Xyall t1_izfovs4 wrote on December 8, 2022 at 7:41 PM

Reply to comment by Nutmegdog1959 in UVM Students Charged for 'Extreme' Dorm Damages by Hazmat1575

UVM solves half of this problem with the Catamount Commitment fund. Any in-state student who receives any amount of funding from the Federal Pell Grant gets their tuition waived. This is about ~19k of the 33k a year cost from tution + room + board. There are also student support services groups at UVM (not the TRiO program though which they axed aimed at helping out for financial aid/scholarships.

Absolutely not going to take your argument that middle class/lower middle class students get shafted by UVM. It's fairly obvious from any high schooler's UVM financial aid package shows this issue exactly. A good portion of in-state tuition is offset by the high cost of out-of-state students since there are more out of state than in-state students. (Side topic but this data shows exactly how much and there's almost more MA students than VT students)

However, your point of the majority of the students here are high achievers due to coming from well-off families holds true at least from a personal observation standpoint. There's still the issue that UVM has to (partially!) have high tuition due to insufficient funding from the state/feds, but that's another argument I do not know enough about to make a comfortable analysis. Hope whatever I said here helps you argue how fucked the situation of inequality is for Vermont students where our only in state option for accredited STEM degrees is locked away behind a paywall which most of us cannot afford.

Nutmegdog1959 t1_izgoood wrote on December 8, 2022 at 11:43 PM

The instate/OOstate tuition gambit is the same at virtually every state university. Total costs are typically 2:1 out vs in state. VT is little different in that regard.

Where VT is unique with the exception of other tiny population states near large population centers like URI and UNH (excluding the military academies) UVM is 4:1 out vs in state. Those students still are admitted need blind (allegedly) and receive financial aid. I would wager, however, that a large percentage of the OOstate students parents just scratch out a fat check come tuition time.

And don't forget the Chinese students who pre-pandemic numbered 500 and received ZERO financial aid. They were the biggest cash cow UVM ever saw. UVM would happily kick an in-stater to the curb in favor of a Chinese if they thought they could get away with it.

The Green & Gold program, Catamount Committment and the UVM Promise (under $60k income) program starting Fall 2023 are all recent programs initiated within the last five years.

I still maintain that $60k is not a lot of income in VT. And realistically $100k is not a lot in certain areas, especially when faced with a $33k four year annual bill, even accounting for aide of as much as half.

If you burden your kid with say $15k x 4yrs, student loans that's still a heavy lode to carry. And certainly weighs heavy on grad school decisions. With so many employers requiring degree inflated credentials of masters degrees, it's a lot of pressure on kids.

VT has a long way to go to educate a workforce, keep the kids in VT, breed more VTers and increase the tax base.