Everybody knows that the price of college in America is going through the roof. It has significantly outpaced inflation. And there are hoards of young people who were sold a false bill of goods by their well meaning parents, grandparents, and society at large. Unfortunately, the idea of “everybody should go to college” hasn’t worked out for the US. Not only are we experiencing a shortage in the trades that Mike Rowe has been particularly articulate in pointing out, but many of these young people are now saddled with college debt that they will never be able to repay. These loans are also a debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy thanks to the Democrats and Obamacare (yet one more reason why Obamacare must be repealed and John McCain betrayed us all when he kept it alive).
In a sane world, banks would only give college loans based on the earnings potential of the degree. So, that would make it almost impossible for you to get financing for a Gender Studies degree, but it’s not just a problem for the kids who picked dumb majors. It’s a problem for kids who have real talent but aren’t good enough at math to be an engineer, but would make an excellent contractor. But, since the debt now cannot be discharged no matter what happens, young people are signing themselves up for a lifetime of debt-slavery in order to get a degree that doesn’t help them advance their life. They can’t buy houses and build families because these loans are strangling them. Further, the easy access to federal money is driving the cost of tuition through the roof. The best students are the ones who want to be there and are motivated to earn their degrees. Making college so that it’s affordable for students with a part time job and a little help from their families is important. Making college a 4-year party because mom and dad said you had to either go to school or get a job is a terrible blight on our society.
Furthermore, the American University System has become completely and totally SJW converged. Some colleges are better than others, but on the whole, we would be better off as a country without most of them at this point. They spend more time on gender studies and liberal social issues than they do on topics of actual value to us as a society. How many professors are doing something like this in their classrooms? If you will note, telling her students to lock out Fox News on their parents cable boxes was the least of her very partisan left wing suggestions. And this is what we are permitting an entire generation to enter into a lifetime of debt slavery to finance. It has to stop.
So, what do we do about it?
According to Forbes, the current student loan debt stands at about $1.5 Trillion. George W. Bush’s foolish Troubled Asset Relief Program wound up costing us somewhere around $15 Trillion if this guy is to be believed. So, we can do something about it. And the path forward is very likely going to be restructuring those loans to limit the damage that compound interest is going to do to the people who were sold a false bill of goods on the value of their college degrees. The colleges that benefited from this feeding frenzy also need to face some scrutiny over their continued offering of largely useless degrees for six figure sums of money.
We are going to be looking at this topic more in the coming weeks.
It's Time To Do Something About The Student Loan Problem In America
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“They can’t buy houses and build families because these loans are strangling them.”
Heard this one a few times before, and it strikes as…off. Does it have some role? Sure.
The claim that there is just a plethora of people wanting to get married, but can’t because of their financial situation doesn’t seem to take in that we are witnessing the collapse. There has been a paradigm shift, and the thought that if some debt gets discharged we get back to nuclear families rings fairly hollow. Not meeting current reality that…well…”have given themselves over unto lasciviousness” and all that it brings with it.
I do think there are several factors at play, of course. The good news is that we have more articles coming out on this, so stay tuned.
“And this is what we are permitting an entire generation to enter into a lifetime of debt slavery to finance.”
Is this just the “debt du jour”? Boomers had their proverbial McMansions, and us Millennials got suckered into the materialistic chase…and now pursue it with our own reckless abandon. So the Millenials just ate up an EVEN WORSE investment. At least the houses come on land…
Debt = bad. No doubt about it. Any reports from the younger folks? Have our mistakes caused them to wisen up any?
“The colleges that benefited from this feeding frenzy also need to face some scrutiny ”
You are on the right path here, sir. We seem to have reached the point where a fair, equitable solution is no longer able to be found. Time to throw up our hands, call this a monstrous, national error, and start to discharge this debt somehow. How about a little free-market economics at work? Those institutions that can float will do so…the rest get to sink. Decrease in supply, more value for the few that obtain it (please don’t stone me Austrians…accept the slang).
And, well, we could start by having the state schools be…for those from the state? LET THE WORLD TREMBLE AT THE WRATH OF HOOSIERDOM UNLEASHED!!!
A lot of guys are smart enough to do engineering but American public schools prioritize equality over teaching and learning. And really, the whole “teacher lecturing students” isn’t the best way to learn anyway. Lecturing is the educational equivalent of using leeches to treat sickness.
Art Robinson homeschooled his 6 kids and trained his kids to teach themselves. This doesn’t work for the masses of asses, perhaps, but it works great for the better sort of people.
By depending on the educational system for learning, we let ourselves be dragged down to the lowest common denominator, egalitarian level that liberals want to put us on. And then Asian kids, whose home countries are not egalitarian, take all the spots in physics and engineering and they get a green card stapled to their diploma and a replacement middle class is imported while white kids are despised and ignored and underemployed in heroin addicted post Soviet small town America.
We can do better. Homeschooled white kids could show up to university with 2000 hours of self study in math physics chemistry and break the grading curve that the foreign students collude to keep low. If enough of us showed up at universities in tbe USA and Europe and blasted the grading curve to the moon, the foreigners wouldn’t even go to those universities any mofe. Also, they cheat a lot so report them for cheating.
STEM and trades are actually an awesome combination. A contractor with a degree in civil engineering, or structural engineering or even agricultural-engineering can do very well for himself. This program I link below teaches how to run paving machinery using artificial intelligence to make roads perfectly level. No more eyeballing, the dozers are computer controlled now.
https://www.cobleskill.edu/academics/schools/agriculture-and-natural-resources/agricultural-engineering/index.aspx
See my blog mindweaponsinragnarok.com for more info.
The best electrical engineer in town has worked as a licensed electrician. Any mechanical engineer who’s never turned wrenches is in the wrong field. Experience has taught me this, but I’ve seen a professor tell this to a class when a student was at a loss in an exam problem.
Make student loans dischargeable five years after graduating or leaving school. Give the lenders recourse against the schools for any amounts discharged.
QED