Cont: The Biden Presidency (3)

[TurkeysGhost]

My niece by marriage did exactly that; she just HAD to go to Stanford to get a secondary school level teaching credential in English. She's still paying on that loan after 10+ years while teaching high school English in Missouri. Teachers are paid BLEEP in Missouri. She'll probably qualify for getting some or all of her loan cancelled while I'm still out 100 grand.

Grouping all student debt together is definitely a mistake. I'm not against cancelling some student loans or portions of depending on the reasons they were taken out or the reason someone is unable to pay it back, but 100% across the board? Hell, no.

You'll pry the means testing from our cold, dead fingers.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

No, I don't "got mine" because I could have told my daughter to take out loans and then not have to pay it back. I'd be 100 grand richer.

You understand that this is a uniquely privileged position to be in, right? Not many people have the option to rely on windfall fortunes to pay their kid's way through school. Many other people have no option but to borrow in these situations.

You also understand that your problem and the problem of enormous student debt are closely related, right? The high cost of tuition is responsible for your inheritance getting wiped out and for huge swaths of the population being saddled with debt they can't pay off.

I really don't know what to make of it this country sometimes. Biden is arguably going to be running against an increasingly overt authoritarian fascist in 2024 and the party in opposition can't bring to do something obviously right and popular with young voters because it would irritate the "crabs in the bucket" older generations who benefitted from an objectively more generous society and did nothing to safeguard those benefits for future generations. America is a diseased place.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

No, I don't "got mine" because I could have told my daughter to take out loans and then not have to pay it back. I'd be 100 grand richer.

Accepting things are slightly different in the UK....We've paid most of the costs of putting our kids through Uni despite being urged to let them take out loans because 'they'll probably never have to pay them back'. Why? Because we can afford it, just about, by cutting back on a few things we'd like but don't absolutely need (running our cars into the ground rather than trading up, cutting back on holidays and other spending etc) and we don't want them to start their working lives with a huge debt. Should debts be cancelled here I won't regret that choice - it was our decision because we didn't want them having those debts. So what if others benefit when debts are cancelled? That doesn't cost me any more than I'd already decided I was willing to pay for my kids' education and helps out others who were in a less fortunate position than us.

Then again, I was the first in my family to make it to Uni and in those days got a full grant so perhaps I feel I owe the system...

 

[Bob001]

.....
You also understand that your problem and the problem of enormous student debt are closely related, right? The high cost of tuition is responsible for your inheritance getting wiped out and for huge swaths of the population being saddled with debt they can't pay off.
.....

I may have an outlier opinion here, but I think the easy availability of loans for college has contributed a lot to rising college costs. Colleges can charge what they want, knowing that students will borrow what they have to. As recently as the 1980s, state college was affordable for a large percentage of people, and in some places, like California, it was basically free. Cutbacks in state funding resulted in big cost increases, and a whole new industry arose to finance college with loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. If college loans were treated like any other consumer debt, lenders would set tougher restrictions on how much anyone could borrow, which in turn would compel colleges to lower their costs and/or get more state funding if they want to stay in business.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, I don't "got mine" because I could have told my daughter to take out loans and then not have to pay it back. I'd be 100 grand richer.

Good we will ruin peoples chances of buying a house or things like that for your spite.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Student loan debt is complicated. Some people borrow because it's the only way they can be the first in their family to go to college. Others borrow to go to an expensive private school when they could pretty easily afford a state school. Others borrow to go to law school or medical school, buying a ticket to a prestigious profession for life. Others borrow to get PhDs in fields that will never get them a teaching position and are useless for any other purpose. Grouping all student debt together is probably a mistake.

Hey some people are successfull and get teaching positions for $40k a year and only had to take out $150k in debt to be qualified. We call that kind of idiot a teacher.

 

[theprestige]

The coalition building for Ukraine against Russia far exceeds anything Obama ever managed to do, internationally. And that, right after Trump had pissed away all belief in US leadership globally.

It's beyond amazing; but American voters don't give a **** about that.

What coalition-building did he do, exactly? It doesn't seem like western Europe was sitting on its hands waiting for Biden to jump in and rally them. Rather it seems like there was broad agreement from the beginning that something needed to be done, and several countries just jumped in and started doing things. In fact Biden's message in early February was, "let's hang back and let Russia and Ukraine play this out themselves. Now you're giving him credit not just for going with the flow of support for Ukraine, but actually creating that flow. Where's the evidence of that? Where's the evidence he did anything that American voters should give a **** about, on this topic?

 

[ponderingturtle]

My niece by marriage did exactly that; she just HAD to go to Stanford to get a secondary school level teaching credential in English. She's still paying on that loan after 10+ years while teaching high school English in Missouri. Teachers are paid BLEEP in Missouri. She'll probably qualify for getting some or all of her loan cancelled while I'm still out 100 grand.

Grouping all student debt together is definitely a mistake. I'm not against cancelling some student loans or portions of depending on the reasons they were taken out or the reason someone is unable to pay it back, but 100% across the board? Hell, no.

Hey we have been lying to whole generations that education is the way to a better future, eventually boomers will be called to account for that lie.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I may have an outlier opinion here, but I think the easy availability of loans for college has contributed a lot to rising college costs. Colleges can charge what they want, knowing that students will borrow what they have to. As recently as the 1980s, state college was affordable for a large percentage of people, and in some places, like California, it was basically free. Cutbacks in state funding resulted in big cost increases, and a whole new industry arose to finance college with loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. If college loans were treated like any other consumer debt, lenders would set tougher restrictions on how much anyone could borrow, which in turn would compel colleges to lower their costs and/or get more state funding if they want to stay in business.

Broad Student loan forgiveness without fixing higher education is certainly not a solution.

 

[Bob001]

Hey we have been lying to whole generations that education is the way to a better future, eventually boomers will be called to account for that lie.

Well, it actually worked for a large period of U.S. history. Land grant universities and state teacher colleges were expanded in the late 1800s. Vets returning from WWII and Korea went to college in large numbers on the GI bill. State colleges were cheap, sometimes free, until the 1980s. That's when the Reagan Repubs started to cut back a lot of social spending, including higher education, and a huge profit-driven industry arose to finance college through loans. At the same time, college costs increased way faster than inflation because colleges could expect/require kids to borrow whatever they needed to enroll.

As is true of much of the past 40 years, it didn't have to be this way.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I may have an outlier opinion here, but I think the easy availability of loans for college has contributed a lot to rising college costs. Colleges can charge what they want, knowing that students will borrow what they have to. As recently as the 1980s, state college was affordable for a large percentage of people, and in some places, like California, it was basically free. Cutbacks in state funding resulted in big cost increases, and a whole new industry arose to finance college with loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. If college loans were treated like any other consumer debt, lenders would set tougher restrictions on how much anyone could borrow, which in turn would compel colleges to lower their costs and/or get more state funding if they want to stay in business.

I don't think this is that much of an outlier opinion. Much has been written about the adverse effects of decreasing public funding of these institutions and instead forcing them to rely more heavily on loan backed tuition.

Allowing lenders to be more discriminatory would probably lead to universities tightening their belts a bit, but it would also make college unavailable to huge swaths of working class and poor people who are, objectively speaking, high credit risks.

A more obvious way to exercise control over these institutions is to put them back under public funding, and thus public control, and reduce their ability to charge exorbitant tuitions. Like you say, examples like the essentially no-tuition UC system of yesteryear are proof that such high quality, high value education is possible.

Again, this goes back to my point about older generations whining about legitimate complaints coming from the younger generations caused by austerity policies that did not exist for older people. Older generations have gutted many of the systems that allowed them to prosper and now begrudge younger generations for failing to do well and are opposed to anything meant to address systematic problems facing them.

Deranged boomers will absolutely gnash their teeth if Biden made any large strides to relieve student debt, but the question is will their "crabs in the bucket" mentality outweigh the good will earned from younger voters.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, it actually worked for a large period of U.S. history. Land grant universities and state teacher colleges were expanded in the late 1800s. Vets returning from WWII and Korea went to college in large numbers on the GI bill. State colleges were cheap, sometimes free, until the 1980s. That's when the Reagan Repubs started to cut back a lot of social spending, including higher education, and a huge profit-driven industry arose to finance college through loans. At the same time, college costs increased way faster than inflation because colleges could expect/require kids to borrow whatever they needed to enroll.

As is true of much of the past 40 years, it didn't have to be this way.

I wonder how much of that has also changed with respect to it being good for your career prospects to go to a bigger name school. My wife got all kinds of bad advice about how going to a prestigious ivy league school would set her firmly on the course to be an comfortably middle-class academic. Hence the $200+k student debt for a full time job that pays $40k. But that is the price you deserve to pay if you listen to your teachers advice. Only an idiot believes their teachers.

 

[theprestige]

in some places, like California, it was basically free. Cutbacks in state funding resulted in big cost increases

Nitpick: Price increases, not cost increases.

The costs were probably already there.

 

[Bob001]

I wonder how much of that has also changed with respect to it being good for your career prospects to go to a bigger name school. My wife got all kinds of bad advice about how going to a prestigious ivy league school would set her firmly on the course to be an comfortably middle-class academic. Hence the $200+k student debt for a full time job that pays $40k. But that is the price you deserve to pay if you listen to your teachers advice. Only an idiot believes their teachers.

I would ask who was giving that advice. I doubt those high school teachers went to Ivy League schools. Maybe it came from people who were already "comfortable middle-class academics" who went to college with family money. I continue to be astonished -- and I'm pretty old --at the degree to which people who grew up in comfortable circumstances have no idea what life is like for many/most of us.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I would ask who was giving that advice. I doubt those high school teachers went to Ivy League schools. Maybe it came from people who were already "comfortable middle-class academics" who went to college with family money. I continue to be astonished -- and I'm pretty old --at the degree to which people who grew up in comfortable circumstances have no idea what life is like for many/most of us.

That and had not appreciated how much the entire higher education landscape has changed. A lecturer position is about the best someone can reasonably hope for as it pays a lot better than the say $3K per class at best you get from adjuncting. Hell some big name school advertise for unpaid positions.

 

[Bob001]

Nitpick: Price increases, not cost increases.

The costs were probably already there.

You're right. Price increases. All of the evidence is that the price of college has gone up considerably more than the rate of inflation.

The average cost of attending a four-year college or university in the United States rose by 497% between the 1985-86 and 2017-18 academic years, more than twice the rate of inflation.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zenger...while-students-learn-at-home/?sh=2929cbf2f98c

 

[Stacyhs]

You understand that this is a uniquely privileged position to be in, right? Not many people have the option to rely on windfall fortunes to pay their kid's way through school. Many other people have no option but to borrow in these situations.

You also understand that your problem and the problem of enormous student debt are closely related, right? The high cost of tuition is responsible for your inheritance getting wiped out and for huge swaths of the population being saddled with debt they can't pay off.

I really don't know what to make of it this country sometimes. Biden is arguably going to be running against an increasingly overt authoritarian fascist in 2024 and the party in opposition can't bring to do something obviously right and popular with young voters because it would irritate the "crabs in the bucket" older generations who benefitted from an objectively more generous society and did nothing to safeguard those benefits for future generations. America is a diseased place.

What part of this in my post that you already responded to is confusing you?

"I'm not against cancelling some student loans or portions of depending on the reasons they were taken out or the reason someone is unable to pay it back, but 100% across the board? Hell, no."

 

[TurkeysGhost]

What part of this in my post that you already responded to is confusing you?

"I'm not against cancelling some student loans or portions of depending on the reasons they were taken out or the reason someone is unable to pay it back, but 100% across the board? Hell, no."

How much money should be set aside to sort the worthy from the unworthy, and how many people are you willing to allow fall through the cracks that is inevitable in such means testing schemes? This kind of means testing isn't free you know.

Again, pry the means testing from our cold dead hands. There's nothing this country loves than wasting huge amounts of effort and money passing judgement on others rather than just doing the right thing.

 

[Tero]

I don't remember any of the social media during the Obama era, as I did not go much past FB and there I had little politics streaming in. Did the right wingers on Twitter etc. attack Obama as relentlessly (and boringly, it is just a repeat of 5 themes) as they do Biden now?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I don't remember any of the social media during the Obama era, as I did not go much past FB and there I had little politics streaming in. Did the right wingers on Twitter etc. attack Obama as relentlessly (and boringly, it is just a repeat of 5 themes) as they do Biden now?

Yes. Once he wore a tan suit and you'd have thought the damn world was ending.