Michael Bloomberg Donates Record $1.8 Billion To Johns Hopkins University; Donation Will Be Devoted Exclusively To Undergraduate Financial Aid (go.com) 134
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University. The gift is believed to be the largest ever to an academic institution. The money is earmarked for scholarships and grants for undergraduate students from low and middle-income families, Mr. Bloomberg, 76, said through a press release. The gift will enable Johns Hopkins to become one of just a handful of need-blind schools -- meaning students will be considered for admission regardless of their ability to pay. Currently, 44% of Johns Hopkins students graduate with some form of debt averaging $24,000. From a report: As a direct result of the endowment, Johns Hopkins will be able to permanently commit to "need-blind admissions," which will admit the highest-achieving students from all backgrounds, regardless of their ability to pay, according to the university. In addition, the Baltimore-based school will be able to offer no-loan financial aid packages, reduce contributions for families who qualify for financial aid, provide "comprehensive student support," and increase the enrollment of Pell grant eligible students, which will "build a more socioeconomically diverse student body," Johns Hopkins said in a statement. In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Bloomberg wrote: America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook. Denying students entry to a college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates intergenerational poverty. And it strikes at the heart of the American dream: the idea that every person, from every community, has the chance to rise based on merit.
I was lucky: My father was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year. But I was able to afford Johns Hopkins University through a National Defense student loan, and by holding down a job on campus. My Hopkins diploma opened up doors that otherwise would have been closed, and allowed me to live the American dream. I have always been grateful for that opportunity. I gave my first donation to Hopkins the year after I graduated: $5. It was all I could afford. Since then, I've given the school $1.5 billion to support research, teaching and financial aid.
I was lucky: My father was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year. But I was able to afford Johns Hopkins University through a National Defense student loan, and by holding down a job on campus. My Hopkins diploma opened up doors that otherwise would have been closed, and allowed me to live the American dream. I have always been grateful for that opportunity. I gave my first donation to Hopkins the year after I graduated: $5. It was all I could afford. Since then, I've given the school $1.5 billion to support research, teaching and financial aid.
USA your education system is broken (Score:3, Interesting)
if you cant admit students regardless of their ability to pay otherwise known as NORMAL
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Sorry, we're not interested in socialism. Thank you for asking, tho.
Re:USA your education system is broken (Score:5, Informative)
The data suggests otherwise.
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So if we as a society decide to offer free education to the worthy, somehow millions of people will die?
How is that supposed work again?
Re:USA your education system is broken (Score:4, Interesting)
The data suggests otherwise.
Haven't you socialists killed enough people? Nearly 100 million just in the last century. How many failures does it take before you "get it right"?
Its astounding to me that despite all the evidence of the amazing success of capitalism that people can still stand there stubbornly insisting they deserve other peoples money. Every single one of your arguments crumble to dust the second anyone asks, "How do you intend to pay for it?"
Name the "people" who have been killed by socialism? Now there's an argument that crumbles to dust.
Just for you and you alone: we're going to take away the highway system, airports, fire departments, schools, paved streets, police departments, etc., etc., etc. Somehow we manage to pay for those things – for the common good – with everyone's money.
Oh wait, you actually want those things? I guess it's okay in your book when they're the things you want. But when they're things you don't want, then you drag out your <<<socialism>>> boogeyman.
We've had socialism for a long time. You just don't want to see it.
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Socialism is the economic component of Communism you dumb fuck.
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Uhh.. He did...
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:4, Insightful)
Except you have socialism? How ignorant are you?
Also itâ(TM)s implemented so poorly that you spend way more than other nations for way less.
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:2)
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Hope they don't do a 'Cooper Union' and blow it all on new luxury buildings and gambling in hedge funds.
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Good things done by people in the other tribe = virtual signaling
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I don't mind rich guys making a show out of doing a big donation, or engaging in feel good rich man's hobbies. It beats them using their money to buy political favors or spread misinformation that furthers their goals. Better Bloomberg and Gates than Soros.
How about the Koch brothers? They buy political favors and spread misinformation, but you're all "meh, don't care."
Ohhhhh, I get it. The Kochs aren't jewish. And they're on the "right" side.
Soros is one millimeter to the left of center – politically – and he's jewish, so that makes him a bad guy when he donates to Dem candidates.
And you don't care who Bloomberg and Gates donate to because they're not donating to Dems. Or Republicans, but mostly that they're not donating to Dems.
Just callin' it l
Re:USA your education system is broken (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, as a European, I care very little about Dems and Reps and who donates to them.
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The problem is that the education bureaucracies are like sponges. Pouring more money in just causes them to spend more on their own purposes. Which often are only tangential to undergrad education.
Re:USA your education system is broken (Score:4, Informative)
The line from the summary indicating that "Currently, 44% of Johns Hopkins students graduate with some form of debt averaging $24,000" which assuming that it's saying the other 56% graduate with no debt at all, would suggest that students who attend that college graduate with significantly less debt on average than students at most other universities.
If the U.S. education system is broken it is precisely because it will gladly loan anyone money to go to college regardless of their likelihood of being successful there, the ability for their degree to allow them to earn a living or pay back their loan, or any other sensible metric. Given the surprising number of college students who cannot even pass the high-school level math courses necessary to take college algebra, I suspect that these loans are being given to people who have no real understanding of compound interest or who have given any thoughts as to how their degree might enable a career. It is morally reprehensible to shackle young people with a debt that they cannot discharge through bankruptcy.
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For those who truly are coming
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If college loans were handled like anything else, where there was a possibility of default, then...
If that were the case you'd have to include the degree (and probably a means of having them blacklisted from relevant industries) with the bankruptcy because recent college grads are poor and have no incentive to not file bankruptcy. They could easily just take out loans, get their diploma, file bankruptcy, and start their career, so they all would.
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:1)
If college loans were handled like anything else, where there was a possibility of default, then lenders would be forced to evaluate where students want to attend and what majors they wanted to pursue. I expect that the net effect would be fewer people majoring in some form of underwater basket weaving.
Basket weaving is actually a useful skill though, with legitimate practical applications. You're relying too much on an established meme for your arguments to be sustained.
Similarly, students might take their college experience a little more seriously if they learned that receiving additional loans was contingent on doing well in their classes.
Those are the people who end up stressing themselves out and dying.
For those who truly are coming from nothing and can't get any bank to lend you money, the U.S. armed services will gladly pay for a college education. Not only that, they'll likely give you some practical real world experience along the way.
Or they'll expose you to toxic substances, conveniently blame your speculated sexuality to scapegoat you for the misconduct of a contractor, ruin your life over their own mistakes, and abandon you in your time of need.
Better yet, ignore college entirely and go to a trade school, or even failing all of that, get a job and start building up some financial capital. There are a large number of jobs in the U.S. that require no college education of any form, and life is much easier if you don't have a staggering loan debt with payments that will constitute a significant percentage of your monthly expenses for many years to come.
I'm honestly surprised you didn't recommend getting to
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Like learning how to kill people. Yep, that's definitely for me. It's funny, btw, that you're so quick to suggest the US armed services as a means to a college education. Isn't that a sort of socialism? Or is socialism okay as long as it potentially includes killing
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:1)
Getting paid for working is a type of socialism?
Commies say the darndest things.
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:2)
Yes, they're called a "public works" or "works programs".
No, it's not, but even if it were ... that's not what "socialism" means. Apparently you're not the only idiot confused about the meaning of the word though, since the original retard is sitting at +3 right now.
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No, it's not, but even if it were ... that's not what "socialism" means.
One of the hallmarks of real-world socialism was full employment (the the attendant criminalization of unemployment), but that often involved something effectively equal to "distributed" public works, in forms of make-work jobs and systemic inefficiencies in state companies.
Re: USA your education system is broken (Score:2)
Oh, and thanks for calling me a retard. It's good evidence I'm right.
Yep, retards are always right. Especially when they're arguing that it doesn't really matter what words mean.
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And yes it’s publically funde
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it will gladly loan anyone money to go to college regardless of their likelihood of being successful there, the ability for their degree to allow them to earn a living or pay back their loan, or any other sensible metric.
And yet, college can offer so much including reduction in crime and poverty [imgur.com].
That college costs so much despite universities sitting on billions of dollars in endowments might be a better area to look at.
However, that Bloomberg is following in Harris Rosen's footsteps [nytimes.com] seems like a good thi
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You're welcome to go work for the college at a reduced rate so that they can lower their costs. I'm guessing that whatever company you work for admits or maintains customers on the basis of their ability to pay.
Most countries subsidise their education systems, because they realize that they need educated workers to survive in the future.
If that sounds too much like socialism for you, consider this. Do you want to be treated by the best doctor, or the one who could afford to go to medical school?
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If the U.S. education system is broken it is precisely because it will gladly loan anyone money to go to college regardless of their likelihood of being successful there, the ability for their degree to allow them to earn a living or pay back their loan, or any other sensible metric.
As a corollary, tuition has gone up to a level that is nonsensical for the purposes of education. In the Netherlands the real cost of university is about 10k euro per year (of which the taxpayer pays about 80%), depending on study programme (bachelors are cheaper than masters because of scale; medicine is more expensive than history; etc). Now, the global top-10 universiteit are not in the Netherlands, but a number of Dutch universities are in the top-100.
10k a year is something you can save for, or even so
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You're welcome to go work for the college at a reduced rate so that they can lower their costs. I'm guessing that whatever company you work for admits or maintains customers on the basis of their ability to pay.
Now now, you know that they want someone else to pay for it.
That's the part that they never get - that goods and services actually have to come from somewhere.
In usa just about any one can get a student loan (Score:3)
In usa just about any one can get a student loan even at schools like trump-u
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Quite a number of countries in the world offer university study for low or zero fees. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands. These countries are of similar levels of wealth to USA.
USA has made a choice to make higher education (and medicine, but that's another, sadder, story) a source of profit. This is a choice - many think it a poor choice.
It means that student of lesser means, regardless of their ability, do not have the opportunity to study at top universities.
This is a choice of the USA political system. An
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Quite a number of countries in the world offer university study for low or zero fees. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands. These countries are of similar levels of wealth to USA.
Note that for the Netherlands, fees are only "low" (2k a year) for EU students. Non-EU students are not subsidized and pay full fees (determined by the institution rather than the government). This is generally around 10k a year, so still low by US standards, but shockingly high by German standards...
Obvious next step? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nice and all (Score:5, Interesting)
I like my schools to be independent, not begging for scraps from billionaires.
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While I applaud the sentiment for restoring lost federal and state money, Johns Hopkins is a private institution.
Just restoring state funding (I don't believe the federal government supports unis directly, just through research grants and such), won't solve the problem that state unis have expanded their bureaucracy. I don't know of any solution to that except whacking the unis and restarting. That can not work either because rebuilding a uni doesn't just happen because you declare it to be so.
An additional
True but he's giving up that much cash (Score:2, Interesting)
Read the article I linked to. Very little of the increased cost of education is because of increased overhead. It's almost all down to decreased funding from the fed/state.
And there's nothing special about those "pols" (?, do you mean proletariat?). Taken in aggregate poor folks aren't any dumber than rich folks. What you're seeing is people with limited informati
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That's not because right wing folks are dumber, it's because left wing folks have generally had more education and education teaches critical thinking.
And even with all that education, the left wing folks still haven't figured out that being smug pricks with a superiority complex doesn't get people to vote for their team.
The left figured that out ages ago (Score:4, Informative)
Folks keep mixing up the right wing of the Democratic party with the left. They are not.
For example, Nancy Pelosi is not a member of the left. The actual left is currently trying to oust her from her speakership, and they tried to primary her but she had so much cash she buried her primary challenger.
Listen to Bernie. To Liz Warren. To Ro Khanna. They're the left, and they're trying to unite the working class for better pay, universal, guaranteed as a right healthcare, clean air and water and worker's rights.
You're right about the Clinton Democrats though. They behave like the GOP 90% of the time, so the only thing they've got to run on is phony social issues. Like the actual GOP all they've got is identity politics and fat sacks of cash from their donors. Don't fall for it. There's a real left, and they're the party of the working class.
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If the government would get out of the student loan business, this problem would likely become self-correcting.
You would suspect that (Score:2, Interesting)
And tax payers should either start funding it or start supporting Hilary Clinton's open borders. Otherwise we're not going to have the workers needed to keep your 401k solvent in time for you to retire. Like it or not those adults need economic growth in order to maintain their quality of life. Without an educated population we're not gonna have that growth. Say good by to
Well I guess we now know who won... (Score:3)
...the 1.6 billion $ lottery
Need-blind admissions (Score:1)
Such people could just be given a scholarship after showing they have the academic skills to win out over people seeking the same scholarship.
Want a top university?
Select the very best students from all over the USA on merit only.
Do great on your exams and tests and be one of the best in the USA.
Know that academics is the key to getting in.
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Do we need admissions to be that blind?
What about somebody who gets 90% on their tests but their parents fund them and pay for a private tutor vs
A person who gets 80% on their tests but also works two jobs to cover living expenses and fees?
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Why should a person who put in the effort not get a place on merit?
They sit exams and tests, worked hard and know how to study?
Should a university fill up with students who get "80%" but get allowed in for reasons other than merit?
75%? 65%? How low can that academic side slide to cover for a "person" who "works two jobs"?
What happens when a student who can't/won't study gets into face the tests and exams a year or two into university?
They cant study, ca
Wrong answer (Score:1, Troll)
All this does is encourage prices to continue to go up, even more so than student loans.
Donations as Fuel (Score:2)
This money would be much better spent (Score:2)
This money would be much better spent on bribing politicians in congress to solve this problem legislatively. Same as with healthcare, if there's no upper bound on how much money can be wasted on administration, underwater basketweaving courses that produce solely McDonalds employees, "organic" caffes, facilities, etc, then there will be no upper bound on tuition. Put an upper bound on administrative expenses at the very least in state schools, and possibly in private ones as well. Refocus higher ed on actu
Ways to spend $1.8 on education (Score:2)
Here are some other ways to spend $1.8 billion on education:
1) Set up low-cost schools that teach people basic school skills, such as basic math, science, and grammar. (Don't forget the people who need help in these areas.)
2) Set up schools that concentrate in one area - for example, music, auto repair, or STEM. One of these STEM schools doesn't teach PE or women's studies. It just teaches STEM classes. These schools wouldn't force you to take classes unrelated to your major.
3) In these schools, make sure t
all of this (Score:2)
wouldn't it be great this would be available for everybody all the time?
You're welcome (Score:2)
You're welcome :)
(What's that you say? The posts here are not expressing simple gratitude? ;) )