[Discussion] Election 2020

Seems like the board is set. Let’s see how this goes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with labor jobs, skilled trades, various sorts of self-employment, military, etc. that people can do and even make a whole lot of money in them, but so many people who might have considered these things are pressured into college even when it's entirely the wrong thing for them.

I don't at all believe everyone needs to go to college[...]

I would agree with you if high schools were preparing students to be functional, informed members of society. Unfortunately they are not, so even a two year degree would be a huge benefit to most HS graduates these days. The thing about those first two years of college is that they teach students by experience how to be better at socializing, but more importantly, they focus on critical thinking skills that are crucial for being a valuable citizen, regardless of one's trade.

And that was a horrible run-on sentence. Shame on me.

BadKen wrote:

I would agree with you if high schools were preparing students to be functional, informed members of society. Unfortunately they are not, so even a two year degree would be a huge benefit to most HS graduates these days. The thing about those first two years of college is that they teach students by experience how to be better at socializing, but more importantly, they focus on critical thinking skills that are crucial for being a valuable citizen, regardless of one's trade.

And that was a horrible run-on sentence. Shame on me.

But what I wonder is that IF we actually valued labor and skilled trades and the like and encouraged our kids in those directions as well as college that we would be preparing students to be functional in those areas. From what I understand, a lot of schools have gotten rid of those sorts of programs so the kids that really aren't suited for college and have no interest in it end up doing very poorly, drop out, and then have the thousands of dollars of debt for nothing. It's terrible.

Ask any professor of first-year students. No public high school is preparing students for college. Students that are prepared are prepared because they did so on their own initiative, on the insistence of their parents, or they went to an expensive private college prep school.

My point is that the fundamentals of being a citizen are important to everyone, regardless of their trade. That has to be taught somewhere, and public high schools aren't doing it. The first two years of college are fundamentals. Even students on a doctorate track study things outside their field. And don't forget the socialization aspects of college years. High school society isn't remotely a microcosm of actual society.

Regardless of their trade, regardless of whether they are "suited for college," people are entering the workforce unprepared for being a citizen. If they aren't suited for a four year degree, fine. But they need more than what they are getting in high school.

AND the human brain is not fully mature until age 25. Two years of college doesn't get students there, but it at least gets them closer.

I'm fairly certain (maybe I read it somewhere) that the vast majority of HS graduates would not pass the English and Civics citizenship tests that naturalized citizens are required to pass. That is tragic.

BadKen wrote:

Ask any professor of first-year students. No public high school is preparing students for college. Students that are prepared are prepared because they did so on their own initiative, on the insistence of their parents, or they went to an expensive private college prep school.

My point is that the fundamentals of being a citizen are important to everyone, regardless of their trade. That has to be taught somewhere, and public high schools aren't doing it. The first two years of college are fundamentals. Even students on a doctorate track study things outside their field.

I'm fairly certain (maybe I read it somewhere) that the vast majority of HS graduates would not pass the English and Civics citizenship tests that naturalized citizens are required to pass. That is tragic.

The problem is that students are "required" to do those first two years of college while racking up more and more debt, and many don't even make it through their Freshman year but they still get to keep the debt. There needs to be other suitable solutions other than college or nothing. I realize what it is like now, but we need to give students more viable choices. If they're not getting what they need during their first 12 years of school, then that needs to be fixed too. (Although I know it's an uphill battle with the GOP fighting against public anything.) But seriously, we send these kids for hours upon hours every day for 12 years and it should be far, far more than enough to learn what they need to learn, and it's a huge problem that they are not. Colleges shouldn't have to waste the first two years of higher education teaching things that students should already know long before getting there, and for free.

Of course, to even have a hope of ever improving education on a wide-scale basis, Betsy DeVos needs to go. Should have never been in in the first place.

I apologize -- I am not talking about the world we live in right now. Of course people shouldn't be required to be saddled with debt to prepare themselves to be citizens. I am talking about my fantasyland where public higher education is free for everyone.

Djinn wrote:

During the primaries, Warren's proposal was partial forgiveness based on income and the size of your loan. I don't remember the numbers, but something like that could also be a good idea. It's the idea of total debt forgiveness than I dislike. Sure, the minimum wage worker with a 5-figure debt needs support now, but the professional making good money with their degree should pay back their loan.

Why? What’s the justification for “some but not all must pay back their student loans “?

I used to teach math at the community college (from 96-16). My last semester teaching evening classes, I taught an algebra 1 class. We’d teach factoring at the end of the semester. Before then....operations with numbers, graphing lines, solving linear equations and inequalities, exponential rules, polynomial multiplication and division.

The quadratic equation, functions, and graphing basic parabolas was in algebra 2.

Every student who was 20 or under had taken CALCULUS in high school.
Until high schools can have alternate tracks for students and fail students who don’t do the work or master the material, college will continue to be the new high school.

I did undergrad with no loans. Husband’s were around 18k. I did take loans for grad school...about 22k.
We paid them all off.
However, my most expensive textbook was $90.
The class I taught required a text that was over $200.
And a 3 credit class for in county at the cc is around $500.

Education is a whole ‘nother thread!
Increase taxes to actually PAY for what we need (state education, prisons —-NOT FOR PROFIT, roads, health care). Forgive student loans. Make college affordable for state schools. Make a high school diploma mean something again. Open trade schools for students not headed to college.
End corporate welfare.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Djinn wrote:

During the primaries, Warren's proposal was partial forgiveness based on income and the size of your loan. I don't remember the numbers, but something like that could also be a good idea. It's the idea of total debt forgiveness than I dislike. Sure, the minimum wage worker with a 5-figure debt needs support now, but the professional making good money with their degree should pay back their loan.

Why? What’s the justification for “some but not all must pay back their student loans “?

Because you're talking about subsidizing people who have high incomes (or those who will soon have high incomes). Universal student debt forgiveness is a refund for the wealthy. Those who have the biggest loans are those with masters or PhDs who have tremendous earning potential. A doctor with $100k student debt and a $250k income shouldn't receive a $100k cheque in the mail from the government.

Almost no one who had to take student loans were wealthy or even part of the wealthy after college. Solid middle class is still nowhere near wealthy.

Djinn wrote:

A doctor with $100k student debt and a $250k income shouldn't receive a $100k cheque in the mail from the government.

Why not? Increase their taxes a bit, and they will be paying for it themselves. Seems fair to me.

Djinn wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Djinn wrote:

During the primaries, Warren's proposal was partial forgiveness based on income and the size of your loan. I don't remember the numbers, but something like that could also be a good idea. It's the idea of total debt forgiveness than I dislike. Sure, the minimum wage worker with a 5-figure debt needs support now, but the professional making good money with their degree should pay back their loan.

Why? What’s the justification for “some but not all must pay back their student loans “?

Because you're talking about subsidizing people who have high incomes (or those who will soon have high incomes). Universal student debt forgiveness is a refund for the wealthy. Those who have the biggest loans are those with masters or PhDs who have tremendous earning potential. A doctor with $100k student debt and a $250k income shouldn't receive a $100k cheque in the mail from the government.

I totally agree with this. It’s impoverished Americans and their children who need to be the invested in the most.

On the other hand, I’ve had some candid conversations with my PCPs. They’ve expressed to me during personal conversation that they’re not sure if they’ll ever get out from under their debt. They’re a married couple, both physicians, and they bought the practice from one of their fathers. Their father was my PCP since I was 20. They work incredibly hard and long hours.

It’s clearly an incredibly complex issue.

Doctors also have to carry malpractice insurance which is very costly.

I was doing some googling to see if I could find any research backing up my argument and I did come across this article on NPR.

NPR - Student Debt Forgiveness Sounds Good. What Might Happen If The Government Did It?

But critics of mass debt cancellation plans fear that these proposals would benefit well-off Americans the most. That's because the people who take out the largest loans do so to pay for costly graduate degrees. While they might be expensive, these graduate degrees help borrowers earn a higher salary, so they don't have as much trouble paying back their debt. So, these borrowers default on their student loans less.

The people who default on their loans have, on average, less than $10,000 in student loan debt. These people are more likely to be low income, black, former students of for-profit institutions and those who stopped taking classes before getting a degree.

Eliminating all student debt, per Sanders' plan, would increase the wealth gap between white and black households, according to one 2015 study co-authored by left-leaning think tank Demos. (Two economists from Brandeis University who worked on the study co-authored an economic analysis for Warren's campaign this year.)

To decrease the racial wealth gap, researchers at Demos have recommended a plan like Warren's, which eliminates more debt for borrowers who make less.

RJD2 Calamavote is gud.

You should never not do good things because they might benefit the "wrong" people. Period.

Beuks33 wrote:

You should never not do good things because they might benefit the "wrong" people. Period.

The arguments we're hearing now for why universal student debt forgiveness would be "unfair" are sounding very much like the standard arguments for why universal basic income would be "unfair".

I’ve had an aarp card for half a decade and endured the coming of age period Americans know as “being hounded by student loan collectors”. That was despite having scholarships and going to a state school. And that was when college was tremendously more affordable.

I honestly have no idea how kids do it now. If we don’t at least make it as “easy” as I had it, we have failed as a nation.

Make it free.

Just because today's current society says a particular job field has a lot of 'earning potential' doesn't mean it actually should. Doctors are a useful and valuable job getting screwed out of their potential by malpractice insurance. CEOs get rewarded for treating their workers poorly and making products that are exactly as awful as their 'competitors.' Bankers get paid to move fake wealth tokens around and invent unnecessary and complicated financial instruments.

Our economic system is screwed up and full of perverse incentives. It shouldn't be used as a basis for who gets help.

There are plenty of other mechanisms to help address the racial inequality gap that don't continue to punish students who were lied to.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

RJD2 Calamavote is gud.

Oh man!! Thanks for this!

Now I want ice cream...

Djinn wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Djinn wrote:

During the primaries, Warren's proposal was partial forgiveness based on income and the size of your loan. I don't remember the numbers, but something like that could also be a good idea. It's the idea of total debt forgiveness than I dislike. Sure, the minimum wage worker with a 5-figure debt needs support now, but the professional making good money with their degree should pay back their loan.

Why? What’s the justification for “some but not all must pay back their student loans “?

Because you're talking about subsidizing people who have high incomes (or those who will soon have high incomes). Universal student debt forgiveness is a refund for the wealthy. Those who have the biggest loans are those with masters or PhDs who have tremendous earning potential. A doctor with $100k student debt and a $250k income shouldn't receive a $100k cheque in the mail from the government.

You still haven’t said why, you’ve just repeated that we shouldn’t. “You might be able to pay it back some day” sounds like terrible reason to leave someone in debt.

I did say why. It's a refund for the wealthy. You're taking money from taxpayers -- the majority of which do not have post-secondary education -- and giving it to people who don't need it. I'm very perplexed that my argument -- one shared by Warren herself -- is getting such flack here.

Let's use myself as an example. I have a Computer Science degree and I graduated with a little over $30k in loans. I'm not rich, but I certainly make more than enough to be comfortable. Why should the government send me a $30k cheque in the mail that I clearly don't need when there's far better uses for that money?

Djinn wrote:

I did say why. It's a refund for the wealthy. You're taking money from taxpayers -- the majority of which do not have post-secondary education -- and giving it to people who don't need it. I'm very perplexed that my argument -- one shared by Warren herself -- is getting such flack here.

Let's use myself as an example. I have a Computer Science degree and I graduated with a little over $30k in loans. I'm not rich, but I certainly make more than enough to be comfortable. Why should the government send me a $30k cheque in the mail that I clearly don't need when there's far better uses for that money?

Think of it this way: they aren't sending YOU a check in the mail. They are sending it to a company that owns your debt that would likely make twice as much off of you during the time of your repayment. Meanwhile - YOU will most likely spend the money that you no longer pay to those WEALTHY banks or lenders on buying things. Buying things helps other people, companies and the economy.

The unfair part is society and schools pressuring young people to take on these loans in the hopes of a lifetime job in the future.

If you look into Warren and Sanders' plans you should also see that paying of the majority of student loan debt would not really hurt taxpayers - it would benefit a lot of people a lot more then other things the govt spends on like injecting money into the stock market, etc.

I still thought that with the real estate bank crash. Send the money to people to pay their mortgages. Instead we propped up the banks that made bad deals and foreclosed on a bunch of houses. How did that help anyone except the banks who caused the mess in the first place?

Stele wrote:

I still thought that with the real estate bank crash. Send the money to people to pay their mortgages. Instead we propped up the banks that made bad deals and foreclosed on a bunch of houses. How did that help anyone except the banks who caused the mess in the first place?

Because the other option was to let the banks fail--which would have brought down all the other banks down because of how interconnected they were--and that would have led to people and businesses suddenly not being able to access any of their money until the government could step in and sort sh*t out.

Basically the entire US economy would have ground to a very sudden and almost complete stop with people unable to do basic things like buy gas and groceries.

Means testing isn’t worth it. It just ends up being gamed by those who can afford to game it and used to punish people who don’t deserve to be punished.

Reaper81 wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

Someone should check on Pence. Today's the day he gets booted off the ticket and replaced by JFK Jr. who's totally not dead and totally a big fan of Trump.

Is that a Q thing?

Partially. Q has not come out and said this, but since Q spouts deliberately vague and meaningless nonsense, many Qultists have interpreted some "Q drops" as saying JFK Jr is still alive.

karmajay wrote:

Think of it this way: they aren't sending YOU a check in the mail. They are sending it to a company that owns your debt that would likely make twice as much off of you during the time of your repayment. Meanwhile - YOU will most likely spend the money that you no longer pay to those WEALTHY banks or lenders on buying things. Buying things helps other people, companies and the economy.

Even in America, the vast majority of student debt isn't owned by private banks. It's owned by the federal government. If the government cancels the, what is it, $1.3 trillion dollars owed to them and all future student loan debt it will have to raise that revenue elsewhere through higher taxes. Yes, I know you're thinking we can just tax the 1% and that's part of the solution, but they're not an endless source of money that will fund every progressive idea on the agenda. Revenue of that enormity will have to be recouped by taxes on a lot more people than the 1%.

Does this school loan discussion need another thread?

As it stands now in the US, the 1% indeed does feel like an endless fountain of money, who could fix immense problems with said cash (flint’s water pipes, anyone?) but somehow , during a gosh darn pandemic , they accumulate more wealth for the dragons to sleep on.

And we, the small cogs in this machine, are
to be grateful to our billionaire overlords for the “opportunities” they let trickle down.

Djinn wrote:

I did say why. It's a refund for the wealthy. ... Why should the government send me a $30k cheque in the mail that I clearly don't need when there's far better uses for that money?

How will that be determined? Like gravity said, means testing is a lot of effort that won’t stop the wealthy from getting around it.

Legitimate question: why do you care if someone who could eventually pay back a loan gets that loan forgiven? How does that negatively impact you, especially where it’s a one-time thing like in this case? How is this any different than hand-wringing over “welfare queens” but with a more palatable target (“rich folk”)?