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I Might Be a Chump
We (Mrs. Tabby and I) paid cash for most of our daughter’s college degree (2007). [My Creator blessed me with skills that have allowed me to earn a relatively high income. We have tried to steward that money for His good, and so have always had a lot of financial cushion.] We did have her take out a small loan (less than $10,000 total over four years) so she would have “skin in the game.” A couple of years after graduation she got tired of the hassle of making the monthly payments, and paid off the loan. Her husband (our son-in-law) hustled for scholarships and work-study programs in his field of study so that he avoided debt through his Ph.D.
Our son signed up for United States Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) in part to get the “full ride” scholarship being offered to him. That scholarship committed him to four years of active-duty service after he completed his degree (so he had literal “skin in the game”). He ended up staying in the Air Force longer than four years. He has now left the service, though I think he might still be subject to recall if the world goes really bad. His wife (our daughter-in-law) got a full-ride scholarship at a prestigious college of aeronautical engineering because the college was trying to encourage more women to enter the field of aerospace engineering.
So in our family we have had very little college debt, and none for the last almost ten years. Although we have all earned (and the kids continue to earn) significant salaries, we have not spent to our earnings level. We have exercised financial responsibility.
So now I find out that after we have all been so careful with the financial resources we control, portions of the substantial federal income taxes Mrs. Tabby and I (and our children) pay are going to pay off the loans of other people. To spare those other people the need to pay off the obligations they took on. Obligations we pointedly did not take on.
President Biden is sure making us look like chumps for exercising financial responsibility. He’s telling us we were foolish for avoiding or paying off fully debt for college. I’m still glad for non-financial reasons we handled college expenses the way we did. But, President Biden is making it hard for people to understand the reasons a person should exercise financial responsibility.
President Biden is also blatantly using this expenditure of taxpayer money as a reelection campaign event. So we are unwillingly funding the Biden reelection effort. And he’s spending taxpayer money despite having been told by the United States Supreme Court that doing so violates the Constitution. And he’s said he intends to do more of it. [Remind me – which presidential candidate is the “existential threat” to the republic and to the rule of law?]
Published in Economy
I thank God that most Americans, myself included, again thanks to God, are like you. Otherwise, Biden and his ilk would have destroyed this country long ago. Hopefully we can bring it back, but we are very very close – too close – to extinction.
Yeah, but in his defense, he probably doesn’t remember being told so.
Every time Trump – or even Bush – made an executive decision the left didn’t like some organization beat him to the courthouse and got an injunction. For the life of me I don’t see why there is no Republican equivalent organization suing the life out the blatantly unlawful OBiden administration over this. For all the reasons you speak to @fullsizetabby. We are much the same profile – no debt of our own and none of our son and his sweetheart of a wife. They work hard to support their posse the same way we did him and will also pay the untold debts of others.
I don’t see why he wouldn’t cancel all credit card debt as well.
Is any of this subject to reversal by President Trump next January?
Serious.
Addendum: all paid for with borrowed money, in which we have no say. Which means it gets paid back by us all, including the idiots who just had their student loans forgiven.
He remembered, because he bragged about it the other day.
Biden brags Supreme Court ‘didn’t stop’ him from canceling student loans: He’s ‘happy to break the law’ (msn.com)
There are people out there who worked themselves through trade schools to pick up remunerative skills as plumbers or electricians who now end up saddled with the debts incurred by deadbeats possessing degrees in Aggrieved Group Studies. The lifelong participation trophy recipients are too thick to see the injustice in that.
Infuriating.
When going out to get a job, the person with a college degree will be given preference over someone who does not have one by many employers, even if the position has absolutely nothing to do with what the graduate studied. I wish someone would ask Biden and other student loan redistribution advocates this question.
Sam and Harry both graduate high school. Sam goes to work with his hands while Harry goes to college. Sam is paying taxes at 18 years old and because Harry has little to no income, he is not paying any income taxes while going to school. Fast forward a dozen years and Sam and Harry are both applying for the same job as a bank teller. Harry is given a preference over Sam because he has a bachelors degree in poetry. So Harry has fewer years of paying taxes than Sam, he gets better jobs — not because he has more applicable knowledge, but because he has a certificate — and now Harry thinks some Sam’s taxes should be used to pay for Harry’s debt. Why is this fair?
It is worse than you think. Biden, using provisions given to him by Congress, has set up a system where nobody making less than median income will have have to more than a trivial amount of their loan. No matter how much they borrow or high tuition is, the tax payers on the hook. This creates a huge incentive for schools to raise costs and for students to stay in school longer. We might see people spending a decade getting that Gender Confusion degree and racking up a million in debt. Why not? They are living on the backs of others. The annual cost of student loans will be in the trillions.
America’s plutocrats generously fund this kind of lawfare on the left. The right doesn’t enjoy that kind of funding.
Think of it as an opportunity to invest in all those who majored in gender studies in college.
You know, there have been student loan payoff programs for years. People have probably heard of the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program. There is also the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. If you work at a non-profit for 10 years while keeping up with payments, your student loan will be paid off. This is on top of the Income Based Repayment Plan and the Income Contingent Repayment Plan. Those plans require you to make payments for 20 years, but will forgive the remainder, so if you really get hard luck, you are not going to be in debt forever.
I know these programs, and I have used them. In fact, the person who sued to stop the original loan forgiveness plan was an Indiana University (IIRC) employee who was scheduled to receive PSLF. Biden’s plan would have massively increased his tax liability over what he already had.
We need a new forgiveness program like we need new gun laws.
If we’re really gonna’ do loan forgiveness, we ought to at least make the universities pay the money back out of their endowments.
Not at least: they should be the holders of the debt. Then they would have skin in the game of producing graduates with useful skills and knowledge needed and sought by society.
Personally I think people who work in “Public Service” or at non-profits should have to pay more, not less…
Yes. If the colleges and universities had more responsibility for what they produce, market forces would resolve many of the problems that exist.
By the way, lest anyone wonder about the difference between us paying for our daughter’s college, and not paying (directly anyway) for our son’s – that was our son’s idea. We were willing to pay for his college, too. But he really, really wanted to be able to say he “earned” his degree. A grown up version of the “do it myself” attitude he exhibited as a two year old.
He also liked the military option because he has a strong “protector” attitude. His propensity in high school to intervene to protect a student (especially a girl) who was being bullied sometimes got him into trouble with the administration, but was exemplary of one reason he sought our service in the military.
Two of our three daughters went to college or technical school. We paid for their education out-of-pocket because we refused to fill out the FAFSA forms as they were too intrusive . . .
Cancel all mortages.
I think the “chump” label fits most appropriately to less affluent parents who fully pay higher tuition bills in order to send their 18-year-olds to these more “prestigious” colleges thinking that they are assisting their now (barely adult) children in a path to (1) functional adulthood, ALONG WITH (2) the prestige stink that comes with the school label. With few exceptions these more expensive schools fail at the first mission – probably because it is no longer their mission (but remains a prominent theme in their marketing materials). The second is trending towards overrated.
The rest of us may be lesser chumps in varying degrees. A lot of this has been with us now for at least two full generations. I’m hoping the “2025 crisis” (diminished demand due to fewer “college age” students) will have some remedial effects.
It’s worse than you think.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. They not only cancel the outstanding balance on the loan, they also refund any payments made on the loan since the “effective date” of the cancellation, which depending on the criteria under which the loan was cancelled, could be years in the past.
“Fortunately,” many of the people involved haven’t been MAKING payments for years.
First of all, it sounds to me like your family has been blessed many times over. Good parenting, full stop. Great young adults, all.
Second of all, I share your frustration completely. Where will the madness end? Hey, I needed to look younger for my job at Google HQ and can no longer pay my loan for the elective surgery I had, e.g. tummy tuck, hair plugs, facelift, butt lift, and calf implants. I wonder if I can have the note forgiven …
It also does not address the real problem, why does higher education consistently rises above the rate of inflation.
And then, Destroy All Monsters!
If you have time after that, Destroy All Planets!
Too much “free money.”
Or, we could make the adults buying the education service responsible for their debts. Leftists like to complain about Trump University (a real estate investment seminar) as being a scam. What the hell is a gender studies department?
These are the students populating the ever-expanding HR departments and admissions departments in colleges. It’s why so many actually productive people in industry are tormented and taken away from actual work in the business of their companies to take surveys and do DEI training.