Comment by JohnMakin

I went to school at a relatively late age and started in community college. The school/state had a policy where any independent income earners making less than 35,000/year would not pay tuition. A single dollar over that would require paying full tuition of ~$60/unit or about $750 a semester. One year I worked a little more overtime during the holidays than usual and realized with a week to go in the year that I'd go a few hundred dollars over, so I called out of a few shifts and nearly got fired over it. I barely squeaked in under the limit, and if I hadn't, there was pretty much no way I would have been able to continue school. It's not like I could suddenly afford it now that I made $35,001 vs $34,999. I have never understood why things like this don't use some sort of sliding scale, rather than absolute dividing line.