The estimated cost of attendance at one of the closest public universities, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has a yearly estimated cost of attendance of $28,695 for in-state students.
University isn't 'basically free' for low income students. My parents lived below the poverty line their entire lives. I graduated with my bachelor's degree and $80k worth of loan debt.
Sure low-income students might be eligible for needs-based grants and scholarships offered at their college. But federal support for low-income students is pitiful and college for those students is a far cry from free.
You’re also narrowly scoping this to talking about one of the largest and fanciest universities in the state. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other colleges in the area that cost fractions of Bama. And of note, Amazon actually pays for up to 95% of tuition/fees for warehouse workers who choose to pursue associates degrees.
There are certainly societal problems in the US regarding education costs and healthcare, but these are both areas where Amazon is actually providing for its workers way, way above what the federal government provides, and even way above what is normal for most Americans (the health insurance that Amazon warehouse workers get is likely better than the health insurance of most of the people posting in this thread). This is the kind of stuff that needs to be kept in mind to understand why Bessemer residents don’t all see Amazon as evil.
The University of Texas's program is: 1.) Recent 2.) Covers students enrolled at the time the program went into affect. It doesn't cover recently-graduated students. 3.) Only covers Texas residents (meaning it's irrelevant to a conversation about Amazon employees in Alabama) 4.) Only covers tuition, not cost of living. Cost of living, of course, is more than half of total cost of attendance at the University of Texas.
Go ahead. Ask me how I know what it's like to be a low-income student at the University of Texas.
> "You’re also narrowly scoping this to talking about one of the largest and fanciest universities in the state."
I scoped it to one of two public universities near Bessemer, Alabama. UAB isn't the flagship campus, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. By the way, the other public university near Bessemer is the University of Montevallo. It has a cost of attendance of 27,845 per year for in-state students.
> "And of note, Amazon actually pays for up to 95% of tuition/fees for warehouse workers who choose to pursue associates degrees."
Is that generous? Yeah. To some extent. But keep in mind the following:
1.) It only applies to associates degrees. 2.) The yearly payout is $3,000 (for full-time employees, half that for part time) 3.) You have to have worked for a year to be eligible 4.) Amazon only covers certain degrees
You also have to continue working a demanding job with irregular hours. It's not nothing, I agree. But I've worked other non-skilled jobs with much more generous tuition reimbursement packages (including, but not limited to: eligibility for dependents, unrestricted major choice, applicability to four-year degrees, and more generous yearly maximums).
> "This is the kind of stuff that needs to be kept in mind to understand why Bessemer residents don’t all see Amazon as evil."
I never said anything about Amazon being evil, or whether Bessemer residents see Amazon as evil. In fact, if you look at my posting history, I've been very upfront that I am an employee of Amazon.
Further, 'not being evil' and 'providing more then the federal (or state governments)' is a very low bar to cross. It doesn't obviate the need for a union.
Infuriatingly disingenuous argument.
Talk about an argument being disingenuous. Don’t put words in my mouth.
In Alabama, you can actually use the net price calculator here: https://financialaid.ua.edu/net-price-calculator/
For a family of 2 that earns minimum wage tuition goes as low as $8,000/year in total, and that's excluding any Federal grants or loans.
Generally speaking, sticker price != net price for the vast majority of students: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/new-approach-curbing-col...
From the link: "The average annual net cost at a four-year public college has grown by almost 81% beyond inflation over the past decade, to $3,870."
Again, I'm sorry to hear about your personal experience; it's totally valid. It's, however, not representative of the median or the majority of the lower class.
To rephrase: "For a family of 2 that earns minimum wage, tuition remains more than 50% of your gross income."
The same source notes that the net TFRB (which I'm reading as cost of attendance, as it isn't defined anywhere) is $15,500, with $6,500 in grants. Or a CoA of ~$9,000 annually. This remains above the 50% number I mentioned.
And it's worth noting that these grants aren't solely federal grants. Universities (and states) offer all kinds of non-need-based aid. The one I'm familiar with, since I'm from Georgia, is the Hope scholarship.
This grant offers 6-10K per year, which is amazing, unless you lose it part way through your education (by failing to maintain what can be a fairly difficult GPA requirement). I nearly lost it my first year. That would have been an additional cost of ~20K over the remainder of my education. That was stressful for me, an upper middle class person with financially responsible parents who had decent savings for my education.
That kind of stress would be compounded for someone who started in more dire financial straits, and who was more heavily relying on the grant money.
[0]: And while some people can live at home, this is not available to many people, and can negatively impact your ability to network and build a social support network with peers at university, which is extremely valuable.
In addition to HOPE, you also have Zell-Miller which is even more generous (covers housing, food, and books).
The fact that Georgia's aid is tied to merit is a system that I personally agree with, but understand why someone might not. It's something that the voters of each State should litigate.
> (I went to Georgia Tech)
Then you're probably familiar with at least part of the controversy: maintaining the Zell/HOPE GPA requirement at GT is difficult. So for an above average, but not exceptional student, or a student who doesn't have a strong support network, the rational decision can be to go to a worse school because maintaining the GPA requirement will be easier.
That means UGA (or State or KSU) over Tech for many people. I think that there are a variety of reasons that's a misalignment of incentives (and thankfully there seems to be some improvements happening in this area).
Yes, and I don't see a problem with that. The best schools are for the best students. This response shouldn't surprise you, coming from an alumna of Georgia Tech, which is an extremely rigorous and prestigious school.
I understand that values differ, but at some point, personal responsibility and merit need to count for something.
If the net result of this is that an unexceptional poor student ends up going to KSU or Georgia State instead of Georgia Tech, I'm okay with that. KSU and Georgia State are perfectly fine schools, and its graduates go on to lead perfectly fine lives outside of poverty. I recommend playing with this tool which allows you to see, for every single school and major, what the earnings vs debt is: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-college-graduates-make-th...
Not everyone is entitled to go to Georgia Tech (or MIT or Harvard) for free; and there are plenty of middle-of-the-lane universities that provide opportunities for unexceptional students, at little to no cost.
I am eternally grateful for the FAFSA/Pell Grant program. Without it, I wouldn't be conducting fundamental science and getting paid 6 figures.
I know this is N=1 sample size, just wanted to put it out there.
I think college should be free only for people that cannot afford it. Rich kids should pay.
Here is some more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_Scholarship
Talking about Germany here by the way.
Talking about the wealthiest country in Europe. I'm glad you are not cherry picking your data when you expose facts.
Unless you mean that the US is in fact not a wealthy country if you are looking at above facts. Then that's something that could be argued.
The US is almost exactly as diverse as the EU (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...). Alabama is more comparable to Estonia than it is to Germany.
If you want to compare apples to apples, there are States in the US where citizens pay higher taxes and get benefits like free university: https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/08/pf/college/new-york-free-tu...
>are unemployed
Well, yes?
Bullshit. In Italy only the lowest income brackets get free healthcare, everyone else has various degree of copay. And even then you get terrible services, with queues several months long for exams and quality far inferior from what you get going trough the private sector.
And when I worked and lived in Dublin, same story, I had to pay 270€ for using emergency services at a public hospital and was lucky to have them covered by the private insurance my employer provided.
Proper dental procedures, substitutive hormone therapy, plenty rate stuff require specialists or medicines that mutua doesn't pass. heck if you have a condition that require a specialist during pregnancy you're going to have to pay everything out of your money to avoid the random ginecologist rotation, to the tune of 120€+/visit, and you're going to need ten or more if any complication arises.
This is the typical uninformed comment from some ableist that never actually had to suffer from the Italian healthcare beyond the most basic services.
Utterly false as a general rule, and free is not as glamorous as you make it sound like. Some doctors will refuse to see patients who are on the free healthcare system, too.
> if you need an expensive treatment
Yeah, if you can wait for it. Ever heard of surgery that sometimes take a year to reserve? Well that's the standard in Europe for certain conditions.
I need more information about that health care plan. Last time I looked at the market I was looking at worse premiums, coverage, and limits and making garbage pay.
My plan is $500/mo from me and $1500 from my employer with, iirc, 8000 max oop
Edit: I reviewed the plans they offer. Mine is significantly better, excluding the max oop. Anyone know what the costs are for for the plans?
I honestly have trouble believing yours is “significantly better”. One of the Amazon plans is a $300/year deductible with $2,300/year oop, and costs $80/month, and Amazon contributes $500/year towards your HRA. Another plan has no deductible, and $1,500/year oop. Those are some of the best healthcare insurance plans I’ve ever seen in the US, period. I’d believe it if yours was about the same, but it’s pretty difficult to be “significantly better” than those.
E: I'd love to see the official coverage breakdown offers with prices if anyone has them please share, email in profile if you don't want to share publicly.
You understand that you are paying more in premiums than the premium _plus_ out-of-pocket maximums of these plans, right?
A quick Google search gives https://www.premera.com/documents/042884.pdf which indicates $31 per month (or $14.31 per biweekly pay period), which is $372 per _year_, plus Amazon refunds $500 into your HSA.
There is no way your plan could be better for you, regardless of your circumstances. You start off more than $6000 in the hole compared to the Amazon plan.
Furthermore, it is a bad historical precedent to rely on employers for healthcare. This was a poor side-effect of the wage-hike stoppages during WWII that was later tax-exempted through federal law. It was never well thought out.
Finally, how many people in this town feel they have equal opportunity for social mobility? Decades of economic stagnation and degradation have thrown any plausible arguments towards a "meritocracy/American dream/everyone has an equal chance at success" out the window.
Amazon's plans can be found here: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/benefitsoverview-us
These plans are extended to every single Amazon employee, including the warehouse workers. Most of the warehouse workers we're talking about would probably choose the Kaiser HMO that has $0 deductible and 100% coverage; all they would pay is $30 co-pay. This is more or less how the single payer healthcare works in Australia, for example.
No. We're talking about workers in Alabama, and Kaiser is listed on that very page as regional: Kaiser Permanente HMO (California, Colorado, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Washington)
I'm assuming Amazon charges employees some portion of the insurance premium, as most employers do? Also, there's this:
> Amazon’s benefits can vary by location, the number of regularly scheduled hours you work, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary employment.
You're correct that there's regional variation, but that's mostly a function of the medical networks. For instance, UHC's network may have more coverage in the Northeast than Blue Cross Blue Shield (or vice versa).
Ultimately, as full-time employees, Amazon's warehouse workers are entitled to the exact same health insurance as their white collar counterparts sitting in the offices, and they offer extremely above average Cadillac health insurance.
I didn't think so. My company offers us Kaiser as an option as well, but only for folks in states where Kaiser operates (I'm in Michigan). I thought one of the distinctive features of Kaiser is that they offer insurance _and_ have their own clinics.
Regardless, the point of Amazon offering quality healthcare plans to the warehouse workers is still great to hear!
And even if they didn't, through the Affordable Care Act, someone at that income level can buy a "Gold" plan with low deductibles for $75/month. Obviously for Amazon workers, that's irrelevant.
K-12 education is free, and once you factor in-state tuition and FAFSA, university is also basically free for anyone that continues to make minimum wage throughout their career.