Is it the government?
If you are correct, and an astute mathematical calculation it is, what does it have to do with the premise of no-debt higher education?
Is there a problem if charity pays the difference?
Do you know how much charity is given each year in the United States...and isn't that a solution on which we can all agree?
Indeed, I applaud editec's astonishingly accurate calculations and his observation that there is an approximate $22/hr difference between the the wage for college students milking cows, and the median wage for farmworkes.
But your point is also well taken: it is not a LOAN. If the moron who wrote the article would have been sharper, they would have accounted for this difference, which is obviously a grant that is given BASED ON HOURS WORKED.
The problem becomes: How many career milkmaids have been displaced in the dairy market by this program?
Actually, there were paid the larger amount not as 'milkmaids' but for scientific research: 1. they were out to detemine if they could make the cows laugh enough to make the milk come though their noses!
2. at what point in the milk making process does a mistake result in a a 'Milk Dud'.
Research is ongoing.
Indeed.
Well, we also don't know anything about their "baking fruit breads for sale to donors."
Some might pay $100/loaf for a decent Raisin Bread......even more if it includes walnuts.