Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Everyone has a story. And if you’re one of the millions of Americans who eschewed a college education for other vocations – homebuilding, plumbing, truck driving, or a host of manufacturing and service jobs – I bet you have a story, too. Or worked to pay off your debt. Perhaps with a little help from family or “angels.”
Now would be a good time to tell your story.
A happy dad celebrates his son’s college graduation in 2016 sans student loan debt.
Maybe you’re the parent of children (hand raised) who graduated from college but saved or earned enough to cover the rapidly-rising tuition rates and made sure they didn’t graduate with debt. You knew that would burden the start of their career.
Or maybe you hustled for scholarships while taking two or three jobs each semester (or trimester), from washing dishes in the campus cafeteria before 8 a.m. classes or selling women’s shoes at the local clothing store on weekends (hand raised, again). Also, serving as a resident advisor in the college dorm to cut room and board costs. Sometimes, a former boss of a Braum’s Ice Cream store in nearby Norman, where I worked during high school, was short-staffed on a busy weekend night and asked for help. The extra income came in handy, and the work kept me out of trouble on weekends (mostly).
Perhaps you chose a school like the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma instead of a more expensive institution. In the 1970s, this small public liberal arts college in Chickasha would let you attend the third-trimester tuition-free if you were a full-time in-state student for the first two trimesters. That cut my tuition costs by a third since I was working my own way through school sans parental assistance (neither of my parents at the time had earned a college degree). And I graduated early; my college career nearly spanned Gerald Ford’s presidency.
Resourcefulness is a wonderful skill to learn early in life. And you don’t need a degree from a fancy university to succeed, however you define or measure it.
The thought of applying for a student loan was unimaginable to me in the 1970s. It was way more imaginable for my two sons in the 2000s, although we didn’t qualify for low-interest or government-backed loans or student aid (we checked). Success doesn’t go unpunished. Private student loan rates in the late 2000s were over 8 percent annually. And while both our boys attended top-notch private liberal arts colleges, their graduating with debt was abhorrent to every instinct in my body. Our retirement savings took a hit, but we never hesitated to invest in our sons’ future.
“I’m wearing my $250,000 college golf shirt,” I’ll still tease my boys. That joke hasn’t aged well and invokes predictable eye rolls. We have no regrets. Even though whatever remained of any loans they might have taken out might be “forgiven.”
I also know that many of my 27 fellow 1974 graduates from Oklahoma’s rural Washington High School in McClain County didn’t graduate from four-year colleges. That’s true of many high schools, by the way. All work hard, many with their hands. They raised wonderful families and inculcated the next generation with their values.
So, what degree did YOU earn with all that loan debt? Drama?
Yet, some $300 billion to as much as $980 billion in US taxpayer money is about to be spent over 10 years to forgive $10,000 in student loans to graduates of tony universities, including graduate, medical and law schools for individuals making $125-150,000 per year or less (that’s nice income), or an estimated $300,000 for couples (broadly defined, I’m sure, so long as they file joint tax returns). It might be illegal. It is certainly immoral and unfair.
Most beneficiaries will be the wealthiest. From Bloomberg News:
Forgiving student loan debt will cost between $300 billion and $980 billion over 10 years, according to a new analysis, with the majority of relief going toward borrowers in the top 60% of earners. Most Americans rightly fear it will add to inflation, their top concern.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimate was released Tuesday ahead of President Joe Biden’s long-anticipated decision as soon as this week on whether to forgive some student loan debt. White House officials have been trying to combat critiques that such a move would add to rampant inflation that’s become a political liability for Biden and his fellow Democrats.
The Penn Wharton budget group, based out of the University of Pennsylvania and run by a top former Treasury official under Republican President George W. Bush, is influential with key Capitol Hill lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.
The group estimated that between 69% and 73% of any debt forgiven would accrue to households that rank in the top 60% of the US’s income distribution.
But for many, Biden’s forgiveness plan doesn’t go far enough, including the NAACP. TheBlaze tells the story following a newly-inaugurated Joe Biden appearing before a CNN town hall less than a month into his presidency. “Classist and racist,” some say:
Socialists and others on the left excoriated President Joe Biden over his admission that he didn’t have the power to forgive student debt for those who owed up to $50,000.
The president voiced his unpopular stance Tuesday evening during a town hall event on CNN when a young woman asked him when he would forgive more than the $10,000 he had previously suggested.
“I will not make that happen,” Biden responded.
“It depends on the idea that, I say to a community, I’m going to forgive the debt of billions of dollars … for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn,” he explained.
Biden had other plans to extend debt relief to some Americans according to different criteria, but many on the left angrily denounced him for not supporting a blanket relief for all student debt up to $50,000.
“[I]t’s extremely classist and racist to assume that only rich people can get into ‘elite’ schools,” said one user.
There’s no question that student loan debt is a huge burden to tens of millions of graduates, many of them well into their 30s and 40s, even their 50s. US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) didn’t pay off his college student loan debt until he published his autobiography in 2012 (but did not ask anyone to forgive it). A credible case can be made that the system is a mess, including predatory lending practices. And there are better solutions. National Review:
Two recent papers from the Manhattan Institute nicely illustrate conservative ways of approaching these issues. And each touts an idea with some support in Congress.
The first, written by Jason Delisle and released today, makes the case for “income-share agreements.” Under these arrangements, a lender pays for a student’s education, and in return the student pays a set percentage of his income for a set number of years. This way, students pay for their education during the years when they’re benefiting from it the most — the years when their earnings are high — and are protected against big bills when they’re struggling.
Delisle’s proposal is to take this as a model for the entire student-loan program. The rule is simple: You can borrow up to $50,000, and for every $10,000 you borrow, you owe 1 percent of your earnings for the next 25 years (unless you first hit the repayment cap of 1.75 times the amount of the loan). If you get married, you pay for your ISA based on half the household income. If you make less than $12,000 or receive the earned-income tax credit, your payments are reduced or eliminated.
Everyone is entitled to nearly twice as much money as the typical four-year student borrows today, and no one ever loses more than 5 percent of his income repaying it. Further, collections are handled through the existing income-tax system, streamlining the process.
Senator Rubio has re-introduced 2019 legislation, the LOAN Act – supported by the United Negro College Fund’s President but ignored by Democrats – to address the student loan crisis:
“Working-class Americans should be able to pursue an education without having to worry about finding themselves trapped in an insurmountable debt cycle for years beyond graduation,” Rubio said. “My bill would reform our federal student loan system so that borrowers don’t get stuck with debt they can never repay. Instead of accruing interest, borrowers will pay a one-time fee paid out over the life of the loan and will be automatically placed in an income-based repayment plan. It’s time to update our federal student loan system, because fear of debt should never stand in the way of an education and the pursuit of a better life.”
“UNCF has been a long champion of reforming our financial aid system, and we have been vocal in advocating for reducing the burden on students to repay their loans,” President and CEO of UNCF (United Negro College Fund, Inc.) Dr. Michael L. Lomax, said. “I am excited to support a bill that would not only eliminate interest rates on student loans, but create a process that increases equity in our financial aid system and takes unforeseen financial circumstances that would affect a borrower’s ability to repay their loan, regardless of income, into consideration. This is a strong and robust proposal, and low-income students would fair better under the repayment system this bill creates versus our current structure. It is my hope that this bill will spur further conversation and proposals around innovative ways to reform our federal financial aid system that benefits our low-income students.”
US Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has an interesting idea – to make colleges pay the loans of students who default. Given that some universities have eye-popping 11-figure endowments, it makes you wonder how that extravagance can be used to help solve this crisis instead of picking the pockets of working-class Americans and forcing their children to incur more federal debt.
Source: US News & World Report, 2021
It’s a fairness issue. And it isn’t fair to most working Americans who didn’t incur student loan debt or paid it off to subsidize “forgiveness” of loans they were not forced to take. National Review editor Charles C.W. Cooke has a take that most Americans will associate with (emphasis added):
Proponents talk of “canceling” student debt, as if the debt would magically vanish at the stroke of President Biden’s pen. But the debt cannot just vanish, because it has already been issued and it has already been spent. When advocates suggest that the debt should be “canceled,” what they mean is that responsibility for paying it should be transferred — at the point of a gun — from the people who borrowed and spent the money to people who did not. Those who owe federal student debt owe it because they chose first to borrow it, and then to spend it on a service that they duly received. Those who do not owe federal student debt do not owe it because they did not choose to borrow it, they did not spend it, and they received no services in exchange for it. To use the word “cancellation” in this context is no different from using the word “cancellation” in the context of my mortgage. A few years ago, I borrowed some money to buy a house, which I have since owned and lived in. That debt cannot disappear; it can only be pushed onto someone else — be that my mortgage company, other mortgage payers, or taxpayers in general. If that were to happen while I remained under my roof, it would be a scandal.
Let’s call it for what it is. Welfare.
Democratic peddling of student loan debt stories – all of which will feature “diverse” people – has already started and will intensify over the next couple of months, leading to the November 8 election. Never mind what colleges are indoctrinatingteaching your children these days.
“Thank you, Joe Biden,” many will say as they run to Starbucks for their daily lattes or to pick up another bottle of wine at Trader Joe’s after their latest pilates session. They are thanking the wrong people. They should thank – and apologize to – the waitresses, truck drivers, nurses, nursery operators, and others who didn’t incur student loan debt but are now forced to subsidize yours.
Student loan debt by state, 2021
Working class Americans are not entirely unsympathetic, even though they’ve suffered the most economically from the pandemic. While they didn’t get a degree, some of their children incurred debt and are among the 41 percent of college graduates in 2020 who were in jobs that don’t require a degree. That debt is helping drag down our economy, although inflation – Bidenflation – has more sway.
Too many colleges and universities have bloated budgets and tuitions that worsen the problem without enough accountability. And the more the government throws at higher education, the higher tuition costs go.
There are better solutions. It is now time for working-class Americans to drop the handle on those welfare wagons, tell their own stories, and vote accordingly on November 8th. Demand accountability.
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members.
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community
of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.
There are 112 comments.
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
The people probably still have their diplomas though, so employers would have to check to find out if it’s still valid. And what happens when they start making mistakes? Lawyers win again!
True. But there might be a Constitutional way around that.
A constitutional right to a taxpayer-paid lawyer to prove that your diploma wasn’t really cancelled? What a mess!
I meant controlling the employment of people who are hired in accordance with or because of their degrees. Many jobs do background checks, but a lot don’t so it would only deal with those that don’t.
What does that do regarding the problem of people whose schools erroneously show their diploma/degree as cancelled because they were given someone’s name incorrectly, or digits in a phone number or address or whatever were transposed, etc? For that matter, what about schools that no longer exist? Who is responsible for maintaining those records, “forever?”
Man, every place I’ve ever worked did a full background check on me. No one has ever confused my name for another, and if they did have questions, they always got back to me. So, yeah, some records last forever.
Lots of people got degrees/diplomas from ITT Technical Institute, which stopped existing in 2016. Where are those records kept, for companies who want to verify degrees/diplomas in hiring?
I dunno. Where? And how does this change anything regarding whether and employer currently knows you have a valid diploma or not?
Because if you claim to have a diploma from ITT, there is no way for the employer to verify if it’s true or not.
What does the current system have to do with checking the status of loan repayment?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
Right, which is what we have to today for employers checking and verifying employment criteria. If the records no longer exist, you can’t use them for getting hired anyway. This is true regardless of whether someone defaulted on his loans.
Even so, a single loan default registry (which we may have right now, through the banks) could list what degrees are nullified whether the school still has any record of them or not.
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
True. But there might be a Constitutional way around that.
A constitutional right to a taxpayer-paid lawyer to prove that your diploma wasn’t really cancelled? What a mess!
I meant controlling the employment of people who are hired in accordance with or because of their degrees. Many jobs do background checks, but a lot don’t so it would only deal with those that don’t.
What does that do regarding the problem of people whose schools erroneously show their diploma/degree as cancelled because they were given someone’s name incorrectly, or digits in a phone number or address or whatever were transposed, etc? For that matter, what about schools that no longer exist? Who is responsible for maintaining those records, “forever?”
Man, every place I’ve ever worked did a full background check on me. No one has ever confused my name for another, and if they did have questions, they always got back to me. So, yeah, some records last forever.
Lots of people got degrees/diplomas from ITT Technical Institute, which stopped existing in 2016. Where are those records kept, for companies who want to verify degrees/diplomas in hiring?
I dunno. Where? And how does this change anything regarding whether and employer currently knows you have a valid diploma or not?
Because if you claim to have a diploma from ITT, there is no way for the employer to verify if it’s true or not.
What does the current system have to do with checking the status of loan repayment?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
Right, which is what we have to today for employers checking and verifying employment criteria. If the records no longer exist, you can’t use them for getting hired anyway. This is true regardless of whether someone defaulted on his loans.
Even so, a single loan default registry (which we may have right now, through the banks) could list what degrees are nullified whether the school still has any record of them or not.
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
I don’t think so. Any employer can ask to see a birth certificate. They can do their due diligence.
True. But there might be a Constitutional way around that.
A constitutional right to a taxpayer-paid lawyer to prove that your diploma wasn’t really cancelled? What a mess!
I meant controlling the employment of people who are hired in accordance with or because of their degrees. Many jobs do background checks, but a lot don’t so it would only deal with those that don’t.
What does that do regarding the problem of people whose schools erroneously show their diploma/degree as cancelled because they were given someone’s name incorrectly, or digits in a phone number or address or whatever were transposed, etc? For that matter, what about schools that no longer exist? Who is responsible for maintaining those records, “forever?”
Man, every place I’ve ever worked did a full background check on me. No one has ever confused my name for another, and if they did have questions, they always got back to me. So, yeah, some records last forever.
Lots of people got degrees/diplomas from ITT Technical Institute, which stopped existing in 2016. Where are those records kept, for companies who want to verify degrees/diplomas in hiring?
I dunno. Where? And how does this change anything regarding whether and employer currently knows you have a valid diploma or not?
Because if you claim to have a diploma from ITT, there is no way for the employer to verify if it’s true or not.
What does the current system have to do with checking the status of loan repayment?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
Right, which is what we have to today for employers checking and verifying employment criteria. If the records no longer exist, you can’t use them for getting hired anyway. This is true regardless of whether someone defaulted on his loans.
Even so, a single loan default registry (which we may have right now, through the banks) could list what degrees are nullified whether the school still has any record of them or not.
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
I don’t think so. Any employer can ask to see a birth certificate. They can do their due diligence.
And, where are birth certificates/records stored, and who is responsible for maintaining them?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
it doesn’t need to be forever. It could just be needs to be employed for anytime in the 5 years post college. If you were able to get a job when you graduated, there’s evidence the degree has some demand in the marketplace. At some point, unemployment has to be a consequence of the graduate’s own poor work ethic, and not the degree.
However, if someone has demonstrated an attempt to work and has consistently maintained a job in minimum wage work, then there is recourse.
Really, if graduates were allowed to declare bankruptcy and the loans were not federal, but private, you wouldn’t even need this. The banks that write student loans would figure out pretty quick which students and degrees are sound investments. The degrees that are high risk can’t get private loans and the schools offering the degrees can use their endowments as scholarships in those fields if it is really that big a deal for them to exist.
I meant controlling the employment of people who are hired in accordance with or because of their degrees. Many jobs do background checks, but a lot don’t so it would only deal with those that don’t.
What does that do regarding the problem of people whose schools erroneously show their diploma/degree as cancelled because they were given someone’s name incorrectly, or digits in a phone number or address or whatever were transposed, etc? For that matter, what about schools that no longer exist? Who is responsible for maintaining those records, “forever?”
Man, every place I’ve ever worked did a full background check on me. No one has ever confused my name for another, and if they did have questions, they always got back to me. So, yeah, some records last forever.
Lots of people got degrees/diplomas from ITT Technical Institute, which stopped existing in 2016. Where are those records kept, for companies who want to verify degrees/diplomas in hiring?
I dunno. Where? And how does this change anything regarding whether and employer currently knows you have a valid diploma or not?
Because if you claim to have a diploma from ITT, there is no way for the employer to verify if it’s true or not.
What does the current system have to do with checking the status of loan repayment?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
Right, which is what we have to today for employers checking and verifying employment criteria. If the records no longer exist, you can’t use them for getting hired anyway. This is true regardless of whether someone defaulted on his loans.
Even so, a single loan default registry (which we may have right now, through the banks) could list what degrees are nullified whether the school still has any record of them or not.
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
I don’t think so. Any employer can ask to see a birth certificate. They can do their due diligence.
And, where are birth certificates/records stored, and who is responsible for maintaining them?
Exactly.
Wherever they are stored today. What are you really saying?
I meant controlling the employment of people who are hired in accordance with or because of their degrees. Many jobs do background checks, but a lot don’t so it would only deal with those that don’t.
What does that do regarding the problem of people whose schools erroneously show their diploma/degree as cancelled because they were given someone’s name incorrectly, or digits in a phone number or address or whatever were transposed, etc? For that matter, what about schools that no longer exist? Who is responsible for maintaining those records, “forever?”
Man, every place I’ve ever worked did a full background check on me. No one has ever confused my name for another, and if they did have questions, they always got back to me. So, yeah, some records last forever.
Lots of people got degrees/diplomas from ITT Technical Institute, which stopped existing in 2016. Where are those records kept, for companies who want to verify degrees/diplomas in hiring?
I dunno. Where? And how does this change anything regarding whether and employer currently knows you have a valid diploma or not?
Because if you claim to have a diploma from ITT, there is no way for the employer to verify if it’s true or not.
What does the current system have to do with checking the status of loan repayment?
I wasn’t referring that much to the current system, it was about the idea of verifying employability via having a diploma/degree, and in terms of student-loan “forgiveness” etc. If you tie loan “forgiveness” to employability, and that means employers checking for valid diplomas etc, then there have to be mechanisms that handle that, and that allow for correcting erroneous records, and for someone maintaining the records of places that don’t exist any more, etc, etc, etc. So many bureaucrats, so many lawyers…
Right, which is what we have to today for employers checking and verifying employment criteria. If the records no longer exist, you can’t use them for getting hired anyway. This is true regardless of whether someone defaulted on his loans.
Even so, a single loan default registry (which we may have right now, through the banks) could list what degrees are nullified whether the school still has any record of them or not.
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
I don’t think so. Any employer can ask to see a birth certificate. They can do their due diligence.
And, where are birth certificates/records stored, and who is responsible for maintaining them?
Exactly.
Wherever they are stored today. What are you really saying?
The point is that when records are a more or less public mandate/requirement, individual hospitals, doctors, etc, don’t just keep all the birth records themselves. Nor would colleges still keep all the college records if it becomes some kind of requirement or mandate that people prove they have a degree/diploma in order to get a job or perhaps some “government benefit” such as “loan forgiveness.” Hospitals close, doctors retire etc, and some colleges close/go out of business too.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Yep. Except we are too stupid to pull this off. Central planning begets central planning until everything collapses.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
The authorities are confusing them so they can’t make good judgments. Believe me, I know all about this. They are selfish rip off artists with the wind of the force of government behind them, i.e. student loans and the accreditation system.
Dave of Barsham (View Comment): From a pragmatic level, as a conservative I would be willing to accept student loan “forgiveness” if it was couple with some other legislation.
Exactly. We have destroyed all kinds of human and financial capital with central planning through student loans and the Education Edifice. It requires more central planning to get out of this mess. Good luck.
Because conservatives neglected this issue like every other. We could have had endless hearings and hauled university presidents before the country to explain administrative bloat. We could have showcased the commie crap theyre pumping young people with. Our enemies could have been made to answer for the indentured setvitude they are putting young people into for a crap product. We could have made them pay for it. We could have won young people over by showing them what enemies these social justice freaks are to their mental and financial well being. Conservatives at a minimum could have cut the governments role out of college loans. There was never an attempt or even the pretense of an attempt. Now we have a class of people who got defrauded and it is only growing. And the reason we will pay as a country is because the default conservative position is to do nothing and whine about the left when they take action on an issue that was sceded to them.
kedavis (View Comment): The point is that when records are a more or less public mandate/requirement, individual hospitals, doctors, etc, don’t just keep all the birth records themselves.
Actually individual doctors and hospitals, and many other institutions, and government agencies, do keep records. I once had to get my birth certificate from a hospital where I was born, from 50 years before, and they had it.
But whatever you need to get a special gold star driver’s license, it is your responsibility to produce them. As for defaulting on debt, failing to repay student loans is probably well-known and documented through all credit reporting services. And credit reporting services are utilized by anyone, even those renting out houses and apartments. And I would heartily suspect that the government keeps track of all student loans that they have guaranteed and financial institutions keep track of every debtor and their payments.
If the US can streamline citizenship verification through e-verify or whatever, I’m confident that they can apply the same simple techniques to streamline verification of student debt repayment. In fact, the government used to say (don’t know if it still does) that Social Security benefits would be withheld for non-repayment of student loans. So the US government does keep an active watch and does know.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
Nor for pursuing degrees in subjects where no one would pay them for what they were taught. Certifications that demonstrate an interest in accumulations of opinions, and not knowledge, should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
If these things are true, student loan forgiveness should REQUIRE education reform.
Even while I’m in favor of student debt forgiveness, I won’t support it without fixing the underlying issues. That just perpetuates and entrenches the problems that got us here.
There is no value added from the Education Edifice or the accreditation system. The whole thing should be all a cart. Nobody on the right ever talks this way, but that is the reality, particularly since Kahn Academy and so forth.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense,…
Here’s the problem. Those on the right don’t have any way of knowing what a given good is worth to someone else. Nor do those in the middle, nor or those on the left.
No-one on this supposedly all-inclusive spectrum of opinions about what any goods are worth to some other human being have any idea what they are talking about, nor any right to impose their opinions.
In fact, all men were created equal, with an equal right to decide their own economic values, so the role of government cannot be to impose its own choices.
When we overthrew “the right” side of the spectrum (King George and the hereditary ruling classes), we actually overthrew the spectrum itself. It is the proper role of government to protect individual rights, not to substitute its favored judgements of class rights and class guilt.
Well, we know that education is worthless. How do we know? Because so many people aren’t willing to actually pay for it.
Rather, they are willing to have the good if someone else pays for it, either through dischargeable student loans (before the bankruptcy ban), holding out for future forgiveness or simply defaulting, scholarship, or employer funded.
So we know already the vast majority of education is not considered worth it.
None of this would be such a big deal if they didn’t overcharge for it so much. The graph since 1980 is insane.
The thing is, statistically the Education Edifice can shows statistically that enough people earn more that it’s OK. It’s hard to untangle that.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
Nor for pursuing degrees in subjects where no one would pay them for what they were taught. Certifications that demonstrate an interest in accumulations of opinions, and not knowledge, should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
Many places were just requiring a degree to be hired, it didn’t matter what the degree was for.
It’s partly up to those who hire to tear down the system. The system doesn’t have any value. It’s a licensing racket.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense,…
Here’s the problem. Those on the right don’t have any way of knowing what a given good is worth to someone else. Nor do those in the middle, nor or those on the left.
No-one on this supposedly all-inclusive spectrum of opinions about what any goods are worth to some other human being have any idea what they are talking about, nor any right to impose their opinions.
In fact, all men were created equal, with an equal right to decide their own economic values, so the role of government cannot be to impose its own choices.
When we overthrew “the right” side of the spectrum (King George and the hereditary ruling classes), we actually overthrew the spectrum itself. It is the proper role of government to protect individual rights, not to substitute its favored judgements of class rights and class guilt.
Well, we know that education is worthless. How do we know? Because so many people aren’t willing to actually pay for it.
Rather, they are willing to have the good if someone else pays for it, either through dischargeable student loans (before the bankruptcy ban), holding out for future forgiveness or simply defaulting, scholarship, or employer funded.
So we know already the vast majority of education is not considered worth it.
This is an interesting conversation. Former-President 0bama was a lawyer, but his real wealth sprung from his life-long commitment to community organizing and social activism, a specialty that he was raised into by family and friends.
And now-multimillionaire Patrice Cullors has a MFA, but her path to wealth was essentially high school apprenticeships in community organizing. She claims to be a “trained Marxist” activist.
As a teenager Cullors joined the Bus Riders Union (BRU), during which time she attended a year-long organizing program led by the Labor Community Strategy Center (which organized the BRU). She learned about revolutionaries, critical theory and social movements from around the world, while practicing activism which amounted to on-the-job training. Cullors also enrolled at Grover Cleveland High School and was admitted into its social justice magnet program.
It would seem that her university successes were not the stepping stone to financial success that Marxist training and apprenticeship in activism were.
The world would be a lot better place if every Republican had a clean model of this in their heads. This is the way it is.
In 2006 I dropped out of college. I wasn’t willing to go into debt to get a crappy education and be taught by professors who knew less about my field of study (computer graphics) than I did. Most CG engineers and pretty much all artists in the U.S. are educated by some combination of de facto apprenticeships and self-education.
After the 2008 financial crisis I found myself dealing with the rather intense labor market discrimination degree holding workers put in place to protect their own hides. Do you know what it’s like to make it past the technical interview for a job only to be told HR vetoed your hiring? That happened three or four times.
The Constitution bans patents of nobility. It’s time to defund higher education.
It was like this before the 2008 crisis. Companies have substituted a 4-year degree for tests of ability, since those were effectively banned after Griggs v. Duke Power (1971).
I know from personal experience this is a disaster.
This whole thing has so many parts to it and it’s very hard to explain so you can solve it. The Democrats answer is simple: more communism.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense,…
Here’s the problem. Those on the right don’t have any way of knowing what a given good is worth to someone else. Nor do those in the middle, nor or those on the left.
No-one on this supposedly all-inclusive spectrum of opinions about what any goods are worth to some other human being have any idea what they are talking about, nor any right to impose their opinions.
In fact, all men were created equal, with an equal right to decide their own economic values, so the role of government cannot be to impose its own choices.
When we overthrew “the right” side of the spectrum (King George and the hereditary ruling classes), we actually overthrew the spectrum itself. It is the proper role of government to protect individual rights, not to substitute its favored judgements of class rights and class guilt.
We don’t know precisely but we know the lower bound. If they bought it without being compelled to, and they are rational, then they thought it was worth at least the price they paid. It’s called “revealed preference”.
And from a purely cash flow perspective we can determine if the return on investment was worth the amount invested. Again, from a cash flow perspective, if someone borrowed 300,000 USD at interest to earn a degree yet cannot find employment whose lifetime earnings is 300,000 plus the accumulated interest greater than what they could have had without the degree then that investment wasn’t worth it. (What is the Austrian aversion to arithmetic ?)
Nobody is nudging them to do this. They are nudging them the other way. The system is a scam and a racket. Student loans are not given out on likelihood of payback. There is blame all over the place.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Then the parties who should forfeit the ill gotten gains are the higher education institutions who benefited. Leave me out of it. I’m one of the millions who tried to tell them this was madness from the get-go.
Central planning begets central planning until everything collapses.
Ricochet has a podcast called Acton line. If you go back a few, there is a guy pitching the idea that the Greek system creates net social good. This is preposterous.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
The authorities are confusing them so they can’t make good judgments. Believe me, I know all about this. They are selfish rip off artists with the wind of the force of government behind them, i.e. student loans and the accreditation system.
I understand that universities, flush with money that people borrowed to pay for their services, and swelling coffers, have taken on a greedy if not predatory character. But I still don’t quite get excusing the behavior of millions or tens of millions (or more) of students who wanted a college degree and were willing to borrow money today to pay for — something! — in return tomorrow.
If your student loans are $30K that’s not even a car payment. If they are $100k, that’s not even a house. But who in the world invests, that is takes out a loan, for 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars, without being sure that they will have the wherewithal to pay it back? And without being sure that they will have an education in a field that will provide a decent job? I mean if you can’t figure this out as a young adult, maybe you’re not college material. Or else you’re so privileged that you never consider actually earning money and just expect that “it will come”.
Sure there was a bright and shiny lure. But the process of financing and studying and refinancing took years. At any point along the line anybody could have said, Is this really worth it? maybe I’ll learn a paying skill.
I think the bottom line is that we have been so wealthy so long that students and their parents just expected everything to be provided, and that prosperity was assumed and they were assured that prosperity will just come. It’s like buying a 20 million dollar castle someplace and being sure that you can run it as a vacation hotel at a profit to pay off the loan and live well on top of that. And the banks said, Good plan!, and the loan’s insured, so why not?! And the government said, We’re investing in “populational infrastructure”. But the students really had no skin in the game. And from what I understand, some number spent their education loans on living and lifestyle, apartments, cars, dining out, and for some including spring breaks in Cancun.
I remember when I was a teenager hearing a well to do mother of three telling her children that she saved for years for the sofa they were sitting on, and was currently saving for more years to get a side table that she really wanted. That’s unheard of today. People either borrow their money, or buy at Ikea, or both. But ultimately it’s the fish that greedily bites the lure.
kedavis (View Comment): The point is that when records are a more or less public mandate/requirement, individual hospitals, doctors, etc, don’t just keep all the birth records themselves.
Actually individual doctors and hospitals, and many other institutions, and government agencies, do keep records. I once had to get my birth certificate from a hospital where I was born, from 50 years before, and they had it.
That might qualify as “luck” to me. I’ve never lived anywhere that you didn’t get birth certificates from some state government office of official records.
And hospitals do close, from time to time. Maybe not the one where you were born (possibly a government-run hospital? that could explain it) but others do. Also hospitals on military bases, etc. As well as the aforementioned doctors retiring, etc. That usually means sending their records to state offices, but then who looks through them for birth certificates etc?
But whatever you need to get a special gold star driver’s license, it is your responsibility to produce them.
Right, and what happens if your birth certificate/record were no longer available, because the doctor retired or the hospital closed or whatever, if those records weren’t kept by counties, states, etc? You can’t prove you were born in the US any more, so you’re no longer a citizen, get the F out?
As for defaulting on debt, failing to repay student loans is probably well-known and documented through all credit reporting services. And credit reporting services are utilized by anyone, even those renting out houses and apartments. And I would heartily suspect that the government keeps track of all student loans that they have guaranteed and financial institutions keep track of every debtor and their payments.
The credit bureaus are private enterprises – which is one reason there are THREE of them, at least three major ones – but if the government started requiring credit reports for certain government-related functions, then I’d expect there would either be some additional credit bureau created for it, or at least something that gets the reports from all three major private credit bureaus and somehow merges them, because they can be very different. (Which is also why you can get three very different FICO scores based on those three reports.)
The government only recently started being involved with all student loans. Seems like Obama did that.
If the US can streamline citizenship verification through e-verify or whatever, I’m confident that they can apply the same simple techniques to streamline verification of student debt repayment. In fact, the government used to say (don’t know if it still does) that Social Security benefits would be withheld for non-repayment of student loans. So the US government does keep an active watch and does know.
E-verify is frequently wrong, maybe you hadn’t heard. And as far as I know, Social Security benefits have been exempt from collection except for the IRS and court-ordered child support, for decades. But I suppose they could get around that by having the student loans transferred to the IRS.
Stina (View Comment): So we know already the vast majority of education is not considered worth it.
I have said this before. This is obvious with certain types of majors and classes. The thing that amazed me when I went to college was all of the really smart people that thought liberal arts classes were stupid and they made it clear that you were stupid if you didn’t agree with them.
There needs to be a fundamental discussion of all of it.
Personally, I think the accreditation system needs to be wiped out and everything needs to be purchased all a cart.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
Nor for pursuing degrees in subjects where no one would pay them for what they were taught. Certifications that demonstrate an interest in accumulations of opinions, and not knowledge, should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
Many places were just requiring a degree to be hired, it didn’t matter what the degree was for.
It’s partly up to those who hire to tear down the system. The system doesn’t have any value. It’s a licensing racket.
As I think was mentioned previously on this thread, degree requirements mostly came about after the government outlawed (at least most) employer performance testing as part of the hiring process, because they were considered racist etc. You know, the usual.
Flicker (View Comment): I understand that universities, flush with money that people borrowed to pay for their services, and swelling coffers, have taken on a greedy if not predatory character. But I still don’t quite get excusing the behavior of millions or tens of millions (or more) of students who wanted a college degree and were willing to borrow money today to pay for — something! — in return tomorrow.
We got into this mess because of bad central planning with government force. Now it’s a mess to either undo it with central planning or just do nothing. That is where we are. Somebody around here had a really good explanation of this on one of the threads where people are talking about this. Every option is bad.
Flicker (View Comment): I think the bottom line is that we have been so wealthy so long that students and their parents just expected everything to be provided, and that prosperity was assumed and they were assured that prosperity will just come. It’s like buying a 20 million dollar castle someplace and being sure that you can run it as a vacation hotel at a profit to pay off the loan and live well on top of that. And the banks said, Good plan!, and the loan’s insured, so why not?! And the government said, We’re investing in “populational infrastructure”. But the students really had no skin in the game. And from what I understand, some number spent their education loans on living and lifestyle, apartments, cars, dining out, and for some including spring breaks in Cancun.
This is right, but I would say it’s prosperity on top of the inflationism since whatever decade you want to pick. The inflationism should have been turned off the second the Soviet Union fell.
If, as many on the right have been arguing recently, a university education is no longer worth the expense, and if the reason tuition has risen so much faster than inflation is because of the education policies of the federal government, then wouldn’t the combination of those two points be justification for the federal government forgiving the loans (as long as the federal education also eliminated the policies that caused the problem in the first place, so future students wouldn’t need to take out crippling student loans)?
After all, if it’s the feds that put these people in debt for a worthless degree, then wouldn’t “forgiveness” really be restitution?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
These are big “ifs”, but they are the “ifs” to which many on the right subscribe.
Is the fish responsible for biting the lure? No one forced students to purchase an education they can’t afford.
Nor for pursuing degrees in subjects where no one would pay them for what they were taught. Certifications that demonstrate an interest in accumulations of opinions, and not knowledge, should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
Many places were just requiring a degree to be hired, it didn’t matter what the degree was for.
It’s partly up to those who hire to tear down the system. The system doesn’t have any value. It’s a licensing racket.
As I think was mentioned previously on this thread, degree requirements mostly came about after the government outlawed (at least most) employer performance testing as part of the hiring process, because they were considered racist etc. You know, the usual.
You’re making a good point but I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about the phony accreditation of colleges. There is no reason for it except for very select parts that everybody understands. It’s the same thing with the controversy over licensing.
Stina (View Comment): So we know already the vast majority of education is not considered worth it.
I have said this before. This is obvious with certain types of majors and classes. The thing that amazed me when I went to college was all of the really smart people that thought liberal arts classes were stupid and they made it clear that you were stupid if you didn’t agree with them.
There needs to be a fundamental discussion of all of it.
Personally, I think the accreditation system needs to be wiped out and everything needs to be purchased all a cart.
P.S. here’s me making everyone stupider again. It’s à la carte.
Stina (View Comment): So we know already the vast majority of education is not considered worth it.
I have said this before. This is obvious with certain types of majors and classes. The thing that amazed me when I went to college was all of the really smart people that thought liberal arts classes were stupid and they made it clear that you were stupid if you didn’t agree with them.
There needs to be a fundamental discussion of all of it.
Personally, I think the accreditation system needs to be wiped out and everything needs to be purchased all a cart.
P.S. here’s me making everyone stupider again. It’s à la carte.
Stop making arguments like a lawyer defending a client. It’s tedious and it makes everybody dumber.
Why Are Working-Class Americans Paying For Your Student Loan “Forgiveness?”
One difference is that, if it becomes a government program/requirement, then government has a responsibility to gather and process the information required.
I don’t think so. Any employer can ask to see a birth certificate. They can do their due diligence.
And, where are birth certificates/records stored, and who is responsible for maintaining them?
Exactly.
it doesn’t need to be forever. It could just be needs to be employed for anytime in the 5 years post college. If you were able to get a job when you graduated, there’s evidence the degree has some demand in the marketplace. At some point, unemployment has to be a consequence of the graduate’s own poor work ethic, and not the degree.
However, if someone has demonstrated an attempt to work and has consistently maintained a job in minimum wage work, then there is recourse.
Really, if graduates were allowed to declare bankruptcy and the loans were not federal, but private, you wouldn’t even need this. The banks that write student loans would figure out pretty quick which students and degrees are sound investments. The degrees that are high risk can’t get private loans and the schools offering the degrees can use their endowments as scholarships in those fields if it is really that big a deal for them to exist.
Wherever they are stored today. What are you really saying?
The point is that when records are a more or less public mandate/requirement, individual hospitals, doctors, etc, don’t just keep all the birth records themselves. Nor would colleges still keep all the college records if it becomes some kind of requirement or mandate that people prove they have a degree/diploma in order to get a job or perhaps some “government benefit” such as “loan forgiveness.” Hospitals close, doctors retire etc, and some colleges close/go out of business too.
Yep. Except we are too stupid to pull this off. Central planning begets central planning until everything collapses.
The authorities are confusing them so they can’t make good judgments. Believe me, I know all about this. They are selfish rip off artists with the wind of the force of government behind them, i.e. student loans and the accreditation system.
Exactly. We have destroyed all kinds of human and financial capital with central planning through student loans and the Education Edifice. It requires more central planning to get out of this mess. Good luck.
This is my view.
Actually individual doctors and hospitals, and many other institutions, and government agencies, do keep records. I once had to get my birth certificate from a hospital where I was born, from 50 years before, and they had it.
But whatever you need to get a special gold star driver’s license, it is your responsibility to produce them. As for defaulting on debt, failing to repay student loans is probably well-known and documented through all credit reporting services. And credit reporting services are utilized by anyone, even those renting out houses and apartments. And I would heartily suspect that the government keeps track of all student loans that they have guaranteed and financial institutions keep track of every debtor and their payments.
If the US can streamline citizenship verification through e-verify or whatever, I’m confident that they can apply the same simple techniques to streamline verification of student debt repayment. In fact, the government used to say (don’t know if it still does) that Social Security benefits would be withheld for non-repayment of student loans. So the US government does keep an active watch and does know.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
There is no value added from the Education Edifice or the accreditation system. The whole thing should be all a cart. Nobody on the right ever talks this way, but that is the reality, particularly since Kahn Academy and so forth.
None of this would be such a big deal if they didn’t overcharge for it so much. The graph since 1980 is insane.
The thing is, statistically the Education Edifice can shows statistically that enough people earn more that it’s OK. It’s hard to untangle that.
It’s partly up to those who hire to tear down the system. The system doesn’t have any value. It’s a licensing racket.
The world would be a lot better place if every Republican had a clean model of this in their heads. This is the way it is.
Totally over paid for what she did. Why about being an Indian to get ahead. She is a terrible perfect example of the system.
I know from personal experience this is a disaster.
This whole thing has so many parts to it and it’s very hard to explain so you can solve it. The Democrats answer is simple: more communism.
Nobody is nudging them to do this. They are nudging them the other way. The system is a scam and a racket. Student loans are not given out on likelihood of payback. There is blame all over the place.
Central planning begets central planning until everything collapses.
Ricochet has a podcast called Acton line. If you go back a few, there is a guy pitching the idea that the Greek system creates net social good. This is preposterous.
kedavis makes everybody dumber and wastes time. Discuss.
I understand that universities, flush with money that people borrowed to pay for their services, and swelling coffers, have taken on a greedy if not predatory character. But I still don’t quite get excusing the behavior of millions or tens of millions (or more) of students who wanted a college degree and were willing to borrow money today to pay for — something! — in return tomorrow.
If your student loans are $30K that’s not even a car payment. If they are $100k, that’s not even a house. But who in the world invests, that is takes out a loan, for 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars, without being sure that they will have the wherewithal to pay it back? And without being sure that they will have an education in a field that will provide a decent job? I mean if you can’t figure this out as a young adult, maybe you’re not college material. Or else you’re so privileged that you never consider actually earning money and just expect that “it will come”.
Sure there was a bright and shiny lure. But the process of financing and studying and refinancing took years. At any point along the line anybody could have said, Is this really worth it? maybe I’ll learn a paying skill.
I think the bottom line is that we have been so wealthy so long that students and their parents just expected everything to be provided, and that prosperity was assumed and they were assured that prosperity will just come. It’s like buying a 20 million dollar castle someplace and being sure that you can run it as a vacation hotel at a profit to pay off the loan and live well on top of that. And the banks said, Good plan!, and the loan’s insured, so why not?! And the government said, We’re investing in “populational infrastructure”. But the students really had no skin in the game. And from what I understand, some number spent their education loans on living and lifestyle, apartments, cars, dining out, and for some including spring breaks in Cancun.
I remember when I was a teenager hearing a well to do mother of three telling her children that she saved for years for the sofa they were sitting on, and was currently saving for more years to get a side table that she really wanted. That’s unheard of today. People either borrow their money, or buy at Ikea, or both. But ultimately it’s the fish that greedily bites the lure.
That might qualify as “luck” to me. I’ve never lived anywhere that you didn’t get birth certificates from some state government office of official records.
And hospitals do close, from time to time. Maybe not the one where you were born (possibly a government-run hospital? that could explain it) but others do. Also hospitals on military bases, etc. As well as the aforementioned doctors retiring, etc. That usually means sending their records to state offices, but then who looks through them for birth certificates etc?
Right, and what happens if your birth certificate/record were no longer available, because the doctor retired or the hospital closed or whatever, if those records weren’t kept by counties, states, etc? You can’t prove you were born in the US any more, so you’re no longer a citizen, get the F out?
The credit bureaus are private enterprises – which is one reason there are THREE of them, at least three major ones – but if the government started requiring credit reports for certain government-related functions, then I’d expect there would either be some additional credit bureau created for it, or at least something that gets the reports from all three major private credit bureaus and somehow merges them, because they can be very different. (Which is also why you can get three very different FICO scores based on those three reports.)
The government only recently started being involved with all student loans. Seems like Obama did that.
E-verify is frequently wrong, maybe you hadn’t heard. And as far as I know, Social Security benefits have been exempt from collection except for the IRS and court-ordered child support, for decades. But I suppose they could get around that by having the student loans transferred to the IRS.
I have said this before. This is obvious with certain types of majors and classes. The thing that amazed me when I went to college was all of the really smart people that thought liberal arts classes were stupid and they made it clear that you were stupid if you didn’t agree with them.
There needs to be a fundamental discussion of all of it.
Personally, I think the accreditation system needs to be wiped out and everything needs to be purchased all a cart.
As I think was mentioned previously on this thread, degree requirements mostly came about after the government outlawed (at least most) employer performance testing as part of the hiring process, because they were considered racist etc. You know, the usual.
Oh yeah, you mentioned that later.
We got into this mess because of bad central planning with government force. Now it’s a mess to either undo it with central planning or just do nothing. That is where we are. Somebody around here had a really good explanation of this on one of the threads where people are talking about this. Every option is bad.
This is right, but I would say it’s prosperity on top of the inflationism since whatever decade you want to pick. The inflationism should have been turned off the second the Soviet Union fell.
You’re making a good point but I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about the phony accreditation of colleges. There is no reason for it except for very select parts that everybody understands. It’s the same thing with the controversy over licensing.
P.S. here’s me making everyone stupider again. It’s à la carte.
Stop making arguments like a lawyer defending a client. It’s tedious and it makes everybody dumber.