# Tuition breaks for employee's kids **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 20, 2013, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017 "2013-07-20T06:49:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/1 "2013-07-20T06:49:40Z")
I know many colleges give tuition breaks to potential undergrads if their parent has a white collar position at the school. Does this extend to grad students? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/2 "2013-07-20T06:56:27Z")
Many colleges expect grad students for the majority of their programs to be working at the school themselves. As a classmate of mine was told “we don’t care how much money you have, we’re not going to give you a PhD unless we believe you can teach, and that means you need to teach”. I’ve never seen a school whose tuition breaks were limited to the children of white-collar workers, the children of the maintenance people were included. And I have seen schools where the “no need to be an employee” graduate programs had tuition breaks for the children of employees, but what I don’t know is how common that is. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/3 "2013-07-20T07:36:09Z")
TY **Nava**! Dunno why I thought kids of blue collar employees would get shafted. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/4 "2013-07-20T07:44:29Z")
I’m with **Nava** , perhaps it’s different in other disciplines but as far as I can tell, in engineering \*\*NOBODY \*\*actually pays for graduate school. Every single grad student I went to school with had a free ride, most of us actually got paid. This was the mid 1990’s but I went to grad school for free, got free books, and got a check for $1,600 a month just for being a TA. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/5 "2013-07-20T08:08:28Z")
Nice **zoid**! What kind of engineer are you? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/6 "2013-07-20T11:27:02Z")
The whole “nobody pays for grad school” meme is true for academic disciplines, but much less true for professional masters degrees (such as an MBA or MPP. ) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/7 "2013-07-20T13:10:33Z")
Where I went to college (U. PA), the children of every employee got free tuition. Also in grad school, AFAIK. I knew one highly skilled toolmaker who probably could have made considerably more elsewhere but that benefit was one that held him. (Also the less hectic pace.) Full-time employees who took courses, paid half the tuition. That made it easy to work your way through college as a part-time student. That’s what I did. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/8 "2013-07-20T17:59:00Z")
Depends on the school, though usually the tuition benefit is only for undergraduates. I work at a college that gave free tuition at the school, or 50% of the school’s current tuition at another school, which is extremely generous. I was hired as an administrator; if I were hired as staff, it’d only be free tuition. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/9 "2013-07-20T18:10:14Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > I’m with **Nava** , perhaps it’s different in other disciplines but as far as I can tell, in engineering \*\*NOBODY \*\*actually pays for graduate school. Every single grad student I went to school with had a free ride, most of us actually got paid. This was the mid 1990’s but I went to grad school for free, got free books, and got a check for $1,600 a month just for being a TA. My brother graduated with some sort of engineering (grad) degree a few years ago and that was pretty much the case for him too. He TA’d for two years IIRC and got a free ride, a few dollars for teaching (1600 a month sounds about right\*) and really good health insurance. \*It might have been a bit less or a bit more. Basically not quite enough to live on, unless you keep in mind that it comes with insurance and you don’t have to pay for school. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/10 "2013-07-20T18:30:20Z")
My daughter received a break of half tuition (but full fees which are almost as much as the tuition) because my husband worked at the school (state school in Illinois) for over seven years. That applied to the children of all employees, not just white collar. It stopped once she got a bachelors degree. Grad students find their own funding. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/11 "2013-07-20T19:28:45Z")
In my experience, the tuitiion tax break is considered a taxable benefit. So it may increase the tax bill for the parents. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/12 "2013-07-20T20:44:20Z")
In my experience, the tuition break for kids of employees is limited to the first undergraduate degree. Where I work now it’s limited to 15 credits/academic year. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/13 "2013-07-20T20:50:40Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > I’m with **Nava** , perhaps it’s different in other disciplines but as far as I can tell, in engineering \*\*NOBODY \*\*actually pays for graduate school. Every single grad student I went to school with had a free ride, most of us actually got paid. This was the mid 1990’s but I went to grad school for free, got free books, and got a check for $1,600 a month just for being a TA. Hey, I fucking did pay! I paid by teaching, tutoring, fixin’ other people’s spelling an’ grammar, making sure they had their quotations straight and their tables properly squared, and once I became an RA rather than a TA, having that damned restiction which made it unacceptable for me to take any other jobs! Damn, my check was only 1K… but part of the reason I went where I went is that it actually covered cost of living. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/14 "2013-07-20T21:22:04Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Nice **zoid**! What kind of engineer are you? I’m an [Industrial Engineer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering). Other engineering disciplines like to tease that IE stands for “Imaginary Engineer” 😃 I can kind of see the point. IE rarely get into design and there’s more emphasis on the business side of thing than in other fields. We tend to get paid pretty well though because a good IE can come into an operation and drastically reduce costs (through knowledge of things like supply chain management) while simultaneously increasing quality (through things like statistical control charts). > [@even\_sven](#): > > The whole “nobody pays for grad school” meme is true for academic disciplines, but much less true for professional masters degrees (such as an MBA or MPP. ) Very true. I can’t see a whole lot of folks getting a free ride to an MBA ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuition-breaks-for-employees-kids/664017/15 "2013-07-20T21:29:43Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > My brother graduated with some sort of engineering (grad) degree a few years ago and that was pretty much the case for him too. He TA’d for two years IIRC and got a free ride, a few dollars for teaching (1600 a month sounds about right\*) and really good health insurance. > > \*It might have been a bit less or a bit more. Basically not quite enough to live on, unless you keep in mind that it comes with insurance and you don’t have to pay for school. The health insurance is a HUGE deal too. I got taken care of very well, even had some work on my choppers done.