Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
A couple weeks ago, I received an email from my younger brother asking me to support Rep. Hansen Clarke's H.R. 4170 - The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. My brother is not overly political. He's a recent college graduate living in a major Midwestern city, has 2 part time jobs and works hard. I've never received an email from him regarding politics or asking me to support or work against specific bills or even specific candidates. This stands in contrast to my Father who loves to send out anti-Obama blast emails to our family and friends, both Democrat and Republican...
At any rate, this was the first "political" email I have ever received from my brother. The bill, H.R. 4170 - The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, which you can read about here, supports "forgiveness" of student loan debt if the indebted pay the equivalent of 10% of their income for 10 years on their debt. After the 10% for 10 years, all remaining debt is simply "forgiven." Rep. Clarke claims the bill would make student loan payment both "simple" and "fair"... I agree with the former but not the latter.
I told my brother I could not support the bill. When he inquired as to why I could not support it, I sent the following email to him:
So if I'm a psych major who just graduated and I went to Harvard, I'd have $160,000 grand in debt. I get a job at Starbucks for 30 grand a year because i have no skills. I pay back 10% per year for 10 years, $30,000, and the remaining $130,000 is "forgiven".... so who is going to pay the remaining $130,000?...
Well, all the other taxpayers would have to pay for it... many of whom never went to college or decided not to... so in a sense many people who never went to college have to pay the bill for those who did go to college
Doesn't seem "fair" to me...."
There has been much said about college loan debt over the past month, on CNN, on the WSJ and in popular media at large. Is student loan debt a "bubble," is it toxic, does it hinder economic growth, or is it "no big deal, man?" Graduation is fast approaching in a little over a month and all of those psychology, sociology and anthropology majors out there are realizing that they may have made a "huge mistake" to quote GOB Bluth.
Like many Democrat bills, this particular gem supports the transfer of wealth from those who made wise decisions to those who chose to made poor decisions. The plumber down the street gets to pay for the flip flop wearing psych major's "degree" despite the fact that he chose to make the responsible decision and not go to college, thus not spending $100,000 on a 4 year binge drinking vacation.
The only hard part of this for me is that I sympathize with my brother. He, along with millions of others followed the conventional wisdom of the baby boomer generation: "All college education is valuable and a 'good thing.' The debt you incur is 'no big deal.'" I for one knew absolutely nothing about debt when I went into college and knew only slightly more than nothing when I graduated (remember, no math, I was a psych major). I was lucky in a sense because I went in state to the University of Illinois while my brother went to an expensive Jesuit school. Many college graduates are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I would suspect very few of them were truly aware of the huge financial decision they were making before they ever worked a day in their life.
Thomas Sowell once remarked that Progressive arguments are simple and often only one step. "College debt is bad and hinders economic growth, therefore we should forgive it." Or "home ownership is good therefore everyone should own a house." Conservative arguments, on the other hand, require two, or even three steps. "College debt is bad and hinders economic growth. BUT people have to be responsible for the decisions they make. Not only that, but forgiving college debt will, in the long run, cause more problems than it creates and will continue to perpetuate rising college tuition rates."
This bill also strikes me as the typical Democrat strategy of baiting those in trouble with promises to make it all better. Of course, can't just make all those bad life decisions go away and the initial problem will likely persist in that person's life for years, but none-the-less, those who are baited are likely to pull the lever for a Democrat every other November.
Nationally, student loan debt tops one trillion dollars, folks. Get ready to tell the recent college grads in your life why they should have to pay their own loans back without government help...
You should also get ready to tell those high school grads in your life why they should skip the whole mess entirely.
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Aug '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
So much of progressive economics is fantasy. We want more of something, so wave the magic wand of legislation and make it so. We want it to be better that it is, so wave the regulatory wand and make it so. We want it to be cheaper, so wave the redistributive wand and make it so. It reminds me of the fairy stories I vaguely remember from my early childhood.
Will progressives ever grow up?
Feb '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Samwise Gamgee
I for one knew absolutely nothing about debt when I went into college and knew only slightly more than nothing when I graduated (remember, no math, I was a psych major).
Statistics don't count as math? That was the bane of all the psych students I ever knew.
Feb '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
That's the problem. The folks you are sending to college are children.
Here in Israel, college students are generally twenty-one or more, with at least three years of military service behind them.
Jun '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Ottoman Umpire
Samwise Gamgee
Your brother wasn't a psych major from Harvard, by any chance? · 2 hours ago
No, he went to a really super duper Jesuit school....
Jun '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Mama Toad: Samwise, don't you know that the real reason you don't want to forgive college debt is because you're mean?
Edited 4 hours ago
I have been twisting my beard and laughing menacingly lately...
Aug '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
As I understand it, a federal government agency has taken over all college loans. It has a monopoly on the business. The agency borrows at about 2.5% and lends to students at 6.5%. This nationalization of the student loan business was, I believe, part of Obamacare and was touted as one way in which to pay for health care.
Now the proponents of Obamacare are talking about forgiving the loans!
It's creative accounting at its most surreal.
Mar '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
What I can never figure out is why your average citizen seems to think government being the only provider of college loans is different than if they were the sole providers of home mortgages.
Wait the government was the dominate home mortgage player and look how that mess turned out in 2008.
Public funding of schooling has fundamentally corrupted the education process. Then again the whole modern K-12 and college systems are based on some very flawed bedrock principles.
One the whole grading philosophy is based on the assumption that it is all students goal to get an A. I think we have all experienced how incorrect that assumption is.
Secondly, the U.S. had the highest rate of literacy in the world. Back in the day (19th Century )that was what everyone considered being educated. Public schools were not created because anyone though Americans lacked the 3 R's it was created by progressives to integrate immigrants.
As conservatives we should stop calling the whole industry "education" and start calling it college "Certification industry" and K-12 the "Schooling Industry",
Going to school does not mean you get any education out of it.
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 3:16pmOct '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
My sister has been working abroad the past the year teaching English, and will probably work another full year. She's doing this to pay off her student loan debt; she's a psyche major, but intends to pursue another career once her debt is paid off.
She doesn't ask for handouts to educated college students. There's much more deserving people in society, starting with the massive unemployment rate of non-college-educated workers.
Feb '12
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
The student loan program turns out to be a huge hand-out to the University business model. Without the student loan program most universities would have a very difficult time charging outrageous tuition and employing so many useless administrators, and several dubiously useful faculty members.
College education is a fine thing and should be pursued, but it can be done for a fraction of the cost and would be done that way if the free market were allowed to operate. Instead student loan programs supply cheap, easy-to-access debt to a bunch of kids who don't know any better, who in turn give it to universities in vast quantities.
I also doubt any outright debt-forgiveness will occur ever. The government is smart enough to require you take some public employment position for 10 years to forgive the debt (where you pay union dues), thus creating another bought-and-paid for vote for life.
Mar '12
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Samwise, tell your brother this story:
My wife and I always told our three kids we would pay for their college education under two conditions. First they get done in 4 years and they graduate with a degree that was marketable.
There were to be no loans. None.
We aren't wealthy. I'm a paramedic and my wife is a nurse. While, by anybody's standard, we have good jobs and income, this was a significant financial obligation that we undertook.
The first two kids went to public schools that had "reasonable" tuition costs. Both now are out on their own with no college loans to worry about. They are very thankful.
The third is now enrolled in a private, liberal arts college with a four year cost of $160,000. Because of his good academic record and soccer skills, that 4 year cost has been cut to $90,000.
We are cash-flowing it. It ain't easy but we manage.
I've been waiting for some genius to come up with a plan to "forgive" college loans. If and when this happens, I'm gonna raise hell - and more than just a little bit.
Jul '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
As others have noted, the problems here are legion. At the top of the problem pile, though, are universities, our "elite" institutions that are so in love with themselves and what they purport to offer that concerns like "tuition" and "student debt" are batted aside with a casual reference to outdated studies stating how much money college graduates will make compared to the costs of college. Flawed and outdated studies only demonstrate the willful blindness occurring at all levels of academia (I've heard a college president say, in person, that it doesn't matter how much "we" charge for school, someone will pay it). When generations of children are taught that going to college is not only expected, it's the only route forward, amazingly, they will follow that path - and sign on the dotted financial aid form lines without really understanding what they have just done.
If one students decides "Hey, that's too much money, forget it", and doesn't matriculate, there are dozens if not hundreds of applicants behind him, who won't make that choice - and colleges know it. They absolutely count on it to pay their bills, which are mostly salary-driven. Salaries.
May '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Maybe the Chinese will forgive our debt too!
Nov '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Hooray! Free money! Forever! With no drawbacks!
Edit:
Tanstaafl? What's that mean?
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 3:31pmNov '11
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Never underestimate a liberal’s drive to establish convincing bona fides—convincing to others but most especially to themselves—of their ethical, moral and intellectual superiority. A college education is not about learning useful things, it is about defining who you are: I am college educated and smart, smart enough to be considered authoritative when I pronounce conservative ideas to be stupid.
The universities know this, the more prestigious the degree (amongst fellow liberals) the more they can gouge those desperate to acquire the imprimatur.
I once had dinner with four women who had all graduated with degrees in Women’s Studies from one of the most prestigious universities in the country. The combined cost for their educations had to approach a million dollars. Even in their chosen field of study, none of them knew, for example, who Andrea Dworkin was, or Catharine MacKinnon. Not one of them had a job or any prospects for one.
What they did have was an absolute certainty that they saw the world clearly, as it actually is, rather than, say, through a glass darkly, and that they were a member of some kind of club that defined them as, somehow, enormously important.
Oct '10
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
The biggest downside to many of these degrees isn't that they won't help you to get a job, it's that they work counter to a productive, well adjusted life. If you aren't thoroughly pissed-off at society and a large portion of its citizenry after getting a _ _ _ _ _ _-Studies degree, you weren't paying attention.
Mar '12
Re: Forgive College Debt Now!... man.
Right. A BA Degree in Maya Angelou leaves you too dumb to understand who to be mad at.