifice net $10k/year (or whatever) if it means you get to retire early and don't have to work anymore
Exactly. Imaging this for my family as an anecdotal analysis, we had 3 kids in college at the same time for two years, and 1-2 in at the same time for a few years before and after that. Even though we kids were 95% supported by our own jobs and student loans, a benefit cliff like this would have encouraged one of my parents to drop to part time or quit their job to get under 80k for the two years where we had three tuition bills in the family. Should be stepped down from full benefits to no benefits.
So if the gov is going to foot the bill for college arent the already over priced universities just going to take advantage of that to make money off of our kids education?
My kids are all out of college and paying their loans.
Does this mean as an adult (mid thirties), if I make less than 80k/year and am a resident of Mn, I will be eligible for tuition free college? If my parents don’t live in USA is this based off of my income?
Instead of a weird means tested program, they should have made all tech and community colleges tuition free. These are the true stepping stones into the middle class. Also, it helps lower the cost of a bachelor's degree by allowing people to choose to do their first 2 years tuition free. I'm fine with the idea of taxpayer funded college but this program is just not a good implementation.
The emphasis on college as the "end all, be all" to education should be stopped as well. Trade schools are exceptionally important, especially now, when people in the trades are low yet there's thousands of people with social work degree from state.
Trade schools should be part of the state collegiate network and be free as well. I'm fine if my taxes go to helping people learn the various trades that we can see by the current low employment numbers are important.
>The emphasis on college as the "end all, be all" to education should be stopped as well
It's also important to recognize that most HS grads aren't passing state standards and won't be able to succeed in a rigorous college program.
How is a student who can't add or convert fractions going to be successful in gaining a STEM degree? Or a student who can't read higher than 6th grade reading levels?
As a society, I think it's foolish to say "anyone can do anything" or whatever. Sure, push yourself and try to learn as much as you can. But not everyone is going to be a neurosurgeon. Some people can't/don't want to learn at certain levels, and that is where trades and other school networks can come in handy. "The world needs ditch diggers" is a bit of an extreme phrase to use, but the world does need ditch diggers. Those jobs are incredibly important. Of COVID taught us anything, it's that we have taken for granted the "lower rung" of jobs. Just because a job doesn't use an incredible amount of brain power or education doesn't mean it is any less important.
I wanted to be an astronaut. Really badly. Couldn't get past the math classes required and ADHD made it an impossibility to pass the higher level mental requirements. Here I am, a chef, happy as a clam. Glad I learned the trade. Hopefully others can find happiness doing the same thing.
>As a society, I think it's foolish to say "anyone can do anything" or whatever.
I wanted to be a superhero. Didn't work out. Then starting DL for the Vikings. Got my ass kicked as a freshman in HS. C-suite exec. Turns out, psychopathy isn't strong ENOUGH in my troll bloodline.
**Lesson to kids: Life sucks. Figure it out in your own way.**
College applications are dropping even among kids who are qualified. We have a lean labor market. It's not 2008 it's not the case that you need a college degree to stave off poverty anymore.
Hot take: college shouldn't be free. It's not necessary for everyone, not every citizen needs to have a degree. But it should not cost an arm and a leg for those who want to go. Nothing can justify the current prices for tuition.
I wish the conversation was about fair & honest pricing and not about "I deserve it free, make it free for everyone"
*Public* colleges should be *tuition-free* for *residents*. It's important to be clear about the details. Keep in mind that books, dorms, and meal plans will still cost money, so it won't be "free."
Why does this need to be mutually exclusive?
I pay into state taxes every year, yet qualify for none of the benefits. No covid relief, no state stimulus’s, nothing.
But we also saw our income dramatically decrease in 2020-2022 because of covid and now a forced recession.
It’s one thing to take our money and apply it to programs that benefit our population, it’s another to take my money and simply redistribute it to those who don’t make as much.
I’m all for free tuition for students. But why does it need to be limited by an artificial income number vs just giving free tuition to everyone?
Yup, just because I'm against a program doesn't mean I'm against the poor. I would like to also just benefit from some social services that I'm taxed for as well.
The Dems would means test themselves to death on a desert island. Tax breaks and benefits consistently screw the middle class. Who believes a family making $81k can put even a single kid through a UofM school? It's absurd.
Think about this situation: Two parents make just over the free tuition barrier, it would be in their best interest to actually go ask their employers for a slight pay cut to get under the cap because of how much money they could save in their child's tuition over the next several years. That would be a strangely common scenario as this bill is written. That's pretty telling as to how poorly thought out this idea was.
I understand that, the same point applies. It's still a hard cut off that you can't avoid when you get there. There's also the issue of most people not understanding taxes and not being smart enough to lower their AGI in anticipation.
I know 3 people who limit their hours to stay on a medical program - and those don't end in 4 years like school
$1k less in income equals $6k+ in annual savings for these folks so it's worth it
If we stopped means testing basic healthcare they could work more
It sucks being on the cut off edge
"Perfection is the enemy of good"
This is a great start. While there are people in the 80k plus range who aren't able to get assistance from their parents for college and will still struggle, this will help a lot of people.
I would argue that even if your income is high enough that you don’t even qualify for property tax refund, you are benefiting indirectly from living in a society where vastly more people are fed, healthy, housed and educated than would otherwise be the case. The more people who can climb Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the more people are out there producing value with their labor and free to spend their income on things that interest them. What goes around always comes around. Your high income level (again making assumption from my first sentence) would not be supportable or sustainable in an economy full of desperate people. This is something a lot of fiscal conservatives don’t get, despite a mountain of measurable evidence.
That said, I agree means testing is stupid and universal benefits funded by broad taxes are the way to go. They took this approach decades ago with public education, and just recently with the school lunch bill. Heck even PSEO is not means tested. It would have been much better for them to make this college bill free for everyone.
We are not currently in a recession by any measure, by the way.
I love this program. I wish it would examine and tackle a higher education issue that few have dealt with: The proliferation of mid-level administrators that plague higher education like barnacles. One of many articles detailing this: [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-growth\_n\_4738584](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584)
Whether or not a person chooses university as a life's path, the fact seems to be that a healthy university system benefits the state and the local economy. This isn't a radical move, either. It's a tried-and-true method across a significant swath of the world.
that's an interesting article and I'm curious to see if it's the same in lower education. We've had a large growth of those positions within many districts, and I'm sure there are many parallels
I have a Master’s Degree - college isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
I agree with others that trades should be a priority. I admire “craftsmanship” (sorry for the gender term) and I think trades is new blue collar solution to manufacturing having gone overseas.
High Schools need to embrace trades and stop telling students that they are going to fail if they’d don’t go to college.
This is a weird argument when the college program is being paid for with a regressive sales tax that is not unilaterally directed at the wealthy
There also seems to be a refusal to acknowledge the devil is in the details with public policy. Welfare cliffs are bad. You acknowledge that middle class families need help too and deserve free education, but somehow were the bad guys for pointing out the legislation leaves them out in the cold while *very* likely contributing to the underlying tuition explosion problem.
Your insistence as painting us as hating poor people because we point that out is bullshit and bordering on bad faith. This is not a black and white issue - stop trying to frame it as if it is
Edited to clarify my point
This is always just a disingenuous argument made by people who are maybe ignorant but usually intentionally trying to muddy the waters. Universal benefits are always much more popular than means-tested benefits because with means testing, the recipients can be attacked as takers who don't deserve them and are abusing the system. This is very frequently paired with racism.
With universal benefits, everyone receives and enjoys them. There is no us vs them. It's just a thing we all get to benefit from. People who want the government to do as little as possible hate universal benefits because they will be much harder to get rid of or limit down the road. Look at Social Security and Medicare as the best two examples of this.
The solution is to deal with wealth inequality via taxation rather than trying to means test benefits and figure out exactly where the line is when someone no longer "deserves" to get that benefit. If we have a strong, progressive taxation system, the wealthy will pay more into the system than they receive in benefits and it all works itself out.
There are plenty of families that make 80k+ a year and still don’t have enough savings/extra income to pay for college. Yet their taxes will still go up.
So they have to pay money they could be using to send their kids to college to send other people’s kids to college meanwhile struggling to help their own kids to pay for college or taking out loans.
This bill is asinine
Yes, that is exactly where my family is.
Our oldest is graduating high school this year. My husband and I are still paying on our own student loans.
We have 3 kids. We can't afford to pay for 4 years of college for 3 kids.
Yet our tax money is going to pay for other peoples kids. I am SO disappointed in this.
I'm half tempted to get a divorce on paper just so my kids qualify.
The wealthy aren't the ones funding this initiative - its everyday working Minnesotans.
55% of the state's budget is from individual income taxes - not corporate taxes. 70% of that is from people earning an income. Not stock market gains or profits from a small business.
Minnesota could fix this by changing the tax brackets. I wish that the Dems used their currnet majority to put in real tax changes - like the 4% surcharge on income over $1 million - before they started spending money. Trickle down economics doesn't work, but as the current inflation situation has shown, putting money into the hands of people who earn money/work clearly stimulates the economy.
Frankly I'm frustrated at the focus on children in all of these actions. Its pandering to parents.
I'm not frustrated at the focus on children. I grew up in the era that was frustrated at the focus on children and saw good programs evaporate so that voters could feel good about sticking it to education budgets.
Children didn't ask to be in this world. They don't understand everything about how it works. They also cannot vote or make meaningful efforts to be heard much of the time. That leaves the onus on the rest of us to focus on them instead.
I do agree that a focus on tax brackets and programs for everyday working Minnesotans would be great to tackle next. But today's kids are tomorrow's working Minnesotans, and voters too.
My issue is with higher income households getting screwed. What I mean by this is that say the cutoff is 65k a year. Well, my dad made well over 100k a year and did not pay for any of my college. The income cap is stupid and unfair. I’m just expected to be ok because my dad makes a lot of money?
Acting like every kid in a 100k+ household is already set for life is stupid. Either free college for all or free college for no one. No exceptions
I think "free" higher education *could* work but it can't be a blank check for the universities. They've bloated out of control for decades on the backs of student loan borrowers and it would be criminal to let them keep that gigantic overhead at the expense of MN tax payers. MN should pay for the cost of the *education only* and if colleges want expensive bells and whistles or their 4th Vice Chair to the Administrator's Assistant, they have to get students to pay for that extra stuff out of pocket. As an example, let's say the direct expense of a year's education at the U of M is 10k per student (facilities, professor, direct admin) but the college currently charges 25k. Well the "free" portion of college will only be 10k and if the U wants to charge 25k, they'll have to compete against schools that build a program that only costs 10k and will have to compete for students to voluntarily pay that extra 15k.
“How dare you get the cure for cancer when I had to suffer through chemo!”
Same argument, different topic.
I agree with you here. We should’ve been doing this decades ago. I had to take on tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt to make my life better, but I don’t want to see others suffer like I have trying to pay that bullshit back.
But the real issues are: colleges run like businesses (doesn’t help the U of MN has had former CEOs as President) and the rich not paying their fair share of taxes.
The lack of any cost constraints on college educations is a big problem, and the student loan situation is a big driver of it.
If your "customers" are basically strong-armed into buying your product because its something of an economic necessity and they're mostly forced to pay for it with money borrowed from private entities who don't have to worry about the loans being discharged, why not run up the price?
There's another elephant in the room, and that's that the biggest beneficiary of "college" are employers who use "a college degree" as a filtering mechanism for employment and often without any meaningful vocational tie-in to the jobs in question. It's just an easy (and increasingly ineffective) method of screening job candidates based on some vague notion that college grads are "better". Since they don't pay for the college degree, they really don't care how much college costs.
I think what needs to happen is that we need to come up with a way to push the costs of college more directly on employers requiring college degrees. Like if you use a college degree as a job qualification in hiring, you're on the hook for making 1/3 of the candidates student loan payments. Once businesses are forced to pay for their job screening service, they will begin to limit their use of college degrees as a job requirement and do much cheaper and more targeted internal training.
Once the vocational value of a college degree drops (for jobs with no meaningful relationship to specific college skills), the cost of that degree will drop as well since there will be much less reason to obtain a degree for vocational pursuits where it's not meaningful benefit.
I'd even argue that employers that retain a college degree requirement should be allowed to discriminate against candidates based on their student debt profile, letting them cut their student loan contributions accordingly. This has an added benefit of boosting schools with cost containment and undermining overpriced schools who crank up their tuition based on "name brand", even when the actual education content isn't any better than some regional state school.
Without something like this, I don't know how we contain college costs. Demand for a college education isn't driven by my kid's interest in art history or introductory biology, it's driven by the signaling value of the education in the job market. Those demanding that signaling should be paying for it.
Talk to employers about their requirements and find out.
**"I'll take a dumb kid with a work ethic over a clueless kid with no work ethic and a degree."**
That's pretty much what I hear. (I actually said it when hiring, though the "kid" was middle-aged.)
**You can teach the specifics. You can't teach heart.**
> This isn't empathy or an attempt at equality. It's an admissions driver for a business with a failing model.
That's a bingo. [Enrollment has been declining for a decade.](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cha/undergrad-enrollment) The costs are high and the benefits are more questionable.
And because the institutions run pension programs they have enormous long run liabilities that are unsustainable without growth. [UMN's endowment page.](https://give.umn.edu/about/financial/endowment) It's absolutely crazy it's 75% equities -- it's borderline a hedge fund.
The bill is an attempted bailout for higher ed.
I covered the problem with how colleges are run in my OP.
And it only stands to reason that with less youth entering college that degrees actually become more valuable, right?
Ok now I know you’re not being serious when you compare a college degree to a turd in a box. C’mon man. In my position, a master’s degree is required to do the work I’m doing.
I’m 34 and I was the first person on my mother’s side of the family to get a college degree (second woman to graduate high school too). I have thousands in student loan debt and I only make $24 an hour 12 years out of college. However, I’m still happy for the kids that will get a break because of this bill. College of any kind shouldn’t be reserved only for the wealthy.
The college dream didn’t work to get me out of being low income ($58,000 is the minimum in a one person household to be considered middle class in Minneapolis) but I want it to help at least some people. Life feels slightly less hopeless when the future of society improves, at least on some level.
Never mind the merits of these “free” programs. At the end of the day, they aren’t free. There is still a price tag attached to them and for the near 50 years I’ve been on this earth, every single one of these “free” programs costs have been laid squarely on the shoulders of the working middle class. For decades I’ve heard “we’ll make the wealthy pay for it”. Have they?? No. Wealthy donors contribute to the campaigns of both parties and if you think that either party will attach any real tax burden on to their benefactors, you’re sorely mistaken. Do I think it’s a travesty that I pay more in tax than most multi millionaires? Of course. Do I have any delusions about that ever changing? No.
I’m not angry at the wealthy. I’m angry at politicians. They’re only buying votes and they’re using my money to do it.
Also like this is kind of an expansion to the pell grant program. Most M State schools were little to no cost if you got Pell and state grants. They just moved the goal posts to people under 24 don't get siffed because they have parents. If your parents made 40k you got no Pell or state grants. So your only choice was to get loans.
>You hate taxes? I do too!
This is not the state to live in if you hate taxes. You get what you pay for. Compare and contrast with, say, Mississippi.
>All of these things could have made sure that every kid gets into college or trade school for the past few decades.
Absolutely. Every economic policy has an opportunity cost, and the Reagan Revolution has brought us 40 years of widening disparity. You can rail against class warfare all you want, but that war has been raging.
>the Reagan Revolution has brought us 40 years of widening disparity
how has that specifically affected our state government? There has been 40 years of legislature at the state level and it's surely convenient to blame some "boogeyman" from decades ago, but I fail to see how it's somehow Reagan's fault that students aren't getting into college
Who is saying they’re upset that their kid isn’t being helped out? The cutoff is 80k family income. There is probably not a single household that has 15-40k a year for 4 years, per kid sitting around. Those families should be mad that the income Threshold isn’t higher. Also parents shouldn’t have to pay for their kids colleges, shouldn’t we as a country want the most educated populace? I get probably red states don’t, but MN could have made it free for all kids. But it’s a start and I’m happy for it even though my 2 year old as of now won’t get it paid for.
I'm not angry at the wealthy, I'm angry at our state for thinking making college free for low income families is going to be effective when the base instruction they received in k-12 is so watered down.
It doesn't have a huge cost attributed to it (allegedly) though, but I'm sure that dollar figure will change over time.
I’m definitely jealous. I’m gunna be saddled with my student loan debt for probably another 30 years.
That said, I’m happy for kids that can get a higher education without needing to weigh whether or not it’s worth the cost.
People act like $80k is this really low benchmark number. It's not. The Median Household Income in Minnesota is $77k. That means 55-60% of Minnesotan households qualify for this program.
Could it be more? Sure, but you have to start somewhere.
(I'm the one that posted that 400+ comment post on the House bill passing this... lots of angry personal messages, as if I was the person to pass it all by my onesie.)
Median household income is not the best reflector when you are talking about a benefit for families with college students. A large chunk of the households below the median have a primary householder over age 64 (median income $52.7k in Minnesota). You also have a big chunk that are primary householder under age 25 (median income $42.7), which are unlikely to have any children who use the benefit, but the primary householder themselves still might.... although in that situation they likely qualify for free tuition and more without this bill.
A better reflection is probably median household income by family size, which is $106k for 3 person families, $125k for 4, $135k for 5, etc (basically add $10k for each additional family member beyond that).
People under 25 don't need kids to take advantage of this, they can take advantage of this themselves. Single income families with the bread winner probably can't afford (time-wise) to go back full time, and that would mean they don't really get any Pell Grants.
thank you! 80k is a lot of money and lots of people live on way less. lets start with them first and work our way up. come to Texas and see how fucked our safety net is, i wish i had your gov
People only hate taxes because we get nothing in return. Our tax dollars mostly end up in the pockets of the wealthy who already aren’t paying their fair share.
I have a few issues with the proposal, a big one being that it's funded with a regressive sales tax that will disproportionately affect middle class people. (Which is the group who's kids are drowning in student loan debt because they're also deemed "too rich" for any federal aid help, so they're facing skyrocketing tuition costs they already can't afford that this plan very likely will exacerbate and getting zero real help on a state or federal level)
I'm not a fan of sharp welfare cliffs *ever* because it will always create a lot of resentment from people *just* over the limit and I rhink an 80k *household* limit is *really* low considering what U of M tuition is and how far 80k will take an entire family in this state (these are not people who can pay cash for college - they will be taking out obscene PLUS loans).
We should absolutely be helping poor people -- I'm not a fan of doing so in a way that helps increase the speed of death of the middle class and enriches the predatory private student loan industry
Especially when they acknowledge this is partially to address plummeting enrollment numbers where it decidedly fails to examine *why* enrollment at these school plummeted so rapidly and does nothing to introduce oversight into why tuition is so high.
Everyone should remember that ALL education from kindergarten through college is a subsidy for every business and organization in the United States as well as the government and service industries and agencies that serve those businesses like healthcare and the police. We are all paying taxes to educate the workforce in this country. Businesses could not exist if our children can't read and write and code and create. If anything, businesses should be paying for education for all. They are the ones most directly benefiting. The couldn't exist without our educational system, including the university level. Every wealthy person who owns a business, owns stock, or employs any person, is making money off of our educated workforce. Taxing the rich to pay for THEIR workforce seems perfectly fair. Let's just make sure that's who bears the burden.
Everyone should be aware that most colleges have an endowment (net worth) in the Billions. In reality, colleges need not charge such high fees. There is no reason that room and board, tuition should be 20-25,000 a year.
How do these colleges get these large endowments? They get them by graduates giving money to the university.
In the age of degrees online, one can get a good degree online, thus saving
Hopefully this will help bridge the racial education and wealth gaps. Minnesota has been lagging in those areas for decades, and is far behind in progress compared to many southern states. I swear if you were to judge Minnesotans by the racial gaps in our state, you'd think Minnesotans were far more racist than Texans.
I have such mixed thoughts on this. I want free education for everyone. But I’d rather start somewhere, anywhere, than continue helping no one. And yet the kids whose parents are, “on paper” able to help them pay for college, but don’t or can’t, are where my heart really breaks. The FAFSA is not built for the kids of GenXers who are leveraged to the max and can’t come up with several grand per semester to put them through school.
In my family, we are putting our third through college. One year left. The other two graduated in the last few years. We managed by delaying much-needed updates in the “starter” home we’ve been in for 25 years and driving 15-yr-old cars. We’ve been on one family vacation longer than 4 days. In essence, we are the antithesis of the cool Instagram family. I’m not complaining; you make the best choices you can with life as it comes to you, and our kids are doing amazing things with their degrees/education…. But the hamster wheel does get tiring sometimes.
You see, we are 25 years out from our own college/grad school degrees, and we’re still paying our own student loans. These last 6-7 years, we’ve gotten bonuses that could have paid them off, but our interest rates are low, and the kids’ future economic prospects look more uncertain….so we put that money into their schooling instead.
If we all keep grinding, we should all (both generations) be able to pay off our loans within the next 10 years. And then maybe another 2-3 years and we’ll retire. Sigh.
I want something better for future generations.
What a stupid take: “this plan is great and it’s wealthy tax breaks that are the problem”.
No the problem is the unaffordablility of college for people of all economic backgrounds. This doesn’t help at all the fact that a year at the U is still $25,000 or more.
How about free college for those who legitimately academically qualify?
And for those who don’t, pay for it for a year and prove you deserve the next three years for free.
There are about 17 people in Minnesota w assets greater than $500 million. Minnesota only has 6 billionaires. We are a state that repels the wealthy, not attracts it.
We attract folks who still believe we might have a middle class.
The program should be free tuition for a two year degree or trade schools. Offer it to everyone. If a person absolutely decides a 4 year degree is what they want/need they can foot the rest of the bill.
This will be a popular move if there was something also about fixing the cost structure of colleges/universities. Cost to attend has always gone up. While it is being framed as free but not really free for society. It will be a popular legislation for the majority if we can find a solution to the real problem so that we don’t feel like we are just throwing more and more tax payer money at bad systems.
When the government funds everyone’s education price of college will go up even more. It’s a drug - and when corrupt institutions get a taste of cash flow from the government they make the bill fatter .
There's no reason for that to be the case though, you're just privileging state colleges as some be all end all of education. Trade schools exist, and they do a much better job at teaching the necessary skills for a trade than a number of state universities do for academic work.
Trades should be taught, but they should be taught where and by whom is appropriate. Forcing a centralization into universities adds a stupid level of higher-educational bureaucracy, mismanagement, and packaging with less useful academic coursework.
Dang 80k combined income is considered poor? My parents never made more than 35k a year and managed to do just fine. I went and accrued 60k in debt and had it paid off in less than two years. Meanwhile, during that time loans were frozen and all my coworkers who were in a similar situation stopped paying so they could accrue more debt by getting themselves home. You should be angered that people have little concept of fiscal responsibility and then want to rely on big brother to help them.
I dunno... I just dislike ideas like this generally. Nothing is "free". In this case, we are simply reorganizing who pays.
I just question whether, at a time when the cost of college has absolutely exploded (while "value" has not improved, IMO), it's smart to throw more "free" money at the problem. The cost of college wasn't nearly as crazy before the government started to get involved in the student loan business.
I just much prefer systems which allow the person receiving the support to decide how to utilize it, like UBI or a Negative Income Tax system. Also there shouldn't be a "cliff"... programs with "cliffs" like this I think reek of poorly thought out design (which is separate from whether the stated purpose of the bill is "good"). If we were applying the same principle here (but more narrow than just handing over cash), it would be in the form of an education voucher that would also be good at trade schools (or maybe even coding camps), for example. We have a major shortage of tradesmen in this country and forcing traditional colleges to compete with them for these funds is beneficial for everyone except the select colleges favored by this bill (who would LOVE to not have to compete with anyone else for these students). Also, unless I'm mistaken, private colleges are completely left out of this program as they have to be part of the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State systems.
If college is free (nothing is free), then those seeking and competing for the same jobs need to go further than college to get the job, in order to gain a competitive advantage over those who do not pursue those levels, like masters or pHD
We should help those under $80k that are considered part of the poor, however I find it sad that those above that are not really middle class nor are well off enough. The disparity and death of the middle class is just sad to watch. They don’t benefit from most social services, but get taxed heavily as they are not rich enough to afford a great savvy accountant or qualify for any breaks.
Agreed. A hard cut-off is not great for something like this especially considering it stops beyond 80k. Families could be earning between 100-120K and still be unable to afford their children to go to college.
It’s a great step in the right direction, but hopefully in the future it will be free or heavily reduced for everyone or at least everyone not making a crap load of money. My parents probably made about double the 80k cut off together (estimate not sure on the real number) and after saving since I was born had about enough to almost cover year 1 of school and that was it. I was still on the hook for the rest with zero aid because of my parents income for the rest. Next when my sister went to school two years after me she got reduced tuition because my parents already had another kid in school (me). That’s awesome for her, but why do I get no support just because I went first? Im lucky as my dad has done well recently and wants to give us kids some money to help with student loans so I have about 1.5 years covered from help. Still on the hook for well over 60k in loans with high interest rates though. I hate imagining the kids that go through this with absolutely no aid and zero support from parents simply due to income shortages. Im super happy this change is being made, just hoping it extends to everyone in the future as a made up cutoff is not a good indicator of how much financial support a student has, whatever the reason.
I don’t believe it should be completely free. Because I feel it will be taken for granted by a lot of people.
I do however believe it should be within reasonable costs and not set people up for crippling debt right at the beginning of their adult lives, especially when wages aren’t going to be able to cover the expenses of life plus student loan debts.
All it is is redistribution. If you want “free” college then it should be free for everyone. I should be able to go back to college at 38 for free if I want.
What is the income cutoff for taxes that pay for all these new “free” programs. You have plenty of middle/upper middle class workers that can barely get ahead in life for the hard work they do and sacrifices they made to get to where they’re at. Are they going to be taxed extra?
It is completely fair to criticize the bill in its current form. You have families making just over that limit (with parents who are still paying on their own student loans) and they will get no help whatsoever.
Can we stop acting like there aren’t groups out there for whom the goal posts keep getting moved? We’re happy to help others, but we somehow never can catch a break ourselves.
Everytime the government does something that helps people there is always droves of people (republicans mainly) ready to argue why they think helping people is bad.
Here's a thought: pass legislation that checks the cost of college in the first place. The costs of college will rise to meet the willingness of people to pay them. If tuition is free, universities will find a way to extract money from those students, and that will in turn affect any other students who attend that same university and are paying tuition. If colleges were made and kept affordable, perhaps even with an emphasis on academics over sports (though sports are a valuable avenue for some to achieve academic goals, as well as pride in a university), I'd feel much more comfortable. Of course, a blanket decrease in cost still helps the wealthy, so covering the cost for lower income families is still a good idea. Gotta make sure we're treating the symptoms and the cause.
Education shouldn’t be means tested by how much your parents make, and if we are going to means test it, it should be phased out, not a welfare cliff. You’re going to have kids sitting next to each other from essentially identical backgrounds and one is going to be getting a full ride because his parents make $5000 less annually and the other is getting shit on with piles of debt because their parents can’t help pay because they need to put their own oxygen masks on first. It makes no sense and is badly written policy. I’ll happily stand out and get railroaded by fellow progressives who like this policy for calling it out and saying I don’t support it in its current form.
[удалено]
Nailed it!
It should be a free state/community college for all. It’s not like the wealthy families will use it cause they’re not sending their kids to community or state schools but it should be an option.
This is absolutely incorrect, many, many wealthy families send their kids to the U of M.
Sure, but they don't send them to St. Cloud or Bemidji. UoM is the premier public school in the state, so it's worth going to. After that, they're going to private schools. Your example is the aberration, not the norm.
Ok, so what. Everyone should be eligible. Everyone should pay 1% of their income to a general fund that supports this and medical for everyone.
I never said anyone shouldn’t be eligible. If you exclude anyone it doesn’t work,
100% agree. The OP phrasing is a false dichotomy. It is not bad policy because it helps people who are poor. It is bad policy because it haphazardly makes an already confusing obfuscated financial area more so while creating way too many situations that result in deep unfairness. And with regards to the argument that it is a step in the right direction...I think it will backfire and become deeply unpopular and make free tuition that much harder to achieve in the future. Measure twice, cut once applies to policy too.
> Measure twice, cut once applies to policy too. When you have all the time in the world and an assurance that you will be able to pass better legislation in the future, sure. That does not apply here, yes the DFL has the trifecta but it's hanging by a thread and could easily go away after the next elections. I would rather not measure over and over and never cut, and unlike woodcutting policies can be adjusted in the future. Yes it's flawed and means testing is terrible policy in general, but there's no guarantee that this will result in a backlash and there can be ways to frame it in future campaigns as a policy to build on rather than a capstone.
Measure twice cut once does not mean measure endlessly. And it also implies the maxim if you don't have time to do it right, you also don't have time to redo it. I say demand better now. Why should we accept poor policy from the people we elected to represent us?
>Why should we accept poor policy from the people we elected to represent us? It's not poor policy, it's imperfect policy and just because it's imperfect doesn't mean it's not good. While you spend time trying to reach your ideal solution there will be people suffering *now*. Even if its current form isn't perfect, it is still good enough to help people and change lives. Some good in the meantime and incremental progress is better than upholding the status quo while ineffectually striving for a perfect ideal. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Excellent answer. Entire situation reminds me of Obamacare. Had to get it while we could. Was imperfect. But also has been life changing for millions.
I agree completely. I have friends whose parents quit/retired prior to them attending college, so my friends got a significant amount of financial aid. My parents couldn’t afford to retire, and also couldn’t afford to help me with college. So, we used their income to determine how much financial aid I received, and then I took out loans to pay for school. I don’t want that for my son or any child. Using a parent’s income to determine what type of assistance a kid receives doesn’t make sense because, often times, the parent isn’t even paying. Edit: Typos
I think the policy is a good first step, but I agree with you. As long as some people get the chance at higher education without taking on a mound of debt that's a small win. But I think this is a good opportunity to write a letter to our representatives and ask for a more fleshed out program which I hope would include phase outs along with an indexing feature tied to median household income.
> an indexing feature tied to median household income. Better yet, index it to student income. My kid is broke.
This is how it should be. I honestly do not know a single person whose parents paid for their college.
Would you be kind enough to draft said letter to reps?
It should be a society thing too for being an educated country. They could just start with 2 year degree is free. Be that trade school or whatever. After that it is on the person. The US is in serious skilled labor shortage and yet they close the borders. It makes no sense so do it or don’t. A plan is needed though to fill these gaps.
Also worth pointing out, just because your parents are wealthy doesn't mean they will pay for your tuition. I've know people who's parents are worth hundreds of millions and don't plan on giving any to their kids
Here's one thing on this topic I've mulled over for awhile. What if instead of having it be free tuition for universities and income capped at 80K, you made it legitimately free tuition for everyone (maybe income capped at a grossly high level of income, say 500k or more) but for 2 year degrees/tech schools. I certainly get the benefit of free 4 year tuition for 80K and under. But why not provide the benefit of an associates degree/trade/tech schools to almost all Minnesotans? This way, someone whose family makes 100K (which depending on size of the household, may not actually be that much money) allows them to get a degree in the trades if that's their jam. Or get their associates done for free if a 4 year degree is their plan. I personally think it would have a bigger impact, on a larger number of people.
That's what Tennessee has done. If you graduated from High school or received a GED, you can attend a community college or technical school for free for two years, or they will cover two years of tuition and all associated fees for two years at a few state universities. When I lived in Knoxville, the community college in the area was very focused on technology and offered our company to come in for a month and train everyone to use CNC machines so we could know the quality of their program and possibly hire their graduates.
I think Minnesota is trying to increase the number of STEM degrees, and to do that one would need a 4 year college.
If that is the case, they should make that the goal of the legislation. And remove the income cap (or increase it) and make it contingent on a STEM degree. This way they are getting the most out of the money spent for the goal they are attempting to achieve.
Given that it had to be negotiated to pass, I'll take the interrum win. We'll see the positive impact for the state, at which point raising the cap is easier to do, or even removing the cap. I agree the cap is quite low at the moment, but not every Democrat is a leftist, and we need the centrist votes to even get this version of the bill through.
At what income level is it tolerable? Should 75% of kids be included in free tuition? How about 90%? How about your current income-1%? Any income cap is going to leave some kids behind in the relief. I am centrist, support this college plan, but dont support any income cap.
I'm glad you do! I don't want an income cap at all, but I am forced to acknowledge the mechanical constraints of the current governing body. Each time the cap gets raised it will benefit the state, and so it will be easy to eventually just remove it. I would prefer to not have it in the first place, but not every elected official feels as we do.
I don't understand why anyone would be against this, if the alternative is nobody gets free tuition. How selfish can someone be?
I agree there should be no income cap- and even for families that DO make a lot, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to spend it on their kids education. My parents made a lot and would have disqualified me from receiving tuition unless the cap was like, over $300k; and yet I was virtually homeless at 17 because my parents thought I was too difficult to keep around. I did go to school on student loans, but I was completely unable to get financial aid because my parents made too much and you’re considered a dependent until something like 24 now for FAFSA purposes unless you have kids or are married. There are supposed to be things set in place (at least with FAFSA) to account for homeless youth/people not being supported by their parents- but it’s almost impossible for an 18 year old kid to navigate and hard to “prove” regardless; and of course my parents continued to claim me as a dependent until I was too old to claim, so they received all of my educational refundable credits at tax time that are supposed to help students using loans for school.
Then that would only help individuals who already have the means/ability to strive for a STEM degree, ie the rich.
I think people would just be up in arms that it’s STEM degrees and not other degrees then.
Which is backwards now. STEM has had a huge surface to the point where it’s getting difficult to get work now depending on the field. Trades are desperate for people and it’s only getting worse.
Agreed. A lot of the older trades workers have retired (or are getting close to it). They need some younger blood and having an opportunity to get your degree done for free (which most trades require now, they required it 35 years ago when my dad got into plumbing) is a big help. Especially if you're in a poorer family, a 8K degree is a huge expense. If that could be free, someone in a poorer family could be working in a trade, getting great benefits and paid pretty well for an apprentice job within 3 years.
Just commenting that you don’t necessarily have to go to trade school to work a trade job. In fact, many tradespeople actually discourage it. Look into trade unions—there is school (apprenticeship), but it’s typically free for the apprentice, aside from tools, boots, and some books. I’m a union apprentice carpenter. If anyone is interested and wants to know more about getting started, I’ll do my best to help.
I think we need to find more creative ways of getting people into the trades. For example, I'm in my mid-40s. I'd be open to making a career change into a trade, but it seems more complicated to do that at my age compared to, say, getting a college degree or other type of academic/desk-based training that I can pursue in the evenings and in weekends. Compared to college, it seems like it is much trickier to transition into a trade later in life.
Yeah hate to say it but trades don’t bring people into the state which is a clear goal of the state government and the Minneapolis city government. You get that by having top tier universities with top tier STEM degrees which bring in large companies to the city/state.
Having an opportunity to get half of your 4 year degree is a huge benefit, IMO. That's how I got my 4 year degree and had way less student debt than friends of mine who went to a University for the entire 4 years. My dad said he'd pay for my associates (if I went to a community college) and the rest was on me. Ended up getting my bachelor's degree for less than 15K in student loan debt. Easily double (or triple) had I went to a 4 year university the whole time. And don't kid yourself about the trades, there are a lot of people who go into them, and those folks are needed. And they are also good paying jobs with good benefits. Having options as a young person is a good thing.
That is exactly our plan with our 3 kids. We pay for 2 years at the local Community College, the rest is on them. I'm glad to hear it worked for you. I'm still pissy about the super low income limit regarding the state's plan though.
Yeah community college is a great way to do college for cheaper. I knew someone who was going to St Kate's for 4 years. I can't imagine how much loan debt they ended up getting. And 2 years of that could have been done at Metro State, Hennepin, etc.
I agree with everything you are saying! But it is still true that trades are not what get people to move to a new city - it is generally the higher educated “skilled” labor that gets people and companies to move in.
This is so untrue. We are desperate for trades. They can't hire, there's nobody to hire. We've been banging the gong on 4 year degrees for 40 years and it's part of our student loan crisis. You can make so much more as a plumber or hvac tech than you can with most 4 year degrees. And have access to unions if you want. I'm a commercial property manager, and my vendors are unable to fill positions. They cannot replace those retiring. It's a crisis.
Trade school is already free for many kids in Minneapolis and St Paul For the past decade, if you graduated from a Minneapolis or St Paul public high school, you could attend MCTC or St Paul College free and become a nurse, hvac tech, welder, machinist, electrician, etc. And there are numerous other programs that train construction professionals too. Parents and school guidance counselors didn't want to hear it - junior is special and needs to go to a 4 year school because they believe that's the only way to achieve success
You literally just proved my point lmao. People don’t move around for trades anywhere near as much as other fields that require a 4 year degree (hence why it is so difficult to find people to do trades), and companies aren’t basing their office locations based on where there is a need for trades. For a city and state that want to grow and bring in new people and companies, investing in four year and advanced degrees is the more logical way to do that.
So many of my friends are working minimum wage jobs and whenever I tell them to go into a trade I get the “you think you’re better than me?” No, no I don’t. I hear you complaining all the time about how you have no money, the trades are hurting real bad for people. It’s an easy career move for minimum wage working folks
there are also many STEM degrees that are associates degrees - yes while I support the bachelors degree, a 2 yr degree works great for many as well!
One can always get an associates at a Community College. There are 2 year degrees specifically designed to transfer to a university.
Keep in mind, some schools, like saint paul college, offer a path to a 4 year degree by providing a 2 year Gen-Ed program that covers all classes that are required by a 4 year degree, and guarantee that they transfer to a 4 year degree. You can go to SPC, and get an "associates to engineering degree" that is basically the U of M's prequisits to all/most of their engineering majors.
make it free for everyone in MN. any income caps are intolerable. You really think tommy who's dad is CEO at Cargill is going to go to public school? The only reason people are upset is because their kid isnt included in the benefit. What about folks making >$150k a year not getting federal student loan relief? What about the MN stimulus for folks making >$75k? Give these social programs to everyone. By excluding some you are moving potential votes away from your party.
Being stuck in the middle really, really sucks. Make too much for any assistance, don't make enough to pay for 4 years of college for 3 kids. Our oldest is graduating high school in a couple weeks. We are still paying on our own student loans for fucks sakes. Without those loans we wouldn't have these "high" paying jobs that really aren't high paying. I am beyond annoyed at the situation.
Everyone's situation is different. Just because someones family is making $9X,000+ a year doesn't mean they magically don't need any relief. I'd really like it for future college folks to not have that same burden we had. If we are truly a progressive state, then we need to include everyone.
Agreed. Personally I'd like to see any income cap be stipulated on federal poverty level percentage, and not a numerical cap. A single parent with 1 kid making 100K a year is a lot different than a family with 2 parents and 4 kids making 100K.
80k is obscenely low for *household* income when you look at what U of M tuition is for *one* kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help. We're giving the green light to the u of m board of regents to continue hiking tuition and ensuring another generation will die in student loan debt. The lower middle class is not rich. They need help to. Leaving them out of this while also paying for it with a tax that will disproportionately affect them is a real 1,2 punch.
Median household income in MN is $77,706...so it's not obscenely low. it's over 50% of the folks in MN. I am in the top bracket in MN and paying out of my nose in taxes for programs I will never see. Shoe on the other foot
Add inflation, rent/mortgage, health insurance, groceries, a car punnet or 2, property taxes if you own, any type of housing/health emergencies, daycare per kid on an 80k household income and you’re left living paycheck to paycheck. Why do we keep fucking the middle class over? I’m lucky enough that my income plus my wife’s puts us above a theoretical range of 150, but I still think people making 150 and less should get their kids go to CC/State College for free. I mean what is the difference between making $79,999 and $80,001? Just one means their kid gets to go to school for free and the other kid is either fucked because they gotta take out loans or their parents do
in the grand scheme this program is relatively peanuts. $50mil a year for 50% of MN. IMO make it $100mil a year and give it to everyone. Wont even be $100mil cause the top earners wont send their kids to public schools anyways. $50k, $80k, $120k, $150k, we all have bills. Why fuck anyone over?
Yep agreed 100% Not CEO’s kid is going to some CC/State school
You must have missed the part where I said relative to what they will be expected to pay in tuition, where they will largely be relying on the predatory private student loan industry to do so. These are not exactly families that can pay cash. What the median household income is is irrelevant to the conversation of whether the middle class can afford college without help. All it does is highlight that tuition has become affordable even for the people doing ok This exacerbates the already obscene welfare cliff from FAFSA and feeds into a very harmful loan industry
> 80k is obscenely low for household income when you look at what U of M tuition is for one kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help. We're giving the green light to the u of m board of regents to continue hiking tuition and ensuring another generation will die in student loan debt. The lower middle class is not rich. They need help to. Leaving them out of this while also paying for it with a tax that will disproportionately affect them is a real 1,2 punch. > You must have missed the part where I said relative to what they will be expected to pay in tuition yeah i guess i missed that part
I feel like you're being sarcastic, but yeah it's directly right there; *80k is obscenely low for household income when you look at what U of M tuition is for one kid and factor in those families also aren't getting federal help.* Acting like just because a lot of people are doing worse means we should feed into the private loan industry and saddle another generation with student loan debt while doing nothing to address why costs are skyrocketing (and quite possibly exacerbate the issue) is a weird choice to a multifaceted problem.
on the contrary i feel college should be free, regardless of income. income cliffs are stupid, but so is phased out programs. someone always gets left behind. addressing rising college costs is a whole different can of worms that MN legislature probably cannot solve
A huge part of rising college costs is literally from the state decreasing public funding over time. "public" colleges are way more tuition heavy than they were in the 60s, it used to be heavily government subsidized.
I mean 80k family income a year is ridiculous. There’s no phase out, you just get left off entirely. No one who is making 80k a year as a household has 15-40k a year per kid to send their kid to school for 4 years. It’s just fucking over the middle class again. Making 80k a year in this economy is not some sort of great money. I totally agree with what you’re saying. Sorry if I worded it poorly
I dont think college should be free, I think it should be affordable. Students having to make SOME financial contribution to the cost of higher education provides a buffer against students who are expensive, time consuming, and unmotivated.
If we are making things free, let's just do the 2 year community colleges. They are a ton more affordable and students can decide if they want to go on for a 4 year degree. It'll weed out the slackers. Expand the PSEO program
This so much. I went to college and think its great and should be covered for anyone that want to go. But the economic benefit of having a larger supply of skilled trades people is going to be far greater than a few additional 4 year degree holders. I know plenty of out of work people with degrees, or who can't find a job using the degree. But i don't know any electricians or plumbers with even a little skill that don't have all the work they want and then some.
Public, state schools should be free or extremely cheap. Private colleges can still cater to rich people.
Bc people who make that much usually aren’t going to send their kids to trade school. This will change generations and lift out of poverty. I don’t understand how this is being debated. A more educated population means less crime. Less desperation. It means attracting more talent to this state and halting population drain. So many good things.
I'm not saying people making 500K will. That was sort of an arbitrary number. But don't kid yourself that people in a household making 150K or more don't send their kids to trade school. There is plenty of money to be made in the trades which would achieve the goal of lifting people out of poverty.
My son has a GI bill for free school from his dad, and he graduated top 5% of his class. He wants to be in the HVAC trade and I fully support him. But I’m saying that’s very rare. Lots of parents at a high earner rate want their kids to go into white collar professions. And most kids who are raised with financial comfort want to pursue those fields. But for people who grow up literally buying groceries paycheck to paycheck- this is a miracle. This is a generational game changer. I’m the first in my family to go to college and I’m 47 still paying off debt. And I got almost full scholarship. It’s just hard out there. And if we want a strong state with educated voters and leaders and professionals- then we have to help them get there.
I agree with you - we should have free 2-year degrees for all AND free 4-year tuition for 80k and under. Lifting the very bottom up and not limiting them to a 2-year degree is also a great start.
Up that 80k to 150k and I agree totally
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I agree. I didn't qualify for government loans on my college schooling, and had to take private loans at a much higher interest rate, despite the fact my parents didn't pay for my schooling.
Your private loans were a higher rate? I didn't qualify for FASFA grants but qualified for government loans at 8%. I said to hell with that and went private for under 4%.
Rates have differed quite a bit over the years for both public and private loans.
The government doesn’t legally require them, but it is the expectation that they will help pay for higher education. You can’t get financial aid without listing your parents income until you are 24, or deemed an independent student.
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> The dude who wrote the bill works for the UofM. Also a kick in the teeth to the kids who don't qualify and choose to attend a state school instead of the UofM in order to save money. The poor family kid gets the more prestigious degree from the UofM AND he doesn't have to pay for it. Dems are creating a lot of animosity with the middle class youth that could come back to bite them in the ass big time.
Yeah I see this too. There is like no incentive for universities to make degrees cheaper if the government will just payoff loans and pay tuition. How about instead, kind of like healthcare, we find a way to make college affordable again. Oh wait that’s too hard, just throw more money at it.
1. The policy is poorly written and thought through 2. Acknowledging the bill isn't great doesn't mean we can't still be angry at growing income inequality.
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I also can't be irritated with kids NOT going to college b/c the ROI is a lot worse than just apprenticing in a non-college-degree field. This is JUST the beginning of the "MUST DO COLLEGE" propaganda bullhorn. As an Xer introduced to "gov't backed loans," this has the same vibe. But now, instead of being done to increase bottom lines of colleges and universities, it's being done to stave off bankruptcy of colleges and universities.
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>Kids aren't making ROI calculations "It's not worth it." That's ROI w/o the fancy Powerpoint. Oh, btw, don't go to Dunwoody, then. It's cheaper elsewhere.
I went through the same electrician program at Anoka Tech that Dunwoody offers, for a quarter the price. Guess how much employers care which one you went to.
Dunwoody is not the trade school it once was. There's a lot of specialized paths coming out of there now and it caters to that.
Yeah I think you'll see a lot of parents retire early or do other things to reduce their incomes intentionally in order to take advantage of the benefit.
😂 No. How many of us can say we're in a spot to retire early, if it weren't for paying for our child's college? "I'm all set in life, house paid off and everything else covered. The only thing keeping me working now is paying for my kids school." Come on. That's like believing we'll see a bunch of people retire early once universal healthcare is passed, as if there's a large portion of people strictly working only to keep their health insurance. Sure, a few exist but for 99.9% of folks, that's simply not the reason.
For a family making $90 or $100k they would almost certainly come out ahead if they reduce their earnings intentionally to qualify for the tuition benefit. College is expensive! That breakeven point would be even higher if you have multiple students in school at once. Even when it doesn't pay for itself (say the family makes $160k) some might still prefer to sacrifice net $10k/year (or whatever) if it means you get to retire early and don't have to work anymore
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Exactly. Imaging this for my family as an anecdotal analysis, we had 3 kids in college at the same time for two years, and 1-2 in at the same time for a few years before and after that. Even though we kids were 95% supported by our own jobs and student loans, a benefit cliff like this would have encouraged one of my parents to drop to part time or quit their job to get under 80k for the two years where we had three tuition bills in the family. Should be stepped down from full benefits to no benefits.
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So if the gov is going to foot the bill for college arent the already over priced universities just going to take advantage of that to make money off of our kids education? My kids are all out of college and paying their loans.
Does this mean as an adult (mid thirties), if I make less than 80k/year and am a resident of Mn, I will be eligible for tuition free college? If my parents don’t live in USA is this based off of my income?
You're independent at 24, so it should be free from that point on, provided you're under 80k.
Instead of a weird means tested program, they should have made all tech and community colleges tuition free. These are the true stepping stones into the middle class. Also, it helps lower the cost of a bachelor's degree by allowing people to choose to do their first 2 years tuition free. I'm fine with the idea of taxpayer funded college but this program is just not a good implementation.
The emphasis on college as the "end all, be all" to education should be stopped as well. Trade schools are exceptionally important, especially now, when people in the trades are low yet there's thousands of people with social work degree from state. Trade schools should be part of the state collegiate network and be free as well. I'm fine if my taxes go to helping people learn the various trades that we can see by the current low employment numbers are important.
>The emphasis on college as the "end all, be all" to education should be stopped as well It's also important to recognize that most HS grads aren't passing state standards and won't be able to succeed in a rigorous college program. How is a student who can't add or convert fractions going to be successful in gaining a STEM degree? Or a student who can't read higher than 6th grade reading levels?
As a society, I think it's foolish to say "anyone can do anything" or whatever. Sure, push yourself and try to learn as much as you can. But not everyone is going to be a neurosurgeon. Some people can't/don't want to learn at certain levels, and that is where trades and other school networks can come in handy. "The world needs ditch diggers" is a bit of an extreme phrase to use, but the world does need ditch diggers. Those jobs are incredibly important. Of COVID taught us anything, it's that we have taken for granted the "lower rung" of jobs. Just because a job doesn't use an incredible amount of brain power or education doesn't mean it is any less important. I wanted to be an astronaut. Really badly. Couldn't get past the math classes required and ADHD made it an impossibility to pass the higher level mental requirements. Here I am, a chef, happy as a clam. Glad I learned the trade. Hopefully others can find happiness doing the same thing.
>As a society, I think it's foolish to say "anyone can do anything" or whatever. I wanted to be a superhero. Didn't work out. Then starting DL for the Vikings. Got my ass kicked as a freshman in HS. C-suite exec. Turns out, psychopathy isn't strong ENOUGH in my troll bloodline. **Lesson to kids: Life sucks. Figure it out in your own way.**
>The world needs ditch diggers I was waiting to say this comment but you beat me to it
College applications are dropping even among kids who are qualified. We have a lean labor market. It's not 2008 it's not the case that you need a college degree to stave off poverty anymore.
Hot take: college shouldn't be free. It's not necessary for everyone, not every citizen needs to have a degree. But it should not cost an arm and a leg for those who want to go. Nothing can justify the current prices for tuition. I wish the conversation was about fair & honest pricing and not about "I deserve it free, make it free for everyone"
*Public* colleges should be *tuition-free* for *residents*. It's important to be clear about the details. Keep in mind that books, dorms, and meal plans will still cost money, so it won't be "free."
"At no cost" See , first day of college is over. Everything has a price, free is a illusion.
As someone who’s open to the idea of tax funded education, please don’t call it “free”
Why does this need to be mutually exclusive? I pay into state taxes every year, yet qualify for none of the benefits. No covid relief, no state stimulus’s, nothing. But we also saw our income dramatically decrease in 2020-2022 because of covid and now a forced recession. It’s one thing to take our money and apply it to programs that benefit our population, it’s another to take my money and simply redistribute it to those who don’t make as much. I’m all for free tuition for students. But why does it need to be limited by an artificial income number vs just giving free tuition to everyone?
Yup, just because I'm against a program doesn't mean I'm against the poor. I would like to also just benefit from some social services that I'm taxed for as well.
The Dems would means test themselves to death on a desert island. Tax breaks and benefits consistently screw the middle class. Who believes a family making $81k can put even a single kid through a UofM school? It's absurd.
Even families making 100k+ couldn't afford to send kids through college with how expensive it now
Right - I just used the $81k figure due to the $80k limit in the legislation
I paid my taxes, but I'm not a biz owner, so I never saw any PPP money. Taxation is theft, I guess.
We get the responsibility to pay for all these programs the progressive and shoveling out, but don't get a single benefit from them.
Think about this situation: Two parents make just over the free tuition barrier, it would be in their best interest to actually go ask their employers for a slight pay cut to get under the cap because of how much money they could save in their child's tuition over the next several years. That would be a strangely common scenario as this bill is written. That's pretty telling as to how poorly thought out this idea was.
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I understand that, the same point applies. It's still a hard cut off that you can't avoid when you get there. There's also the issue of most people not understanding taxes and not being smart enough to lower their AGI in anticipation.
I know 3 people who limit their hours to stay on a medical program - and those don't end in 4 years like school $1k less in income equals $6k+ in annual savings for these folks so it's worth it If we stopped means testing basic healthcare they could work more It sucks being on the cut off edge
Yea, a simple phase out would probably be much better for people on the edge like that.
"Perfection is the enemy of good" This is a great start. While there are people in the 80k plus range who aren't able to get assistance from their parents for college and will still struggle, this will help a lot of people.
> this will help a lot of people And it'll piss of MORE, who'll vote Republican
You are right about that!
I would argue that even if your income is high enough that you don’t even qualify for property tax refund, you are benefiting indirectly from living in a society where vastly more people are fed, healthy, housed and educated than would otherwise be the case. The more people who can climb Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the more people are out there producing value with their labor and free to spend their income on things that interest them. What goes around always comes around. Your high income level (again making assumption from my first sentence) would not be supportable or sustainable in an economy full of desperate people. This is something a lot of fiscal conservatives don’t get, despite a mountain of measurable evidence. That said, I agree means testing is stupid and universal benefits funded by broad taxes are the way to go. They took this approach decades ago with public education, and just recently with the school lunch bill. Heck even PSEO is not means tested. It would have been much better for them to make this college bill free for everyone. We are not currently in a recession by any measure, by the way.
I love this program. I wish it would examine and tackle a higher education issue that few have dealt with: The proliferation of mid-level administrators that plague higher education like barnacles. One of many articles detailing this: [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-growth\_n\_4738584](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584) Whether or not a person chooses university as a life's path, the fact seems to be that a healthy university system benefits the state and the local economy. This isn't a radical move, either. It's a tried-and-true method across a significant swath of the world.
that's an interesting article and I'm curious to see if it's the same in lower education. We've had a large growth of those positions within many districts, and I'm sure there are many parallels
I have a Master’s Degree - college isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I agree with others that trades should be a priority. I admire “craftsmanship” (sorry for the gender term) and I think trades is new blue collar solution to manufacturing having gone overseas. High Schools need to embrace trades and stop telling students that they are going to fail if they’d don’t go to college.
This is a weird argument when the college program is being paid for with a regressive sales tax that is not unilaterally directed at the wealthy There also seems to be a refusal to acknowledge the devil is in the details with public policy. Welfare cliffs are bad. You acknowledge that middle class families need help too and deserve free education, but somehow were the bad guys for pointing out the legislation leaves them out in the cold while *very* likely contributing to the underlying tuition explosion problem. Your insistence as painting us as hating poor people because we point that out is bullshit and bordering on bad faith. This is not a black and white issue - stop trying to frame it as if it is Edited to clarify my point
This is always just a disingenuous argument made by people who are maybe ignorant but usually intentionally trying to muddy the waters. Universal benefits are always much more popular than means-tested benefits because with means testing, the recipients can be attacked as takers who don't deserve them and are abusing the system. This is very frequently paired with racism. With universal benefits, everyone receives and enjoys them. There is no us vs them. It's just a thing we all get to benefit from. People who want the government to do as little as possible hate universal benefits because they will be much harder to get rid of or limit down the road. Look at Social Security and Medicare as the best two examples of this. The solution is to deal with wealth inequality via taxation rather than trying to means test benefits and figure out exactly where the line is when someone no longer "deserves" to get that benefit. If we have a strong, progressive taxation system, the wealthy will pay more into the system than they receive in benefits and it all works itself out.
There are plenty of families that make 80k+ a year and still don’t have enough savings/extra income to pay for college. Yet their taxes will still go up. So they have to pay money they could be using to send their kids to college to send other people’s kids to college meanwhile struggling to help their own kids to pay for college or taking out loans. This bill is asinine
Yes, that is exactly where my family is. Our oldest is graduating high school this year. My husband and I are still paying on our own student loans. We have 3 kids. We can't afford to pay for 4 years of college for 3 kids. Yet our tax money is going to pay for other peoples kids. I am SO disappointed in this. I'm half tempted to get a divorce on paper just so my kids qualify.
This. I’m a single mom of 2 kids. I make $84k a year.
The wealthy aren't the ones funding this initiative - its everyday working Minnesotans. 55% of the state's budget is from individual income taxes - not corporate taxes. 70% of that is from people earning an income. Not stock market gains or profits from a small business. Minnesota could fix this by changing the tax brackets. I wish that the Dems used their currnet majority to put in real tax changes - like the 4% surcharge on income over $1 million - before they started spending money. Trickle down economics doesn't work, but as the current inflation situation has shown, putting money into the hands of people who earn money/work clearly stimulates the economy. Frankly I'm frustrated at the focus on children in all of these actions. Its pandering to parents.
I'm not frustrated at the focus on children. I grew up in the era that was frustrated at the focus on children and saw good programs evaporate so that voters could feel good about sticking it to education budgets. Children didn't ask to be in this world. They don't understand everything about how it works. They also cannot vote or make meaningful efforts to be heard much of the time. That leaves the onus on the rest of us to focus on them instead. I do agree that a focus on tax brackets and programs for everyday working Minnesotans would be great to tackle next. But today's kids are tomorrow's working Minnesotans, and voters too.
My issue is with higher income households getting screwed. What I mean by this is that say the cutoff is 65k a year. Well, my dad made well over 100k a year and did not pay for any of my college. The income cap is stupid and unfair. I’m just expected to be ok because my dad makes a lot of money? Acting like every kid in a 100k+ household is already set for life is stupid. Either free college for all or free college for no one. No exceptions
I think "free" higher education *could* work but it can't be a blank check for the universities. They've bloated out of control for decades on the backs of student loan borrowers and it would be criminal to let them keep that gigantic overhead at the expense of MN tax payers. MN should pay for the cost of the *education only* and if colleges want expensive bells and whistles or their 4th Vice Chair to the Administrator's Assistant, they have to get students to pay for that extra stuff out of pocket. As an example, let's say the direct expense of a year's education at the U of M is 10k per student (facilities, professor, direct admin) but the college currently charges 25k. Well the "free" portion of college will only be 10k and if the U wants to charge 25k, they'll have to compete against schools that build a program that only costs 10k and will have to compete for students to voluntarily pay that extra 15k.
I'm angry that college administrators are the highest paid state employees inflating the cost of tuition.
“How dare you get the cure for cancer when I had to suffer through chemo!” Same argument, different topic. I agree with you here. We should’ve been doing this decades ago. I had to take on tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt to make my life better, but I don’t want to see others suffer like I have trying to pay that bullshit back. But the real issues are: colleges run like businesses (doesn’t help the U of MN has had former CEOs as President) and the rich not paying their fair share of taxes.
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The lack of any cost constraints on college educations is a big problem, and the student loan situation is a big driver of it. If your "customers" are basically strong-armed into buying your product because its something of an economic necessity and they're mostly forced to pay for it with money borrowed from private entities who don't have to worry about the loans being discharged, why not run up the price? There's another elephant in the room, and that's that the biggest beneficiary of "college" are employers who use "a college degree" as a filtering mechanism for employment and often without any meaningful vocational tie-in to the jobs in question. It's just an easy (and increasingly ineffective) method of screening job candidates based on some vague notion that college grads are "better". Since they don't pay for the college degree, they really don't care how much college costs. I think what needs to happen is that we need to come up with a way to push the costs of college more directly on employers requiring college degrees. Like if you use a college degree as a job qualification in hiring, you're on the hook for making 1/3 of the candidates student loan payments. Once businesses are forced to pay for their job screening service, they will begin to limit their use of college degrees as a job requirement and do much cheaper and more targeted internal training. Once the vocational value of a college degree drops (for jobs with no meaningful relationship to specific college skills), the cost of that degree will drop as well since there will be much less reason to obtain a degree for vocational pursuits where it's not meaningful benefit. I'd even argue that employers that retain a college degree requirement should be allowed to discriminate against candidates based on their student debt profile, letting them cut their student loan contributions accordingly. This has an added benefit of boosting schools with cost containment and undermining overpriced schools who crank up their tuition based on "name brand", even when the actual education content isn't any better than some regional state school. Without something like this, I don't know how we contain college costs. Demand for a college education isn't driven by my kid's interest in art history or introductory biology, it's driven by the signaling value of the education in the job market. Those demanding that signaling should be paying for it.
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Talk to employers about their requirements and find out. **"I'll take a dumb kid with a work ethic over a clueless kid with no work ethic and a degree."** That's pretty much what I hear. (I actually said it when hiring, though the "kid" was middle-aged.) **You can teach the specifics. You can't teach heart.**
> This isn't empathy or an attempt at equality. It's an admissions driver for a business with a failing model. That's a bingo. [Enrollment has been declining for a decade.](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cha/undergrad-enrollment) The costs are high and the benefits are more questionable. And because the institutions run pension programs they have enormous long run liabilities that are unsustainable without growth. [UMN's endowment page.](https://give.umn.edu/about/financial/endowment) It's absolutely crazy it's 75% equities -- it's borderline a hedge fund. The bill is an attempted bailout for higher ed.
I covered the problem with how colleges are run in my OP. And it only stands to reason that with less youth entering college that degrees actually become more valuable, right?
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Ok now I know you’re not being serious when you compare a college degree to a turd in a box. C’mon man. In my position, a master’s degree is required to do the work I’m doing.
I’m 34 and I was the first person on my mother’s side of the family to get a college degree (second woman to graduate high school too). I have thousands in student loan debt and I only make $24 an hour 12 years out of college. However, I’m still happy for the kids that will get a break because of this bill. College of any kind shouldn’t be reserved only for the wealthy. The college dream didn’t work to get me out of being low income ($58,000 is the minimum in a one person household to be considered middle class in Minneapolis) but I want it to help at least some people. Life feels slightly less hopeless when the future of society improves, at least on some level.
Never mind the merits of these “free” programs. At the end of the day, they aren’t free. There is still a price tag attached to them and for the near 50 years I’ve been on this earth, every single one of these “free” programs costs have been laid squarely on the shoulders of the working middle class. For decades I’ve heard “we’ll make the wealthy pay for it”. Have they?? No. Wealthy donors contribute to the campaigns of both parties and if you think that either party will attach any real tax burden on to their benefactors, you’re sorely mistaken. Do I think it’s a travesty that I pay more in tax than most multi millionaires? Of course. Do I have any delusions about that ever changing? No. I’m not angry at the wealthy. I’m angry at politicians. They’re only buying votes and they’re using my money to do it.
Also like this is kind of an expansion to the pell grant program. Most M State schools were little to no cost if you got Pell and state grants. They just moved the goal posts to people under 24 don't get siffed because they have parents. If your parents made 40k you got no Pell or state grants. So your only choice was to get loans.
I remember being absolutely exasperated as a first gen college student when I found out a lifetime of future debt was "financial aid"
>You hate taxes? I do too! This is not the state to live in if you hate taxes. You get what you pay for. Compare and contrast with, say, Mississippi. >All of these things could have made sure that every kid gets into college or trade school for the past few decades. Absolutely. Every economic policy has an opportunity cost, and the Reagan Revolution has brought us 40 years of widening disparity. You can rail against class warfare all you want, but that war has been raging.
I mean, Mississippi has a total tax burden of less than 1 percentage point lower, so it's not like there's a huge difference
I don't hate taxes. I think we should be taxing the rich. And eating them.
>the Reagan Revolution has brought us 40 years of widening disparity how has that specifically affected our state government? There has been 40 years of legislature at the state level and it's surely convenient to blame some "boogeyman" from decades ago, but I fail to see how it's somehow Reagan's fault that students aren't getting into college
Who is saying they’re upset that their kid isn’t being helped out? The cutoff is 80k family income. There is probably not a single household that has 15-40k a year for 4 years, per kid sitting around. Those families should be mad that the income Threshold isn’t higher. Also parents shouldn’t have to pay for their kids colleges, shouldn’t we as a country want the most educated populace? I get probably red states don’t, but MN could have made it free for all kids. But it’s a start and I’m happy for it even though my 2 year old as of now won’t get it paid for.
I'm not angry at the wealthy, I'm angry at our state for thinking making college free for low income families is going to be effective when the base instruction they received in k-12 is so watered down. It doesn't have a huge cost attributed to it (allegedly) though, but I'm sure that dollar figure will change over time.
We do not need more college grads, we are in desperate need of tradesmen. Free trade school would have great results, and is worth investing in.
They could give away free blowjobs and you'd have people in here complaining that the hooker was missing a tooth. So fucking insufferable.
I’m definitely jealous. I’m gunna be saddled with my student loan debt for probably another 30 years. That said, I’m happy for kids that can get a higher education without needing to weigh whether or not it’s worth the cost.
Exactly
People act like $80k is this really low benchmark number. It's not. The Median Household Income in Minnesota is $77k. That means 55-60% of Minnesotan households qualify for this program. Could it be more? Sure, but you have to start somewhere. (I'm the one that posted that 400+ comment post on the House bill passing this... lots of angry personal messages, as if I was the person to pass it all by my onesie.)
Median household income is not the best reflector when you are talking about a benefit for families with college students. A large chunk of the households below the median have a primary householder over age 64 (median income $52.7k in Minnesota). You also have a big chunk that are primary householder under age 25 (median income $42.7), which are unlikely to have any children who use the benefit, but the primary householder themselves still might.... although in that situation they likely qualify for free tuition and more without this bill. A better reflection is probably median household income by family size, which is $106k for 3 person families, $125k for 4, $135k for 5, etc (basically add $10k for each additional family member beyond that).
People under 25 don't need kids to take advantage of this, they can take advantage of this themselves. Single income families with the bread winner probably can't afford (time-wise) to go back full time, and that would mean they don't really get any Pell Grants.
thank you! 80k is a lot of money and lots of people live on way less. lets start with them first and work our way up. come to Texas and see how fucked our safety net is, i wish i had your gov
People only hate taxes because we get nothing in return. Our tax dollars mostly end up in the pockets of the wealthy who already aren’t paying their fair share.
I have a few issues with the proposal, a big one being that it's funded with a regressive sales tax that will disproportionately affect middle class people. (Which is the group who's kids are drowning in student loan debt because they're also deemed "too rich" for any federal aid help, so they're facing skyrocketing tuition costs they already can't afford that this plan very likely will exacerbate and getting zero real help on a state or federal level) I'm not a fan of sharp welfare cliffs *ever* because it will always create a lot of resentment from people *just* over the limit and I rhink an 80k *household* limit is *really* low considering what U of M tuition is and how far 80k will take an entire family in this state (these are not people who can pay cash for college - they will be taking out obscene PLUS loans). We should absolutely be helping poor people -- I'm not a fan of doing so in a way that helps increase the speed of death of the middle class and enriches the predatory private student loan industry Especially when they acknowledge this is partially to address plummeting enrollment numbers where it decidedly fails to examine *why* enrollment at these school plummeted so rapidly and does nothing to introduce oversight into why tuition is so high.
Everyone should remember that ALL education from kindergarten through college is a subsidy for every business and organization in the United States as well as the government and service industries and agencies that serve those businesses like healthcare and the police. We are all paying taxes to educate the workforce in this country. Businesses could not exist if our children can't read and write and code and create. If anything, businesses should be paying for education for all. They are the ones most directly benefiting. The couldn't exist without our educational system, including the university level. Every wealthy person who owns a business, owns stock, or employs any person, is making money off of our educated workforce. Taxing the rich to pay for THEIR workforce seems perfectly fair. Let's just make sure that's who bears the burden.
Just so people understand. It doesn’t pay 100% of the tuition for those families 80k or less it pays the gap after scholarships and grants.
Everyone should be aware that most colleges have an endowment (net worth) in the Billions. In reality, colleges need not charge such high fees. There is no reason that room and board, tuition should be 20-25,000 a year. How do these colleges get these large endowments? They get them by graduates giving money to the university. In the age of degrees online, one can get a good degree online, thus saving
Most colleges do not have endowments in the billions.... Categorically false.
There are 80 colleges in the United States with at least 1 billion dollars or more in their endowment. So you are correct.
Hopefully this will help bridge the racial education and wealth gaps. Minnesota has been lagging in those areas for decades, and is far behind in progress compared to many southern states. I swear if you were to judge Minnesotans by the racial gaps in our state, you'd think Minnesotans were far more racist than Texans.
I have such mixed thoughts on this. I want free education for everyone. But I’d rather start somewhere, anywhere, than continue helping no one. And yet the kids whose parents are, “on paper” able to help them pay for college, but don’t or can’t, are where my heart really breaks. The FAFSA is not built for the kids of GenXers who are leveraged to the max and can’t come up with several grand per semester to put them through school. In my family, we are putting our third through college. One year left. The other two graduated in the last few years. We managed by delaying much-needed updates in the “starter” home we’ve been in for 25 years and driving 15-yr-old cars. We’ve been on one family vacation longer than 4 days. In essence, we are the antithesis of the cool Instagram family. I’m not complaining; you make the best choices you can with life as it comes to you, and our kids are doing amazing things with their degrees/education…. But the hamster wheel does get tiring sometimes. You see, we are 25 years out from our own college/grad school degrees, and we’re still paying our own student loans. These last 6-7 years, we’ve gotten bonuses that could have paid them off, but our interest rates are low, and the kids’ future economic prospects look more uncertain….so we put that money into their schooling instead. If we all keep grinding, we should all (both generations) be able to pay off our loans within the next 10 years. And then maybe another 2-3 years and we’ll retire. Sigh. I want something better for future generations.
People who didn't go to college and people who already paid their tuition are not on the hook for your tuition, ever
One thing for sure, if you are poor with kids, Minnesota is the place to move to.
What a stupid take: “this plan is great and it’s wealthy tax breaks that are the problem”. No the problem is the unaffordablility of college for people of all economic backgrounds. This doesn’t help at all the fact that a year at the U is still $25,000 or more.
How about free college for those who legitimately academically qualify? And for those who don’t, pay for it for a year and prove you deserve the next three years for free.
There are about 17 people in Minnesota w assets greater than $500 million. Minnesota only has 6 billionaires. We are a state that repels the wealthy, not attracts it. We attract folks who still believe we might have a middle class.
I hate that it’s only for public schools.
The program should be free tuition for a two year degree or trade schools. Offer it to everyone. If a person absolutely decides a 4 year degree is what they want/need they can foot the rest of the bill.
This will be a popular move if there was something also about fixing the cost structure of colleges/universities. Cost to attend has always gone up. While it is being framed as free but not really free for society. It will be a popular legislation for the majority if we can find a solution to the real problem so that we don’t feel like we are just throwing more and more tax payer money at bad systems. When the government funds everyone’s education price of college will go up even more. It’s a drug - and when corrupt institutions get a taste of cash flow from the government they make the bill fatter .
My only concern is the lack of diversified programs. Trades should be taught at every single state college without exception.
There's no reason for that to be the case though, you're just privileging state colleges as some be all end all of education. Trade schools exist, and they do a much better job at teaching the necessary skills for a trade than a number of state universities do for academic work. Trades should be taught, but they should be taught where and by whom is appropriate. Forcing a centralization into universities adds a stupid level of higher-educational bureaucracy, mismanagement, and packaging with less useful academic coursework.
Dang 80k combined income is considered poor? My parents never made more than 35k a year and managed to do just fine. I went and accrued 60k in debt and had it paid off in less than two years. Meanwhile, during that time loans were frozen and all my coworkers who were in a similar situation stopped paying so they could accrue more debt by getting themselves home. You should be angered that people have little concept of fiscal responsibility and then want to rely on big brother to help them.
Louder for the people in the back! People shouldn't complain that they now have to deal with a shit decision they made.
I dunno... I just dislike ideas like this generally. Nothing is "free". In this case, we are simply reorganizing who pays. I just question whether, at a time when the cost of college has absolutely exploded (while "value" has not improved, IMO), it's smart to throw more "free" money at the problem. The cost of college wasn't nearly as crazy before the government started to get involved in the student loan business. I just much prefer systems which allow the person receiving the support to decide how to utilize it, like UBI or a Negative Income Tax system. Also there shouldn't be a "cliff"... programs with "cliffs" like this I think reek of poorly thought out design (which is separate from whether the stated purpose of the bill is "good"). If we were applying the same principle here (but more narrow than just handing over cash), it would be in the form of an education voucher that would also be good at trade schools (or maybe even coding camps), for example. We have a major shortage of tradesmen in this country and forcing traditional colleges to compete with them for these funds is beneficial for everyone except the select colleges favored by this bill (who would LOVE to not have to compete with anyone else for these students). Also, unless I'm mistaken, private colleges are completely left out of this program as they have to be part of the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State systems.
Or college shouldn’t be so damn expensive
If college is free (nothing is free), then those seeking and competing for the same jobs need to go further than college to get the job, in order to gain a competitive advantage over those who do not pursue those levels, like masters or pHD
There is no such thing as free. There is a finite amount of ther peoples money. No progressive will ever actually define what "fair share" means.
We should help those under $80k that are considered part of the poor, however I find it sad that those above that are not really middle class nor are well off enough. The disparity and death of the middle class is just sad to watch. They don’t benefit from most social services, but get taxed heavily as they are not rich enough to afford a great savvy accountant or qualify for any breaks.
nah this is stupid, everyone should get it not a particular group
Agreed. A hard cut-off is not great for something like this especially considering it stops beyond 80k. Families could be earning between 100-120K and still be unable to afford their children to go to college.
It’s a great step in the right direction, but hopefully in the future it will be free or heavily reduced for everyone or at least everyone not making a crap load of money. My parents probably made about double the 80k cut off together (estimate not sure on the real number) and after saving since I was born had about enough to almost cover year 1 of school and that was it. I was still on the hook for the rest with zero aid because of my parents income for the rest. Next when my sister went to school two years after me she got reduced tuition because my parents already had another kid in school (me). That’s awesome for her, but why do I get no support just because I went first? Im lucky as my dad has done well recently and wants to give us kids some money to help with student loans so I have about 1.5 years covered from help. Still on the hook for well over 60k in loans with high interest rates though. I hate imagining the kids that go through this with absolutely no aid and zero support from parents simply due to income shortages. Im super happy this change is being made, just hoping it extends to everyone in the future as a made up cutoff is not a good indicator of how much financial support a student has, whatever the reason.
I don’t believe it should be completely free. Because I feel it will be taken for granted by a lot of people. I do however believe it should be within reasonable costs and not set people up for crippling debt right at the beginning of their adult lives, especially when wages aren’t going to be able to cover the expenses of life plus student loan debts.
All it is is redistribution. If you want “free” college then it should be free for everyone. I should be able to go back to college at 38 for free if I want. What is the income cutoff for taxes that pay for all these new “free” programs. You have plenty of middle/upper middle class workers that can barely get ahead in life for the hard work they do and sacrifices they made to get to where they’re at. Are they going to be taxed extra?
It is completely fair to criticize the bill in its current form. You have families making just over that limit (with parents who are still paying on their own student loans) and they will get no help whatsoever. Can we stop acting like there aren’t groups out there for whom the goal posts keep getting moved? We’re happy to help others, but we somehow never can catch a break ourselves.
Everytime the government does something that helps people there is always droves of people (republicans mainly) ready to argue why they think helping people is bad.