That's not really an answer to the question


I knew loans are expected to be paid back. I knew the career field I wanted to be in paid well and I am currently in the same general field.


Except programs like that have costs. Wondering what programs cost and if they're worth the benefit is never a bad idea.


No you're not, you're a Giants fan :p

You just equated our poor and marginalized millions in this country to drunk drivers. Well done

Where the hell have YOU been?

I don’t really get the surprise here. This is a core belief of the progressive types that gravitate towards warren or Bernie. There arent millions of people in poverty because they’re all lazy or happy with welfare. The income gap, wealth gap in this country are absurd and those with the biggest disadvantages aren’t catching up, instead we’re actively enacting laws (or removing regulations) that make this gap worse. College and healthcare costs have shot up in ways that make them difficult to obtain for some in the middle class and impossible to obtain for millions. Progressives believe that is a travesty and this is part of the solution.


Look at the healthcare comparison. No one says that if you can’t afford healthcare you deserve to die. But millions will say that if you can’t afford healthcare that not our problem.

That’s a more black and white discussion than one of student loan forgiveness but to me it’s really not much different. It’s millions of people who don’t care what happens to tens of millions of Americans. That’s not our problem. That’s selfish.

The drunk driver is exponentially more respectable than any Socialist standing around trying to redistribute other people's money.

Everyone would have access to higher education. Your life would be much better off if you didn't have to take out a bunch of loans to pay for school.

This is how taxes work. Everyone pays in and decides what the money should be spent on for the greater good. We decided that it should be accessible up to grade 12. Why is going farther bad? Isn't it in our best interest to have a more educated population?

I see Jon in the thread so I’ll amend my post and take back the idea that “no one” will say if you can’t afford healthcare you deserve to die. Clearly we have exceptions.

Seems this could be said about the baby boomer generation. Run up a massive amount of debt and want the next generations to pay for it.

Oh fuck off. (I’ll take the ban mods, I’m tired of seeing this prick being given a voice for the last two decades to openly discuss the billions of people he’d like to kill or see killed)

You got a big handout. The auto industry was saved by an $80 billion taxpayer bailout. You're paying a lot more for a vehicle if Ford and others are wiped off the map.

Assuming you bought a non-electric, you can thank massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry for keeping costs down on that vehicle. Not to mention the trillions we spend in the Middle East. And of course those taxpayer funded roads and parking lots an automobile owner enjoys.

We can toss on the subsidies and incentives for factories. Billions of dollars given away by states that keep costs down.

And if you're one of the 85% of people who took a loan to purchase the vehicle, you can thank our tax dollars for bailing out the banks so that you can get that vehicle with a sweet rate.

The automobile industry relies on subsidies and you got that car for much cheaper than it would be in a free market. And then that car gets to hop on a bunch of roads our tax dollars pay for (but not everyone uses!).

Millions of devout Muslims and Buddhists have paid to insure the safety of your liquor and meat. Millions of old spinsters subsidized your school and that of your children, and paid to see that you were eating a safe and nutritious lunch. Millions of people who don't drive pay for the safety of your vehicle and the roads you drive on. Millions of people who don't smoke are paying to make sure Jon doesn't smoke sawdust. Millions of Christian Scientists are paying to make sure your hospital care is up to standard and your pharmaceuticals are tested and safe. Millions of people making minimum wage are paying to insure your savings are safe.

Have any of y'all paragons of personal responsibility put even a single tiny cent towards settling accounts with those individuals at any point in your life, or are you confusing "personal responsibility" with shortsightedness?

And I personally disagree with a lot of this. I am all for funding education, but forgiving student loans is a different matter, especially where it relates to private schools. There could be a case made for public universities.



For me, yes, I had my plan laid out when I was 12, reinforced it with my summer job in high school. Despite some pitfalls, my path has been relatively bulletproof (mostly due to my planning). With the booming economy I found it much easier to find a new job (seamless transition, leaving old company Feb 7, starting new position on Feb 10) compared to my issues 6 years ago (out of work for 4 months). My issue has been primarily with HR types, if I get the interview, I do extremely well, and once I get the job I have always been a top performer. My problem goes back to how resumes are screened. I have found that working with industry recruiters has been extremely beneficial in navigating the HR side of the equation with the result that if not for timing, I would have had multiple offers to choose from (I was the leading candidate for two other positions and pulled out before the final interview).

Even if we consider people changing careers, I have several paths I could go down with my background: sales, management, and engineering (although this would be tough without an engineering degree, but if HR was not just checking boxes, I am more than qualified in my field). We need to look at ourselves differently and promote ourselves as a skill set. Also, HR needs to look at us as a skill set and not as a degree. This might require changing our interviewing process, but I see nothing wrong with that. For example, if you are interviewing for a trade and someone asks you to weld a pipe, that makes total sense. Same thing with a sales position, sell the hiring manager.


The problem is we keep establishing these amnesty programs and they do not teach anyone anything. The bank bailout in 2008/9. What is to keep that from happening again? We did it with immigration in the 80s, and what is a hot topic today? Did we change anything? No, the problem ballooned again and we put a band aid and go on down the road. It is capricious and it rewards forgoing your financial commitments until it gets so bad the government decides to bail you out.

Its not that I want to say screw them, but why do I need to clean up the mess they made for themselves. My wife and I were able to pay off her school loans despite 2 companies that we worked for at the time going belly up, another job rationalization for me, and we had two young kids at the time. Granted, it took us 10 years, but we paid it off despite the set backs.

If someone fails to make their car payments on time, we repo the car. I understand you can't repo someone's learning, but we need something other than patting them on the head, saying you tried hard, here's your check.

What you advocate is utilitarianism, whatever creates the most utility is what we should do. The problem is, that leads to scapegoating and other behaviors that people do not like or is not ethical, all in the name of making the most people happy.


Life is not fair. If you want to help others out, that is great, but we should not be getting the government involved to do so.

I have no problem helping out someone or a family due to tragedy. Let's say young family, both parents have student loans, primary bread winner gets into a car accident and is killed. Insurance does not cover the loans, they need help, I am completely on board to help this family out.

Another family, same situation, but instead of a car accident, one of the family members is disabled and unable to work. I am willing to help pay off these loans as well.

Another family, same situation, but they decide to make minimum payments, defer the payments as much as they can. They have a job at Starbucks as a barrista (not trying to denigrate this, but trying to come up with a low paying job someone should look at as temporary or as supplementary to another job). Why should we bail this person out? Why is their family not helping them out?

I believe charities are better able to handle these situations rather than the government.

However, I am willing to discuss the underlying problem which is the cost of higher education. Here is a radical idea:

What if, we change how universities are paid. Instead of payment to attend, we instead commit to pay a certain percentage of what we earn to the university. The amount could be debated, but this does a couple of things:

1) Universities are now invested in making sure students graduate and earn top wages at their jobs when they leave.

2) There are no loans, but schools will still be paid. Students graduate without a massive debt load, this is a win/win.

3) Schools will be incentivized to focus on programs that will earn money. They will still want to accept students, but to maximize yields they will focus on the departments that earn money. Schools may be pickier about who they allow in, which may result in fewer numbers going to college.

4) I would hope this would result in more people attending trade schools. Why require an engineering degree for a CNC machinist, have requirements to go to trade school and actually learn how to work the machine.

5) If you want to go to a private school, you still can do so, but the system remains as it is today. Now there is a choice, do you rack up debt but go to an arguably better school, or do you go the public route and have no debt.

6) There is no longer any need for scholarships. This reduces the need for shenanigans with regard to academics or athletics. The universities could, if they want, forego the economic commitment on the back end.

7) If the schools are cranking out subpar graduates, they will wither due to a lack of funds, but isn't this a good thing? Poorly managed entities will die out rather than continue to exist just because.

Here is where I am coming from on this:

I am a firm believer that we are educating many people for the sake of educating them. We're ticking off boxes rather than providing skills. We're also not educating children about employment opportunities (which we need to be doing at a younger age, 7th or 8th grade would be good for this). Parents need to do the same thing, I'm not sure how many parents actually have conversations with their kids about what they want to do with their lives. From my experience in coaching, its not many. Heck, I had some insurance agents/financial planners at my house the other day, they were asking the questions we should be asking our kids. When do you want to retire, what do you want to do with your life, how are you going to get there, what career do you need to do to get there? We need to have the same conversation with our kids.

If this makes me a selfish bastard, so be it. I am more about solving the root cause of the issue and look for local solutions rather than governmental ones.

Not a lot of parents here pushing for me to get a big tax cut because I have no kids and shouldn't be funding their kids education.

I also rarely drive since I'm in a city and would like a refund on those roads I don't use.

The faux-personal responsibility crowd usually boils down to "I shouldn't have to pay for other people's stuff but I'm going to be silent about other people paying for my stuff".

Nope, a Japanese car. No bailouts for them. And that is like Kevin Bacon's 3 degrees of separation from the Student Loan bailout example above.


IMHO this really stretches the analogy, maybe 5 degrees of separation.


Okay, this one is 7 degrees of separation.

So what stuff of mine have people paid for?

All the things government does to make cars cheap to buy, finance, and operate surely don't benefit a car owner.

Well if you drive a car, my tax dollars are paying for roads, parking lots, traffic enforcement, NHTSA, and all the different ways we utilize tax dollars to start wars, coups, etc so you can get cheap gas. Seems I'm due a refund from people who made the personal choice to live in an area that requires a car.

Sure it does. But its still like 7 degrees of separation.

I am not saying government doesn't help out companies/groups of individuals. It does.

How is that relevant to our example of a parent asking Warren - my neighbor gets a bailout, why don't I get something too?

BTW - in your example of US auto industry, they got an $80B "bailout" and they paid back all but $10B I think. I'll take those ratios with our "deadbeat" (have to look up definition but has a nice counter to "selfish") parents/students.

Oh fun, a keyboard warrior, what a shock.

I doubt you'll get banned for it.

They seem to like your particular brand of worthlessness here.

You get cheap gas for your car because our government spends trillions to control oil supply around the world. Why don't I get something too?

That's worked out great right?

And that's what you want to encourage, have people run up huge debts so some politician will want to buy their votes and pass them off to all the other tax payers.

That would make you a bad investor. A loss of 12% on your investment.

The federal student loan program actually makes money and is expected to for the next decade. That'll likely change as the economy sucks for young people. But it beats just handing billions over to a bunch of automakers who made bad decisions.

No, I would like to use the trillions we waste in the ME and actually tax large corporations to fund it. At some point Amazon has to pay something for the system they benefit from more than anyone else.

The plan Bernie touted costs $41 billion a year. We spend $45 billion a year in Afghanistan.

Let's not pay endless 4-to-7-degrees-of-separation examples, what-ifs, or what-abouts.

For every non-applicable/relevant auto bailout analogy (e.g. your "bailout" of $80 but lets not forget auto companies paid back $70), there could be endless examples you toss out and I counter.

As always, let's agree to disagree.

Why do you keep bringing in our foreign policy in a discussion about paying off existing student loans?

There is no seperation. You just said the other day we need to be in the Middle East and elsewhere to keep oil prices down. The difference here is our tax dollars are being used to get you something cheap. So it doesn't count in your book.

Because you are saying we can't afford it. I'm saying we spend tons of money on frivolous foreign policy that would more than cover the expense.

That's just a terrible argument. You're saying that because we waste money somewhere that we should spend more money somewhere else?

Our country is 20 trillion dollars in debt because of thinking like that.

I think you need to re-read what I said about our presence in the ME and ME oil and stop quoting me out of context.

I think education is a good investment. Decrease in crime and increase in mortality to start. For a country that spends $180 billion on incarceration and $3.5 trillion in health care, seems there is a lot of room for savings. Not to mention the benefits those have on insurance costs (car, home, health). Likely pays for itself.

And that doesn't even begin to discuss the advantages it has economically when competing against other countries. More talent, more innovation, etc.

There are other non-economic factors too. Less murders and violent crime. College grads live happier lives. Educated people volunteer more of their time. Beats lighting a bunch of money on fire in Afghanistan each year.

The parking lots are paid for by the company that owns them, whether store or parking lot facility, in which case I pay for the ability to use the spot. They are not paid for by you. I do very little, if any parking on the street because I hauled an equipment trailer and street parking is difficult. I do not pay for gas, because that is paid by my company for me to do my job, they cover the cost of it as part of my employee agreement. Now, my wife does drive 5 minutes to and from work each day. She fills up once, maybe twice a month with gas. Even if the price doubled, we would pay no more than $120 a month in gas.

Also, when I am not travelling, I work from home. I also am within walking distance of an incredible grocery store, when I have time I do walk to the store and buy groceries for a couple of days. That played a big role in where we moved when I moved to the area. Now if only Graeter's hadn't closed the local ice cream shop it would just about be perfect for me.

I do have a couple of questions for you, if you are going to make certain assumptions about gas, cars, and wars, do you have a car? If not, do you use public transportation, bus, subway, etc.? If you are using those public forms of transport, you are just as guilty as anyone else that drives a car. I highly doubt, you are walking every where. I know plenty of people in Chicago and New York City that do not have cars, but all of them pay for some sort of private or public transportation. Outside of cutting checks with money you don't have (and I don't either), what do you propose?

Now, regardless of those answers above, maintenance of the post roads and interstate commerce is a function explicitly designated to the by government by the Constitution. Providing for the common defense is one as well. Despite your rhetoric, I question how much we are fighting for oil. The majority of our oil comes from Western Hemisphere nations, only 3 Middle East nations are on the list of the top 10 nations we have imported oil from over the last 30 years. Only one, Saudi Arabia, is in the top 5.

Also, I am not asking for a refund at all. What I am asking for, is for people to be responsible. If everyone treated everyone else fairly, helped the less fortunate, etc., there would be very little need for government.

If I went out and bought a $3 million house, and then didn't pay for it, would it deserve to be repossessed? Yes. Same thing if I bought a $100,000 car. Why is higher education any different?

Am I willing to talk about changing the system? Sure. Am I willing to look at increasing spending for everything through high school? Sure. College, you're old enough to make your own decisions there. If you can be drafted or serve the country, you are responsible for your own decisions. In other words, if you can serve the country, or be tried as an adult for your bad decisions, you are old enough to make economic decisions as well.

My family gives between $3,000 and $7,500 each year to charitable causes (and I am sure there are others here that do more). In addition, I give anywhere between 50-300 hours of time in volunteer work per year (it varies quite a bit based upon my travel and the health of my back). My wife does even more. My kids do from 10-30 hours each. If you have a sob story about why you cannot pay your college loans back, I am willing to listen and may even help you out, I do not want to give the government a blank check to make them go away.

This is not to beat my chest about it, but more to say I put my money where my mouth is. I am not a heartless bastard or selfish person. I try to do things locally rather than ask the government to get involved. I do what I can to make the world around me better.

All this said, what do you do to help those around you?

1.) You can't buy cigarettes or alcohol at 18, can't rent a hotel room (at least any reputable one), and can't rent a car so it's difficult to argue that 18 is some magical age where you're suddenly an adult capable of making adult decisions.

2.) No one is giving you a loan for a $3 million house or $100,000 car at 18. At least not without showing the income or assets to cover the loan. That doesn't apply to student debt. Nearly anyone can get a student loan and if you don't make your car or house payments, what happens? You lose the car and/or house, your credit suffers, but you're clear of the debt for the most part. You don't pay your student loans, what happens? You get more debt. Makes sense.

3.) By making student loans immune from bankruptcy AND allowing for profit institutions with worthless degrees to run up debt for students we've created a system that's fundamentally broken to the point that a reset is best for everyone. Had it been tackled earlier we could probably come up with more elegant solutions rather than taking a hammer to it.

4.) There are ways to wipe the student dept and ask for something in return and I'm ok with that being part of the discussion. But even if they wiped the debt for everyone with nothing in return it wouldn't hurt my feelings. I paid my student loans, I served in the army to help with those payments, but I'm not harmed in any way by others getting a free pass. We're talking about some of these people struggling to have a place to live and put food on the table while paying this debt. Good for them if it gets wiped. They're not taking advantage of the system. The system took advantage of them.

In the end, no one is getting harmed by pushing the reset button, but nearly everyone benefits.

FWIW, here is how Sanders & Warren will pay for it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammin.../#43a214cb18c4


I agree with you, my daughter is 18 and I would not have wanted her to make decisions by herself. With that said, there is parental responsibility ... are we really saying college kids owe on the loan or is it the parents that owe the loan?


This is my personal preference. Yes, wipe it out but in exchange for community service or like e.g. habitat for humanity, help out at homeless shelters, volunteer at nursing homes, whatever.


Reading through the above article on how Warren & Sanders will pay for it, I agree that it won't really impact me/most people directly (not filthy rich nor do that many trades). However, there is an opportunity cost in what else we could do with the $2.2-$2.75 trillion over 10 years.

Hotel room is primarily from a company rather than legal standpoint as well as car rental, due to liability, etc. Cigarettes and alcohol I'll grant you that.


Not arguing that, nor did I say that. I made a case that for me, in my 40s, no one would give me a loan for $3 million for a house. If they did, and I could not pay, my house would be repossessed. The same applies to a car. True, you might be clear of debt, but the amount your credit suffers is a big deal. Try getting another house, or even renting an apartment in some areas with major blemishes on your credit. The problem with student loans is the same as other issues where you do not pay (aside from repossessing the property), you do get more debt. If you don't pay a house note or a car payment, your debt accrues interest (same as a student loan). The difference is they cannot cut off your head to repossess it, where as a car or house, they can repossess.

That said, as I mentioned before, I am open to options other than cutting a large check from the government. However, I do not think the majority of the issue comes from engineers or doctors that have large loans that are not paying them off, I would give better than even odds it comes from liberal arts majors that are not able to pay off their debt.


A lot of this, as well as other issues, boils down to education. I do not understand why people do not do their research on something as major as where they get an education, but people do not do it. My issue is where do we draw the line. If I bought something from a snake oil salesman, you would sit there and ask what the heck I was thinking buying it from them? Why didn't I look into it before I bought it? I look at this the same way. Again, we don't reimburse everyone for every bad purchase they make, where do we draw the line?

If private charities or people want to step up and help out, go for it, I feel the government has no place in this.


My issue is with the last two sentences of your last paragraph. I know plenty of people that would use school loans for more than just school loans, beer money, cash to go out, etc. This was not uncommon. That is where I have the issue. Also, while some may have been taken advantage of by the system, I maintain that an equal number were trying to take advantage of the system and are now getting bit in the ass.

As I mentioned before, and in my responses here, I am more than happy to help some one out on a personal level. I am loathe to make a blanket wipe the slate clean. Sure, we might not see the impact today, but we are going to see the impact of the debt we have run up. With the emergence of China, that day is sooner rather than later. The only reason we have not had issue to date in this regard is the fact that the US Dollar is the currency of international business. If that was not the case, we would be in big trouble.

No they aren't. There are federal tax subsidies available for employer-paid parking spaces. It comes in at just under $8 billion a year.

Then you have property taxes. Parking lots are often taxed at much lower rates than buildings. This despite the fact they generate less revenue and intrinsic value per square foot. It's in effect a subsidy for having parking spaces on your land.


No chance that public transportation on a per trip basis is even close. More fuel efficient, reduces road congestion and need for more roads. But if you believe 200 people taking one train downtown to work is as bad as 200 separate cars driving downtown to work, so be it.



I'd say our involvement in the ME has much less to do with oil than it did over a decade ago. But we have a long and storied history of spending money to get cheap oil in the ME and then spending vastly more due to the blowback (basically everything we are dealing with today comes from this).

Take the 1953 Iran coup. It's the springboard for much of our poor relations in the ME today. In the 60's and 70's we openly stated we wanted to become the security enforcement in the ME to secure oil. We signed defense pacts with countries like Kuwait that specifically state our goal is to protect the oil. We're talking trillions of dollars so that people can get cheap oil.

Now those are all indirect ways we subsidize oil. If you don't believe any of that to be true or relevant, fine. We do directly subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $20 billion a year. These are not debatable, they are baked into the tax code.


I don't think education is on par with someone buying a mansion or luxury automobile. There are vast benefits to having an educated populace.

But if you want to conflate those types of debt, then they should be treated the same. Someone should be able to write off their student loans in bankruptcy just like they can with other bad investments in the world.

Whoa, actually, I take no part in this. What you are talking about, based upon the stuff I just looked up is specifically for employer provided parking spaces, that is actually different from what I get. There is no employee paid parking, I pay as I go, no breaks, company reimburses. This is compared to a company in a major city providing a parking space at no cost to the employee. Again, this is not on the employee, it is a perk negotiated. Now, the company may be reimbursed by the government for it, or subsidized, and I would be all for doing away with the it, for the record.



This is no different than many property taxes. Improved lots pay higher rates than unimproved lots. That is not a subsidy, that is just tax law. The city or government does not NEED to zone it a certain way. That is not a subsidy.


Based upon numbers I can find from 2017, mass transit/public transportation per passenger mile, subsidies are roughly 90 cents per passenger mile. Amtrak is roughly 25 cents per passenger mile. Meanwhile automobile total cost per passenger mile is roughly 25 cents, with approximately 2 cents of that being subsidized. I'll gladly take more passenger cars.


The country's aim back post-WWII to early 1990s was containment of communism and the USSR. The other player in the Middle East was the Soviets. Did we botch some things? Sure. We also did the same thing in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.

The reason for much of what we did in the ME back then was to secure the oil for ourselves because we didn't want the Soviets to get it. Since we "won" the Middle East, the Soviets began to invest in Africa, and after the collapse of the USSR, China has taken over a leading role in developing/securing resources there.


I am not going to argue the benefits of an educated populace, I think we all agree on why that is good. My generation was told, go to college, get a degree, it doesn't matter what you get, you just need a degree. I maintain this is not valid. Overall, yes a degree leads to better job prospects and a more lucrative career. However, how many people do we know that are going to school for 6, 7, 8 years before exiting with a degree. Should we be pushing people to do this before they are ready? Currently, we do.

Atocep made the point about going into the military and using that to help pay for school. The advantage of this is two fold. First, school is at least partially paid for. Second, you get an idea of what you want to do. Were you in the motor pool and enjoyed working on engines? Maybe you were in the signal corps or engineering corps, maybe you decide to go into engineering. Perhaps, you were a computer tech, and decide to go into CS in college. My point is that experience gives you some focus in what you want to go to college for.

I would go on, but just looked at the time, and I need to get on the road to head to a funeral in the AM. I will say we need to look at the system and overhaul it as a whole rather than just writing a check to those who have student loans. Also, we need to encourage students to look at the benefit of their major as compared to the cost of the degree.

I didn't mean you were getting the parking subsidy, just that many people are. $8 billion worth a year. A nice government handout for those who drive.

The property tax acts as a subsidy for car owners. You are able to gain access to places due to the land being much cheaper. Without the taxing disparity, there would be far less parking available.

I know why we made the foreign policy decisions. Doesn't change that this country has spent trillions of dollars so people could get cheap gas. A major benefit to those in the suburbs.

As for job prospects and such, I don't think education should be strictly about your career. Creating well-rounded individuals should be the goal. It is not a bad thing to have a construction worker understand economics and some history. As I mentioned, more education means less crime and healthier population.

The problem with the military option is it hurts the lower and middle class kids. Those who were not lucky enough to be born into money. Wealthy kids can go to college while the rest have to cross their fingers hoping they don't die in some pointless unwinnable war for a couple years. Why not level the playing field and let the best people win out?

And the car stuff is kind of a derail. I mainly brought it up to show the hypocrisy of "why do I have to pay for something I don't use?". Everyone in this country benefits in some way from something that someone else doesn't use.

If you don't like the idea of extending public education to college, so be it. But there are a billion things our government spends money on that you and I don't use. Taxes aren't a la carte.

The hotel room and car rental thing is based on data, though, rather than an arbitrary age. Cost/Benefit analysis that 18 year olds aren't responsible enough to be trusted to rent cars or hotel rooms. It's a bad investment.


Shouldn't the people that lent money to someone going for a liberal arts degree be on the hook for a bad investment? Lenders measure the risk involved in lending money even when they can reclaim that asset. Why aren't they measuring the risk in giving $100k to a liberal arts major against the risk in lending to a Computer Science major?


If you bought a car that turned out to be lemon we have laws that protect you. Buy a house with undisclosed faults and you have multiple protections. Get an education with no real value? You still pay full price plus interest.

I feel a great deal of this issue comes down to access to good advice though. Lower and middle class high school students are far less likely to have a good support system around them to help them through this process. I know I didn't.


How are people that are spending student loans on beer and cash to go out taking advantage of a system? They have to repay that plus interest. Because you're too young or immature to understand it is the very definition of a system taking advantage of you.

Even if you want to go 50/50 on the blame there's currently no penalty on predatory lending with student loans. They're going to get their money one way or another.

With the importance of education in this country I have a hard time faulting someone for trying to help themselves as a college education that's put to use helps you and your family for generations if it's taken advantage of. We have an education system that does a poor job of helping to get students in the right direction after high school, they're told college is vital every step of the way, and then they have people willing to give them whatever it takes to get through college with no screening, no evaluation of potential major, or anything. Just free money as most 18 year olds see it.

So going back to the primary, 538 is showing that in national polls, Bloomberg has pulled ahead of Buttigieg. Looks like Mayor Pete's 15 minutes is almost up.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Mayor Pete's young and the primary has given him national level attention. I doubt this is the last we've heard of him.

I see so many Bloomberg ads here it's ridiculous. He's also the only ads I've seen other than 1 trump ad a couple months ago.

No idea why Trump would be running an ad in Washington state though.

... and Yang will make it to next debate.

Yang qualifies for New Hampshire primary debate - POLITICO

Sometimes I think that if Klobuchar pulls off a surprise win in Iowa, the newspapers will pick a headline other than “It’s Klobburing Time!” and then I get sad.

I like this !!

Perhaps, but how will he be able to capitalize on it? He is from Indiana. The last time he ran for statewide office he was trounced. Sure he can use his new popularity and roll over the buckets of primary money (provided he doesn't spend it all) into a Senate bid. But this is a state that elected Mike Pence Governor. And sure, Joe Donnelly was a recent Democratic Senator from Indiana (a very conservative Democrat as well), but that was because he ran against an opponent who made a dumb comment about being against abortion even in cases of rape (and how God intended for that life as a result of rape as well). When Donnelly ran for reelection he was defeated.

I've been following along this thread somewhat when I poke my head in here and this really makes alot of sense.

What this country really needs is to rethink the entire education system. We need to spend money on education at the high school level - we need to teach high school kids about money. We need to help kids understand the responsibility of debt and when it is good and when it is not. We need to teach them about budgets and taxes and interest and credit cards and the stock market. We need to expose them to the trades and stop pretending that everyone has to go to college. Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer or a doctor or things like that where you obviously need specialized training and study. Our whole system is setting up kids to fail and be strapped down with these debts.

Really, what is the benefit of taking 100k worth of student loans to live on a college campus and get a degree in general studies and why should that be anyone else's responsibility to cover? The whole concept of college is broken. The purpose of college should be to learn skills for the field you want to go into yet everyone is forced to take and pay for classes that don't interest them and have absolutely nothing to do with their field. College should be a financial investment in a defined and specialized track. It should be intensive training in the field you have chosen that prepares you in less than four years (in most cases) to be qualified to get a job in that field. If I need to hire an accountant I don't care whether they've read anything by Socrates - what matters is that they understand finance, taxes, math and business. You would take fewer classes, have less debt and can start paying it off sooner because hopefully you are now trained and able to get a job in the field you want. I bet you could even get major corporations to help subsidize these costs because it sure as hell would be cheaper for some university to be a two year farm system for Google than it would be for them to have to search through endless resumes and then still have to train people.

You want an "experience" or to "find yourself"? It's called life. Find a job, any job, and find a couple buddies to share an apartment with. You can do that and at the very least make ends meet or sock a few bucks away instead of taking out tens of thousands of dollars of debt to do it. Maybe you can even work your way into a career where a company will pay to train you further. You want to argue about politics - join FOFC or Twitter - it's free. You love literature? Take a course in it around your working hours - that's something you could do your entire life to broaden your education and knowledge.

College has to stop being a one size fits none money pit and if that were to happen I bet things would adjust. How smart would it be for a college to offer specialized degree tracks with specific pricing based on what they could earn in that field? And how many better candidates might we get in certain fields? Teaching for example - everyone knows teachers aren't getting rich. How many people might have wanted to go into that field but didn't knowing they would be saddled with debt they couldn't get out from so they went on to do something else. Make the teaching degree cost much less than the engineering degree.

Like Warhammer said the old "get a degree any degree" thing is dead - it's time for some real change. Every other industry is being disrupted - it's time someone does it with college.

(note: not so much replying at GG here as using his snippet as a prompt)

A problem exacerbated by states like Georgia where if you show signs of even average academic ability then you go to post-secondary largely for free ... until you flunk out in the first 12-24 months, having wasted money, time, and space.

Stop pretending that everyone on two legs with a pulse is college material, stop making the money so easy for the schools to access, eliminate the need to have a college campus on every third street corner.

A 4yr degree became the new equivalent of a HS diploma somewhere along the way (granted, that's due in part to the near worthlessness of a HS diploma here), and post-grad has become the new "college degree" of interest.

The idea in Georgia is that if you show signs of average academic ability, money should not be the factor that prevents you from having a college education. As an educator in this system, wasting time, money, and space is equal opportunity. There have been plenty of self-paying rich kids squeak through with 2.2s as well, only they can afford to keep throwing money at the problem until they do get that BS. Considering what the idiots in GA would likely do with the excess money if they ended the Hope, I'd rather the money go to fund kids with any potential rather than Kemp's friends.

Here's the problem with making college strictly a skills to employability endeavor: It results in people who are less flexible, empathetic, and adaptable. The whole reason we have a liberal arts, broad spectrum basis for college with gen ed requirements (also reflected to a lesser degree in high school - no pun intended) is 1) to provide a universal baseline of cultural knowledge and 2) what will be most important to employers - different ways of thinking. How you approach solving a math problem, for example, is completely different from how you go about analyzing literature. And don't even get me started on the importance of writing skills. I see every day people who are employed in a professional role that lack fundamental literacy and critical thinking skills.

Yes, there's too many people in college who shouldn't be. Yes, we should be advocating for trade schools/vocational training as an alternate educational pathway.

But if anything, we need to get all the corporatists out of higher education administration and get things back to personal growth and discovery. In earlier times, students didn't need to work nearly as much to pay the tuition (if they needed to work at all). This left them the free time to genuinely immerse themselves in their education, rather than the hurried, harried time crunch they have today that results in less optimal outcomes.

Except that average academic ability here ain't saying much. And "average" is too low a bar for college afaic.

End (well, really, scale back) Hope, spread the money around, reduce the burden on taxpayers.

(And fuck Kemp, I've encountered that clown personally enough to know he's an empty suit, and an unbearably obnoxious one at that. And he might be the least obnoxious member of his family. Had the Ds run almost anyone else - or if she'd have been able to avoid going full nutjob - they'd have won the seat and I could have sat out that race entirely with no qualms)

But statistics say current college students will change careers far more often than past generations. How does a narrow education prepare them for that reality?

Right. I know people who basically went though basic accounting degrees without having to go through other requirements. They will do the Excel and math stuff, but when something looks off, they'll just completely ignore it. And when you ask why they ignored something they should have looked more deeply at, they'll shrug and say that's what the math said. There is this one company that filed a financial report with the state that showed a deficit that was $500,000 more than what it actually was - how does that one get through without anyone questioning it and wondering why that number was so off (turned out to be an error when transferring systems from Sage to QuickBooks)?

I think it's interesting that when you talk about Health Care, one of the first things people bring up are trying to reduce the costs. IE, how can it cost X-thousand for a prescription drug or why does a certain procedure cost tens of thousands. Yet, when we talk about college, few people say "the first thing we need to do is reduce costs".

You can forgive debt all you want, but in 10 years you will be right back where we are now. We can all subsidize the exorbitant tuition costs, but again we aren't really solving anything. To me, the solution is to focus on ways people can have affordable college. Make state schools cheaper for in-state kids. You can offset some of that cost by increasing out-of-state tuition and lower cost by not hiring as expensive faculty for state schools. Maybe have more state subsidies that help in-state kids - some on merit and others on financial need (but only if you go in state). This sets up a 3-tiered system:
1. Private school/out of state - People who are OK paying a ton for tuition, work hard to get a bunch of scholarships or have a skill/talent (ie sports) that helps pay for school.
2. State schools - Not as exclusive or expensive as Private, but give a college experience. If you stay in state, your costs are significantly reduced to where many people can afford it. If you go out of state, you get closer to group 1.
3. Community college/JC/trade schools - even less expensive options for people who don't want to pay for a 4-year degree or desire to learn a trade. You can also go to CC for 1-2 years and then transfer to your state school to save money.

There isn't a whole lot people can do to influence private tuition, but state school tuition is run by the state. We should demand that these costs be reduced to the point to where in-state tuition for public schools are affordable. Maybe that means state schools will fall down the "best US universities" list if they cut some costs on faculty/grant generation, but I think that is a fair price to pay for making college more affordable. But I don't think it's fair to blame a 18-year old kid who went to his or her state school, ran up a bunch of loan debt and then got an education or history degree (and struggled to pay off the debt). Kids and parents need choices to where someone could say "Hey, my kid is an average student and not looking at a lucrative career path. Let's send him to a cheaper state school to figure things out". Right now, your choice is CC/JC/no college or having 60-100K in student debt.

Tbf, there are plenty of people who have talked about reducing state University tuition. The Obama Administration wanted to make community colleges free.

And devalue the degree from said institution(s), making their output even less employable.

I can't think of any plan out there that takes steps to drastically reduce in-state tuition. There certainly isn't one by a political candidate. No one in this entire discussion has brought it up. IMO, this is most feasible and least expensive way to make college more affordable - yet it is rarely discussed in a way that leads to options/solutions. Making community colleges free as a "college solution" is like making birth control pills free as a health care solution. That's the lowest expense out there.

No one looks at schools for college degrees when hiring (outside of some really high end private school). If University of Georgia drops 50 spots because of this change, it won't impact anyone. It's not like an employer is going to say "Well, we really liked you, but your degree is from Georgia. Instead, we are going to take this person we didn't like as much, but went to Santa Clara - which ranked about 50 spots higher".

You can't make college more affordable in states where they've cut government funding by half or more.

I'm a little bit confused by this. Senators Sanders and Warren are proposing to make public colleges free. What do you think we've been talking about?

Are you suggesting some other not making public colleges free but lowering in state tuition ideas?

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

(And I was thinking about a shift of those schools in general back down toward the vicinity of Directional State. The gap between 25-75 may not be so big at the moment ... but what happens when 30 drops to 80s standards and then ends up at 120 cause not everybody slacked off? )

Yes, I think making public colleges free is going too far (and too expensive). Then, there's no reason not to go to college and you would have a ton of people with no interest in graduating just partying for free and wasting everyone's time and money.

A more reasonable plan would be to setup some federal subsidies, but also a cost plan for state universities that helps keep state tuition below a certain level (say $10K per year) for in-state students. Combine that with more academic scholarships for using in-state and I think we could have a system where people didn't have to go into 60+K debt just to go to 4 years of college. Now, you wouldn't be able to go to a private school and would have to choose one of your in-state schools, but I think that's a fair expectation if you want a cheaper option.

I agree there needs to be a plan to address cost in addition to (just) forgiveness/relief.

I also agree with your first paragraph, when something is "free" it's not as valued. Not sure what "affordable" is, maybe tie it to state average/mean salary etc.

In-state UGA is approx $30K. In-state for a GA Tier 2 university that my daughter is looking at is $20K. With Hope scholarship, that comes down to $16-$17K a year for a not-so-primo college education.

I would be concerned that the 1 or 2 "primo" state universities may be diluted with less revenue (e.g. top professors will go where the money & funding are, top students will go with them etc.).

Regardless, state university list prices need to be brought back to reality.

With that said ... I don't think everyone needs to go to 4 year college. I do think everyone should be encourage and provided means to go to a 4 year college, 2 year vocational school, trade school, join the military etc.

Obviously this will vary considerably from state to state and school to school but, as one example, UGA tuition isn't far over that as it is ($12,080 is the current published figure). And only crossed the $10k mark in the past few years.

And out of state tuition is already almost triple that figure ($31k and change)

Thing is, tuition accounts for less than half the cost for a year.

Over $15k a year is residence, meal plan, books, misc expenses, etc.

So $60k (the figure you mentioned) for four years is _without a dime of tuition_ factored in.

Simply because of your location, I pulled up Univ. of Arizona to compare. Very similar numbers there as well.

$12,600/yr for tuition for the next freshman class, which is less than half the estimated cost of an academic year with the various other costs included. And out-of-state tuition there is already triple the in-state rate as well.

See my post that cross-posted though. That's not tuition, that's total cost of attendance.

Over half the costs (somewhere to live, something to eat, etc) exist whether the person is in college or not.

Here in NY there aren't enough spots currently in the public universities. Pushing everyone to them won't work.

Umm ... is the distinction you're making (but I'm not intially inferring here) between "universities" vs "community colleges"?


SUNY chief targets declining enrollment - News - recordonline.com - Middletown, NY

Otherwise, you've got the head of SUNY worried publicly about steadily declining enrollment.

Yeah, I'm talking about four year colleges. They currently turn away applicants. They don't have space for all the college students in NY.

To me this is what high school is for and like I said these are the sort of basic life skills that kids need to be learning there. I realize this is NOT being done at the elementary or high school level to anywhere near a satisfactory degree
(as a student at U of M I was shocked by the number of students who somehow managed to get into a highly rated university yet could not write a paragraph) but there's where you should fix the problem.

Why are we good with just assuming the first 12 years of a kid's education can serve as glorified day care but college (and tens of thousands of somebody's dollars) can fix the issue? We already have a system to provide free education in this country and its not very good - we really think making college free is going to solve anything? If the reason the elementary and high school education system is failing is that there's not enough money to support that where on earth are we getting the money to "do it right" for college and why can't we just take a fraction of that additional needed money and make our elementary and high school systems what they need to be?

I would assume you would change the same way you do now - go back and get another degree. It's not like that one semester of philosophy class from fifteen years ago is what allows you to make the jump from teacher to computer programmer or something and if taking on thousands of dollars more of debt isn't going to work out for you then you just stick with the field you are in if possible. Either way I don't see how you are worse off having to pay less to start with and not having to fork over thousand of dollars for college credit hours that had nothing to do with your prior or any other future career you intend on having.

The High School and public schools you describe don't match anything I'm familiar with. My daughter graduated HS with more than a full year of college credits. She hasn't had a B since elementary school and only finished in the top 6-7% of her class despite all the dual credit classes. My son was not as competitive with his GPA but still had a semester + in college credits and did very well on the SATs.

Maybe you live in a shitty school district but that is by no means universal. The High Schools were I live (North Dallas 'burbs) are highly competitive and quite intense.

Of course there are better public school districts like the ones your kids went through but if they were all like that we wouldn't have people that Izulde refers to as "employed in a professional role that lack fundamental literacy and critical thinking skills."

And just to follow up I'm not suggesting we should eliminate these things from college - like I said I think it would be great if somehow the current college system was turned upside down and someone who wanted to really pursue the finer points of literature or art or something could do so because of their own choice and at a MUCH more affordable rate than getting that engineering degree. A rate that allowed people to pursue those interests without a debt load that in some cases becomes impossible to pay because there's such little opportunity to earn large amounts of money with that kind of degree.

Yeah, I have no idea what Izulde is talking about either. I struggle a lot more with Boomers in these areas than I do the current crop of kids coming out of college.

There are plenty of careers that don't require going back to school. A good gen ed program should be teaching skills, writing, speaking, collaborating, finding information, problem solving, etc. Content, to me, is secondary to learning those skills. But, you still have to have some content to be able to teach those skills, and some areas work better than others for different skills. You can write in a math class, but it fits better in other areas. The same goes for problem solving. Content should be much to skills being taught.

If the gen ed is well constructed, it's essential to educate and train students for the world they are entering.

Well that's probably what it would end up being if you started from Biden's plan to make public colleges free. After all the negotiations you'd end up with increased federal subsidies and some attempts to keep state tuition low. It's all a negotiation in the end and you generally want to start with something a little higher than what you would be happy getting.

Well Bernie is not winning Florida

#BREAKING VIDEO 1986@BernieSanders talking about his excitement watching Castro´s revolution murdering the "ugly rich people" and feeling sick watching President Kennedy speaking out against Communism in Cubapic.twitter.com/jJa5MIx6xP

— BidenFront(Text Join to 30330) (@Biden_Front) January 28, 2020

Because that's the scam that's been sold. Tell a lie long enough and often enough, a fair portion of the populace will believe it.



And that's the even bigger scam.

I think this is a good point. But, you have ways to cover that non-tuition $15K. You can get roomates or get a job. Whether you go to college or not, you will have to pay for a place to live. On-campus housing is usually cheaper than just renting on the outside. I think you could swing 1K a month for your portion of rent, food and expenses with roommate(s). At that point, if you could get a job making $500 a month, that $15K drops in half. To me, the tough expense to justify is 15+K a year for tuition and books as an in-state student. If you can knock that down to 8K, you really only need about $40-50K in loans without scholarships. And, if you earn a scholarship or work more, you could easily get by with a 25-30K student loan tab at the end.

I get that, but you are losing the argument if you make tuition free. I think there are many sensible people (myself included) who would be OK using tax money to help subsidize in-state tuition, provided you also had a plan in place to reduce the costs that cause tuition to rise. It seems like most democratic candidates really don't care if tuition starts at 10K or 25K - they want to take from the rich to pay for it. A better approach would be to combine some federal subsidies with a plan to keep the total tuition cost under 15-20K a student for in-state (ie, subsidy pays 10K a student). Just giving these universities a blank check for subsidizing tuition could have it balloon up to 20-30K a year per in-state student without any real recourse. We just keep pumping in tax dollars to offset it.

Any plan to pay for public university amounts would probably have some upper limits on state tuition if you accept fed funds, like how Medicare works. Of course you couldn't FORCE states to lower tuition. You'd have to incentivize it.

re: housing costs on vs off campus -- varies. Last two years off campus (townhouse, 4 total people) have been cheaper by a couple thousand a year than on campus was. That's going to vary a lot I imagine, due to both the on campus situation case by case as well as the off campus availability case by case.

re: $1k/month. fwiw, that seems awfully low vs reality, at least for decent sized schools. Using Ole Miss again, it's roughly $500/month for meal plan (common for at least freshmen), plus a min. of $500/month for off-campus housing (about $750/month for on-campus). And the meal plans aren't all-inclusive, you still eat weekends on your own dime typically. So that figure is passed before literally ANY "expenses". Parking permit alone is about $50/month.

re: $15k vs $8k ... Again, just using real figures close to me (with the full YMMV caveat) ... It's already $12k for UGA and $6500 for Univ. of West Georgia and about $5500 for Univ of North Georgia. Congrats, problem solved I guess :)

Here's the thing: too often "student loan debt" is being euphemistically used to encompass all the costs associated with not only tuition but also ordinary living expenses, as well as choices made that escalate the cost. It also fails to account for the trend of "four year degrees" approaching six years to complete AND the failure of 1/3rd to one half to complete even after six years. That failure, in turn, denies the supposed benefit of higher wages for degreed individuals, hindering their ability to repay the debt they voluntarily incurred.

Freely admitting things may have changed in the last 20 years, but the meal plan I had at Mizzou covered all 7 days. Might be that weekend meals are on a higher 'tier', then or now?

I didn't have discretionary income as a freshman, but I definitely ate the same stuff on weekends as I did during the school week.

Maybe differs by university, also?

Yeah, it differs. At Hopkins we had meal plan options. I forget exactly what they were, but it was something like 10 (lunch/dinner weekdays), 14 (lunch/dinner all week) or 19 (b/l/d weekdays, l/d weekends) meals. Purdue I want to say we are doing 13 -- like the second choice above but they don't serve dinner on Sundays (they want to funnel kids to church organizations which provide food and, well, try to recruit).

Out of state tuition is appx $28k, with something like $12k more for room and board. Schools also figure in "travel" in their calculations but don't actually collect for it (but it figures into loans, etc.)

Definitely varies case by case.

The 7 day vs 5 day thing IS a specific situation that we dealt with, and that skewed my phrasing. Greek students (roughly 1/3rd of Ole Miss) are required to participate in a different meal plan than the general population. And that's 5 days, not 7 (cause few, if any, greek houses there serve meals on the weekend).

(Yes, the university found a way to get their grubby paws on money that they really shouldn't have to touch, insinuating themselves as a pass through between greek organizations & their members.)

General population has the option of a 5 day OR 7 day plan, with the local nomenclature of "Plus 1" being added for use of the various franchises located on campus (here in Athens it's "Bulldog Bucks" which can be used at both on campus AND off campus locations of participating chains).

But campus dining locations there are closed on holidays, limited on weekends, (and virtually impossible to use on game days for example), etc etc, so a true "every day" is still stretching reality to some extent.

Overall it's a lot like figuring out which Disney Dining plan is right for you, and I suspect that's true in the majority of places.

Bloomberg is gaining some momentum.

Morning Consult: The 2020 U.S. Election

His rise has been meteoric.

At this point I think folks like Buttigieg and Klobuchar have no path to the nomination - Bloomberg took all the voters they were trying to court.

It may end up being impossible to buy the nomination, but Bloomberg is putting up a good try. If he stays in through the convention he could make it so that no candidate has a majority of delegates. Without Bloomberg, one of Biden, Sanders or Warren would seal the nomination, but with Bloomberg, I'm less sure of that.

He's certainly looking to solidify the middle and left center folks. His platform, the fact that he's got a lot of similar credentials that trump ran on, and doesn't carry the baggage that Sanders/Warren do, add in massively deep pockets, and yes, he's a completely legitimate threat to take the nomination. He's someone moderates have been clamoring for.

I doubt he can get the nomination, but he could be a 'kingmaker' if no one gets the necessary amount of delegates.

If he doesn't get the nomination, I don't see him giving support to Sanders or Warren so maybe a Biden-Bloomberg ticket?

Bloomberg's rise sets off alarms on the left - POLITICO

I'm pretty sure Warren allies want him on stage, so that he can be challenged on his positions. As of right now, Bloomberg can just spend on ads and rise in the polls, but if he stumbles in a debate that may arrest his rise.

I still think Biden picks Klobuchar as his running mate.

So the Iowa caucus is on Monday. Prediction time.

1. Who do you think wins in Iowa?
2. Who do you think wins the Democratic nomination?
3. Who do you think wins the presidential election?

I'll submit my later today. Still thinking.

Can I add:
4. Who do you most want to win the Democratic nomination?


1. So, tough to call. I think it might be Biden. If they went off the initial votes, then Sanders would be the likely winner. But when they break out of the groups of nonviable candidates, I think Biden probably gains the most votes as long as Warren is above or close to above the 15 mark.
2. Again, likely Biden. I will say it is going to be real interesting when we get to the Super Tuesday states where Bloomberg is putting his energy. Can he peel enough Biden supporters to hurt Biden? Will that put Sanders in the drivers seat? I think Biden will win with a plurality, not a majority. Sanders will also be in it till the end.
3. Trump. I think that severe voter suppression in the key battleground states has him winning about the same number of electoral votes, while losing the popular vote by an even higher number. Further, I think there is a good chance the house flips back. I see a long dark winter coming.
4. Yang. I think he brings the optimism and excitement we need to heal as a country. The fact is, he is just to good a guy to win.

There is no healing the country as long as the GOP sees any Dem admin as illegitimate. This version of the GOP has to be burned to the ground before there's any real bipartisanship.

Couldn't you say that goes both ways?

I think the point is many people have the same story, but these kids do not know basic skills they should know going into college.

Nowhere near the same.

The Dems didn't argue the President was literally above the law. The Dems didn't refuse to seat any GOP nominee for the Supreme Court. The Dems didn't work with foreign governments to undermine the election. The Dems aren't working to keep GOP groups from voting. The Dems aren't going around pushing secessionist ideas in states run by Dems. The Dems aren't changing the laws to limit governor powers when Dems win elections.

Nasty politics exist everywhere, but only the GOP is working throughout the country to make it impossible for Dems to wield power.

Let's not forget Michigan when the GOP tried to limit the powers of the governor when a Democrat got elected, or when they effectively vetoed a voter ballot initiative. Or when they POISONED a city's drinking water and tried to hide it.

1. Biden
2. Biden
3. Tough one. I'll say Trump unless the economy/markets tank but hoping for Biden
4. Biden

Biden because he most apt to bring politics back to pre-Trump. Sanders and Warren scare me with their massive changes. I wouldn't mind a younger VP and use the Biden Presidency as a transition back to normalcy period.

Yeah I interview and hire people all the time in my CISO role and what college the person went to does not matter all that much.