For some: A guaranteed C- even if you don't show up for class and spend all year attached to a beer line.

For everyone else: nothing - even if you're a star student in high school; the world needs ditch-diggers too, you know.

..was a factor in them choosing academia over a potentially higher paying corporate job. Sure, even if you have to pay tax on the benefit, that will still be cheaper than paying the full tuition bill. But, whereas you can take out a long term loan to pay tuition, imagine your tax bill if you have a couple of kid in college at the same time and potentially have to pay 25% (the likely marginal tax rate of someone working at one of these institutions) of $50,000-100,000 in tuition assistance. Remember that these benefits are available to the dependents of all employees not just the higher paid professors. There are lots of lower paid academic staff and operations people who could end up with a tax bill that is half of their gross income or more.

I thought the goal was to make it easier and cheaper for people to get a higher education not put more barriers in place; and, again, this won't affect the top 1% at all.