Comments on: College loan forgiveness boogie-woogie

By: podrock

podrock — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 22:15:57 +0000

Chris Rock had a whole bit on exactly this many years ago.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 01:01:17 +0000

“Not all blacks are niggers, and not all niggers are black.”

By: RobVG

RobVG — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 00:11:45 +0000

I’m a newly converted conservative and it will take awhile to get use to the idea of “free stuff”. Although as you point out, we couldn’t do without what government “gives” us in the way of vital services.

By: ER

ER — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 23:27:08 +0000

I believe education should be free, that is, paid for by the state, PROVIDED the student can pass the entrance examinations of the accredited educational institution. Conservatives had tried to convince the public these grants would be available to any dumbass who applied for it (can you hear the racist dog whistle there?). Its loud and clear for me. As for the high threshold for when debt cancellation kicks in, well.., that’s how you get the middle class to sign on. You throw them a bone, but you make the poor pay for it.

Education should be free for anyone who can pass the entrance exams, just like health care should be free to anyone who’s sick, or legal representation for anyone who’s going to trial. I don’t have kids, but I don’t mind paying taxes to educate yours. Its good for the country, whether or not you have any kids. Besides, the government picked up the tab for my schooling, I have a debt to pay back and I will not weasel out of it’ Its the patriotic thing to do.

If your house is on fire, the fire fighters should be free. If your ship is sinking, the coast guard should be free. If you’re being robbed, the cops should be free. The way its set up now, only people who can afford tuition get to go to school. But the cost of education is not covered by tuition fees. It is paid for by the taxpayers, whether it comes from State funding of universities, or State-guaranteed loans to any dumbass who is conned into applying for it.

If the “taxpayer” can’t afford the price of admission (tuition) he has to borrow, and the government protects the lender from risk. It needs to stop. Its a fucking racket, baby.

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The system I favor, which I outline above (and which pretty much describes the programs which helped pay for MY education), are pretty much how the rest of the “developed” world does it now, For example, in countries like India, millions of highly qualified graduates are produced at taxpayer expense and they cannot be absorbed by their economies. So they come to the USA where they take away jobs from our doctors, engineers, scientists, professors. Have you noticed how many Asian surnames are on our medical marquees lately? Of course, they will work for less, and “Americans don’t want those jobs any more”. Of course, in America, science and math are BORRRRIIING! Real men get business degrees. So maybe Gupta is getting screwed too, but he’s still better off than if he had stayed in India.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 21:29:20 +0000

I went to another computer school 30 years ago. They said they’d get me a job as a software tester. Not only had the tech bubble popped, the classes they offered weren’t enough to get a foot in the door anywhere. I did a two month internship and a stint at tech support. That was it, and the result was my fault for not looking at the job market before I started.
The kicker was they tried to get me state funding by saying my profession at the time was in decline (which it wasn’t). It would have given me $6000 for tuition which coincidentally was the cost for another one of their programs.

The housing loan crisis was telling- no one went to prison.

The qualification for wiping student loans is $125,000 for a single earner, $250,000 for two income families annually. I think those people are capable of paying of their own loans.

By: BuckGalaxy

BuckGalaxy — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 20:09:29 +0000

They knew what they were doing when they made their flim flam housing loans in the early 2000s. They crashed the economy because of it. Why should taxpayers help banks out to the tune of trillions of dollars when “they knew how the system worked”?

Many students were also victims of bullshit “universities” that conned them into spending their student loans on garbage classes that were far below real university standards. Think Trump University for example which faced a class action suit.

Not everyone is eligible for student debt relief and that is probably a good thing. People making over $300k/year don’t need it and aren’t getting it. But education debts are not the worst thing this nation has ever bailed out by a very long stretch. .

By: RobVG

RobVG — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 19:36:37 +0000

If we can subsidize the industries you mention, we should subsidize education. But I don’t agree with debt forgiveness. It removes the element of personal responsibility which is part of the foundation of our system.
Those people knew the terms of the loans and the potential lifetime earnings of the degrees they sought (or should have).They knew how the system works, just like the people who paid off their loans did.

I’m open to heavily subsidizing education. but “free” education should be something you earn through proven prior educational accomplishment.

I’ve wondered if the debt cancellation is a prelude to government funded higher education because I can imagine how much those who are underwater would bitch about how unfair it would be to them.

By: BuckGalaxy

BuckGalaxy — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 02:12:32 +0000

Think of all the other subsidies out there. People who bitch and moan about student debt relief should consider all the billions of tax dollars bailing out banks, subsidizing the oil, auto and pharmaceutical industries, propping up farmers etc etc etc. It’s high time average people’s education is subsidized.

By: ER

ER — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 23:20:16 +0000

But there are people (and we all know who they are) who can afford to send their kids to college, but resent sending anyone elses, no matter what the benefits to the society as a whole.

Our system is the exception. In most advanced countries in the world, college tuition is free to anyone who can pass the entrance exams, although books, fees and earning a living and supporting a family while in school still keep out a lot of people. My grandfather got to attend medical school in Havana in the early decades of the 20th century even though his family was working class. This was only a few years after Cuba gained its independence from Spain. Abuelo never graduated, some say because of politics, others say because of a woman, but that’s another story.

For a while, the State College system, scholarships and GI Bill made college accessible to many in America. But some people don’t like to see their tax dollars subsidizing anyone else. That’s why we don’t have universal health care. BTW, Cuba had THAT in the 1910s too. Just like most other civilized countries do.

BTW, these are the same people who cut funding to education, but lobby for the State to subsidize private schools, where they send THEIR kids..

You cannot reason with these people. Their idea of good government is cutting taxes for the propertied class, but plenty of support for cops, judges, jails and the military.

By: BuckGalaxy

BuckGalaxy — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 22:29:18 +0000

If higher education in the United States was as covered by our taxes as primary school education is, then we would have far fewer of these issues.
In my opinion, a country this sophisticated can easily afford to arrange so that any of its citizens should be able to attend any university which has the room and into which they can qualify academically. This is the PRIMARY way a person can better themselves and better their community. It’s not just “job training” it’s personal intellectual development. THIS is the great equalizer that the United States could actually brag about internationally. And just imagine what a country this big, with this size of a pool of raw untapped talent, could do, when unfettered and allowed to just learn anything they could want to learn.
The only folks who could possibly object to that are predatory lending organizations and I think that we as a country would be a thousand percent better off if we told those organizations to roll themselves into a tight-little ball the size of my fist and drop themselves into a volcano.
If this happened, then no one could complain about tuition prices, no one could complain about being saddled by debt, no one could complain about anything other than “gosh, I hate it when Americans are educated” and for those folks,(we know who they are), fuck ‘em.
I 100% support free education for any and all citizens, paid for by taxes and giving everyone the satisfaction of knowing that the people around them are getting what they want out of life and not just being raised as fucking wage slaves.