In accordance with the recent announcement that “MIT to be tuition-free for families earning less than $75,000 a year,” I expect to hear that they’ll be building more quads in all dormitories. There’s no way most families will be willing to split up among MIT’s many singles and doubles. I do wonder how they’ll consider duration of marriages for consideration of age.

Seriously, MIT is solving the wrong problem. This is a great solution to that problem, but it’s still the wrong problem. Families don’t attend school. Families shouldn’t be asked to pay for school. It’s great when they can. I’m very grateful to my own family for the help they provided me for all the first 21 years of my life. But non-profit colleges ought to cater to students, not their parents, and to set tuition and fees to what students can reasonably earn with part-time jobs during the term and full-time jobs over summer and breaks. That won’t bring in the same income that current tuition brings, but it will actually solve the problems at hand and align the schools’ priorities with the real customer base.