Joe Doakes of Como Park emails:
The current Campus Crybaby Crisis is explained by Reynold’s Law:
“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
If fewer people were able to afford college, degrees would become valuable again. Plus, young people wouldn’t be saddled with a mountain of unpayable and non-dischargeable debt, so they could afford to buy houses and start families.
Student loans: end them, don’t mend them.
Joe Doakes
Along with making education about, well, education, rather than schooling (to say nothing of indoctrination).
The junior and senior year of high school could easily take the place of the freshman and sophomore years of university. Taking people out of the workforce longer than necessary to obtain a degree of dubious quality is an inefficient use of resources.
BTW, did you notice what Obama has done by federalizing student loans? Anytime the Dems need to drive young people to the polls, they can announce a planned debt forgiveness for a preferred demographic — courtesy of the taxpayers.
And when those new taxpayers suddenly have to pay for the next generation of student loan forgiveness, hopefully they’re marginally educated enough or even aware enough to realize what they signed on for for the rest of their lives.
I never tire of reminding Liberals that the federal government took over student lending as part of Obama-care so the government could rake in all those origination fees and interest payments, big bucks that would more than offset the cost of providing health care to poor children, they’d bend the curve down. If you forgive the interest then there’s not enough money which means no health care for poor children.
Why do Liberals hate poor children and want them to die?
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When I travel by air, which is several times a month, I am always taken by the low rent horde that makes up so many of my fellow travelers. As I think about it, I can remember when air travel was still composed of the fairly well heeled and business travelers like myself, up to and through the late 80’s.
Not everyone was attired in suits and tie, or fancy dresses, but we were dressed nicely. In 1978, Congress de-regulated the airline industry and out came discount airlines; with the discount airlines came the discount travel crew.
This morning, as I walked through the airport to catch my connection in Chicago, I saw hundreds of women; young, old, trim and disturbingly fat, all proudly displaying their camel toes and cellulite in yoga pants. Men wearing sweat pants and flip flops. Some of the better dressed emulating gang-banger fashion.
Raggedy t shirts, pajama bottoms, bedroom slippers; hangover breath, halitosis, stinking body odor…there is no bottom to this barrel.
I see the same trend in higher education. With the push to get *everyone* a college education comes public subsidies and more. FASFA, race, gender and socio-economic based scholarships have opened the doors to people who are clearly not college material. Instead of shabby attire, these low brow rejects identify themselves with mind numbing stupidity, and zombie like loyalty to them that brought ’em to the dance.
The disaster of 2008 was brought about by government policies designed to bring home ownership to the masses. It was a classic case of Cargo Cult belief on the part of progressives. Just as building fake air strips did not bring back airplanes full of modern goods to Polynesia, inserting people with a lack of strong middle class values into 30 year mortgages did not instill those values in the unfortunate recipients. The same is true for the growing bubble of educational loans. Some people aren’t college material and placing them there doesn’t change that.
Return student lending to the banks and give them information on what students do, and do not, repay their student loans. That will bring the colleges in line really, really quickly–as Dr. Williams notes, nothing gets to an administrator’s ear like the sound of wallets snapping shut.