Sweep
By Mitch Berg
One of the more surprising results from election night: the nation is more…not “conservative”, probably. More Republican, anyway.
The New York Times released a “shift map” of election result shifts, by county.
It’s live and interactive here – and it’s an interesting read. Each red arrow is a county where the vote was more Republican than it was in 2020. Note that many of the blue arrows in red states – I’m looking at you, Oliver County North Dakota – are counties where the GOP vote dropped from the 90s into the 80s, for example.
More interesting still – the demographics behind those shifts.
In every category but “people with lots of years in schools”, the anti-Trump reaction of 2020 has more than recouped – in some cases (the urban vote, young people), way way more than recouped.
November 12th, 2024 at 6:58 am
Another excellent argument for ending student loans as we know them.
The justification for student loans – full disclosure, I took them and repaid them – was that without easily obtained government-backed loans, society would be deprived of the benefit of smart poor kids growing up to fill societal needs for useful occupations like doctors and engineers.
What actually happened is society is flooded with middle class, middle intellect kids holding worthless degrees, who are unable to afford their student loan payments and demand loan forgiveness.
We should treat student loans like immigration: only for those who will benefit the nation, and only to the extent necessary to perform the duties (not just fatten college coffers taking fluff classes). Doctors get 8 years of loans, teachers maybe two the same as electricians at trade school, lawyers maybe none at all since we have plenty of them.
Seriously, how many years of college does it take to gain the knowledge necessary to sell car insurance, to write loans for a bank, to run a hardware store? Our grandparents did it on an 8th Grade education. What has changed since then, that college classes can cure?
Not a priority for the First 100 Days but something to consider in his Third Year when we’re getting ready for JD Vance as the candidate.
November 12th, 2024 at 9:01 am
Bigman, You’re spot-on about college loans. Having the federal government as the primary source of loans is almost entirely responsible for the student loan “crisis.”
If you had to sit across the desk from a local banker, who has to keep that loan on his books for 15 years, you’re not getting $100,000+ so you can get a social work degree to make $40,000/year!
“Studies” degrees would disappear almost overnight if nobody would lend money for them.
November 12th, 2024 at 9:34 am
You also wouldn’t have the problem of over educated people running around with massive debt if we changed the loan process.
My field of studied required a 4 year college degree when I graduated. I did have a federal loan-subsidized Stafford loan, which was interest free for the first 6 months after I earned my degree. I also did work study and had a few scholarships. I paid my loan off in 6 months because I had saved during my childhood years (and it helped that some of those years were high inflation years with great CD rates).
Others who graduated maybe weren’t as fortunate as me, but at least with a 4 year degree, they weren’t paying a lot of money.
Now, my job requires a post graduate degree, so people are going to school for several years beyond what I did, paying the colleges more than what I had to, for the same degree that I got, and making no higher pay than if they had just a graduate degree or even just the 4 year degree that I had starting out. (when the job transitioned from 4 year to graduate and then eventually graduate to post graduate, the starting salaries never changed, except in terms of keeping up with the market in general).
Colleges really are capitalizing on easy money when they should be getting these kids an education and then out the door to a job. College can have value and should provide an education, and it should be worth something when they do, but it shouldn’t feel like a scam.
November 12th, 2024 at 2:05 pm
MSBertRecords,
Costs always expand to fill the money available to pay them.
November 12th, 2024 at 2:21 pm
I took out a student loan in 1977 after my college told my father that the $16,700 he earned the previous year was too affluent for me to receive college aid. The government wasn’t backing the loans then, so my parents and I had to convince the bank I was a good risk. I took out a $1500 loan at 7.25% (cheap money, my father said then). That pretty much funded my tuition into my senior year. I took out a second $1500 loan just before my final semester in order to do a college exchange program in England that spring.
Total college debt, $3000. That wouldn’t buy books for a single semester now.
November 12th, 2024 at 3:54 pm
MJB003 pointed out a second order effect of liberal student loans policy. Employers who formerly required a Bachelor’s can now require a Masters and still fill the job because there are so many candidates to choose from.
Credential Inflation is caused by having too many Bachelor’s degrees, which is caused by having too much easy money and extremely generous repayment terms.
Make it harder to get loans for social workers or teachers and watch the job requirements soften.