SCOTUS kills Biden's student loan/debt relief plan...

Whether or not one agrees with Biden's policy it was really a stretch by the conservative majority to find that the State Attorneys General that challenged the policy had standing since the residents of their states were not adversely affected. One of the many of indications that this court is among the most activist in history.

 

That might be true, but that wasn’t how I took ant’s reply. I just couldn’t figure his angle from such an abbreviated response. A diversity of opinions is good and necessary, as is a willingness to understand the path others have walked. To my benefit, my path included days of wearing old Adidas kicks to class at times with cardboard filling holes in the soles. No one HAS to have $300 shoes or an 85” TV or a 3000 SF house or a new iPhone every year or a $100K car. It comes down to priorities and our current society unfortunately focuses more on what I can have now instead of what might be a better decision with a better long term outcome. I don’t care what or how others decide to do as long as I don’t have to carry their burden for frivolity and mine for sensibility.

 

Will never happen.

In the post WWII economy, it was plausible to get by on a high school education because a worker could get a no-skilled factory job, and labor conditions for a time made it so their salaries were “living wage” (at a point, unions pushed some absurdities in terms of skills vs. salary, and then China was opened up.. and that Goldilocks era was gone). Nowadays those middle class factory jobs have moved to China where Chinese slaves build those trinkets. Millions of those jobs are simply nonexistent here, thus the idea of “high school education path to middle class success” is a much more difficult path vs. 50 years ago. If anything, good careers require MORE education. More specification. Look at pharmacy as an example. It used to be 4 year bachelors degree in pharmacy. Then it shifted to 6 years for a doctor of pharmacy (pharm.D). Then 6 years + 1 year residency. Then 6 years + 2 year residency . Todays pharmacy grad wanting to enter clinical practice, spends as much time training as a medical doctor might have 20 years ago. Justified? No idea, might just be a product of ever increasing competitiveness in professions. But I don’t see how you roll it back.

Marketing careers in “the trades” is still a good idea, not sure it’s something we should be pushing from a very young age. But in high school some kids start figuring things out or decide college won’t be for them, so introducing to trades is a great idea, I’ve always thought this. Realistically even most trades could stand for a little extra education, so even there a bit of community college level general coursework + business education + knowledge specific to a trade would do them some good. In no way should we encourage people to “check-out” of schooling, lest we end up with more stupid zombies in society than we already have (social media already causing us to burst at the seems).

 

Once again, I have no idea what you are talking about. In what post did you demonstrate that Republicans are buying votes? The problem is, I haven’t seen any of your post. But I’m happy to go check them out and give you my unbiased opinion.

 

To the original post: 6 people in black robes disagree, and their opinion matters more than anyone on the message board. Corn78 is right. Fairness is at play here as well.

 

You’re a military guy. I’m genuinely curious, is it standard doctrine to just assume other actors will be unable to comprehend our strategic maneuvers, even if we telegraph them right out in the open?

You seem to think it works in politics, so I’m wondering if there’s carryover there.

 

I did but I needed some help.
1. Consider the military for the GI Bill.
2. Go to a two-year college for a lot less money.
4. Look for possible scholarship money.
5. Find a job and work to pay for college.
6. Transfer after receiving your two-year degree and not work at all while attending UF.
7. Graduate with only $6,500 in loan debt.
8. Pay it off within 4 years.

 

Nope. Just lived a humble subsistence until I could improve my circumstances, which I did over time by being sensible. Most folks in life and college had an easier way than I did, but I wouldn’t change a thing. To earn it means to appreciate it.

 

Right, but you appear to expect kids facing extraordinarily different circumstances to navigate higher ed in the same ways that you did. First off, many do, at least in terms of working many hrs/week to afford college. As @GatorRade pointed out, this way can compromise one's academic achievement. I know this to be true from my students, who often struggle with academics because of the lack of work/school balance. Also and I'm sure you know this, but education is far more expensive than when you and I pursued undergrad degrees.

 

Perhaps you are overvaluing higher education.
In ten years we may look back and wonder why so many wasted their money chasing the old days because everyone used to need these credentials.
It’s hard for me to say with certainty that everyone needs a degree.

 

You make some good points here, but the solution is not to pay off the debt of the barista with a degree in art history, the solution is to take the jobs back from China and eliminate useless degrees.

 

Strange that you keep responding to posts you claim you aren't seeing. Hmmm...

 

So what if kids have to work hard in and out of school. Absolutely no sympathy here, but ample empathy for those that have to work to make ends meet. And I don’t think that costs are that different when you compare wages and school costs then and now which I did in a previous post, albeit with minimal research, but no one has countered with better data yet, other than housing costs have probably exceeded overall inflation. I would counter with everyone has the opportunity to live within their means. My daughter can’t buy a home as a young married teacher in Utah, but she has the opportunity to move and get a job in any state she chooses that has more reasonable housing costs because her career choice is in high demand everywhere and it comes with generous bennies. She and her husband are living a simple existence for now, though, while he and his business partner work a promising start-up out of their senior project. A perfect example of meaningful forethought and postponement of gratification. Most kids today don’t care to understand, let alone observe, this premise. To each his own. Choices, choices, choices.

 

The cost of higher education is directly correlated with the ease of getting student loans. I went to the University of Florida in the early 80s. The cost was really low, as I recall, I paid around $1000 a semester but student loans were nearly impossible to get. I worked my way through school and paid my tuition with a part-time job, until I started my own business. I graduated from college and law school with no debt. I paid for everything myself other than a few Pell grants, and other scholarships. I wouldn’t accept money from my parents. That is not even close to being possible today.

My oldest son graduated from MIT about 10 years ago. His tuition/room was about $65,000 a year, which, if I recall was the highest in the nation. But that was a bullshit number, because practically everyone at MIT gets scholarships. With all of the scholarships that he was able to obtain his tuition was actually closer to $25,000 a year. I paid for 1/2 of his tuition because I wanted to make sure all of my kids had skin in the game. He graduated with about $40,000 in student loan debt, and had them paid off completely 4 years after graduation. I certainly understand he is an exception, because he got a higher paying job upon graduation. But most importantly, he got a degree in chemical engineering, not dance, or art history.

My youngest daughter graduated with a chemical engineering degree from the Colorado school of mines in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. Like MIT, her school charged a ridiculous tuition/room, somewhere in the $60-$70,000 range, but also gave out all types of scholarships. My daughter’s actual tuition was about $35,000 a year. Like my son, I only paid half of that tuition and forced her to figure out how to come up with the other half. She had the ability to get all types of other scholarships, and probably go to school tuition free, but she was too lazy to put in the time necessary to apply for all of the financial aid that would’ve been available to her as a woman in stem. As a consequence, she graduated with about $80,000 in student loan debt, in the middle of a pandemic, where a lot of companies had a hiring freeze. She makes a good salary now, but nowhere near what her brothers make. As a result, she’s having a difficult time paying down her student loans. She has been in the workforce for about two years and her current balance is about $78,000. If she were to have pursued a degree in music, which is her passion, she would probably be in debt north of $150k with less than 1/2 her current income. She made a choice to pursue engineering because she wants to be able to live a similar lifestyle she grew up in. She is still trying to figure things out, because she does not want to have this student debt, dragging her down.

For all three of my kids, they had banks and other outfits banging on the door looking to lend them money for tuition. It was as easy as turning on a faucet to get a glass of water. As a 19-year-old attending a university, and being away from home for the first time, it’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement of going to a frat party, football games, etc. etc., and not realizing how much debt you are accruing. Because it was so easy to get student loans, all of the universities started jacking up the tuition…Making college nearly impossible for most families without getting a student loan. When you couple that with the antiquated notion that the only way to have a successful life is to get a college degree, you have a recipe for disaster. And finally, if that didn’t make things bad enough, all of these online universities and small liberal arts school started popping up everywhere and attracting people who, during my generation, would have never gone to college. They got an AA degrees in basket weaving, bug catching and a ton of other useless skills, while incurring $20-$50,000 in debt. Most of those people are the ones that are currently screaming for Biden to eliminate their student loans.

 

Kinda hard to overvalue a college degree, but I agree that not everyone needs a degree. I haven't suggested as much.

 

Point was maybe you personally are overvaluing something that was good to you while maybe it’s not so much for many others.
But it appears we agree.

 

I'm confident that in addition to cost of attendance (rm/board/books/fees), tuition has increased disproportionately when compared with overall inflation and wages.
College Tuition Inflation [2023]: Rate Increase Statistics

• College tuition inflation averaged 4.63% annually from 2010 to 2020.
• The cost of tuition at public 4-year institutions increased 31.4% from 2010 to 2020.
• After adjusting for currency inflation, college tuition has increased 747.8% since 1963.

And . . .
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Rise-of-College-Tuition_Datastream-1.jpg

 

Ah, the projection of the Left. The post was funny because of the retweet about "how nice of her to post from one of her mansions that it's impossible for POC to get ahead today..." If that doesn't do it for you listen to comedian Bill Burr's take on "First Ladies" in general.

Has zero, zilch, nada to do with the color of anyone's skin; but, your screen of logic won't permit that thought to be true; so, for you it "is."

 

Let's see.

Federal Government in WWII would not allow employers to give raises; so, business people started offering Health Insurance as a benefit - tying for the foreseeable future your health care with your job.

Federal Government started Medicare & Medicaid and now dictates most of the market for payment in the health care space.

Federal Government is the sole guarantor of student loans - letting every college in the land know that they can pocket that money and continue to raise prices.

Health care and college tuition both increasingly more and more expensive. What are the most feared 10 words in the English language? "I'm from the government; and, I'm here to help you."

 

1996 summer B receipt for 6 credits. Might have been 7. For perspective on increasing costs....