Greed. Get ready because they’re coming for free public k-12 next.
Most colleges are just sports franchises that just have higher education as a side hustle these days.
I have accomplished very little in my life.
I have pissed off innumerable people, been ostracized, ghosted, fired, disowned, discarded, and deserved all of it.
I have never lived up to my potential. I’ve got less than zero ambition.
I have been a historically awful husband and/or boyfriend.
But I accomplished one thing:
I got my daughter through college with no debt.
While she did the work to get admitted and slog through the classes and deal with the remote classroom bullshit of the COVID era, I’m proud that I was able to pull my shit together just long enough to keep writing those godforsaken checks so she will never know the struggle of being shackled to a lifetime of crippling debt.
I did one good thing in this lifetime, and because it gave her opportunity, it was all worth it.
It’s stories like this that make me thankful that my children have EU citizenship and will never have to struggle through college debt and neither will we as their parents.
Ronald Reagan. That’s how this happened.
Not that simple. This got started before he took office, and it culminated long after he was out of office. Way more than one person is to blame.
https://www.tateesq.com/learn/student-loan-bankruptcy-law-history
Student loans first became nondischargeable in bankruptcy in 1976 due to an amendment in the Higher Education Act. Section 439A of this act made student loan debt non-dischargeable until five years after the start of the repayment period, except in cases of undue hardship. Over time, laws were tweaked and widened to reinforce this limitation.
Eat the rich.
Americans with income over $74,000 hold about 60% of the total public student loan debt
The holders of college debt are, relatively speaking, the rich in this scenario, lol. They’re sure a lot richer than all the taxpayers who never went to college, who will be the primary ones footing the bill for any college debt forgiveness that occurs.
I came up with a plan to lower college tuition years ago while tripping. It starts with the decriminalization of all drugs. And to prevent gangs and what not from profiting colleges will get the exclusive privilege of making and selling all drugs. Drug proceeds would be split between lowering tuition, setting up more college ran centers, and rehabilitation of drug users outside the colleges programs. With a small percentage allowed for the college to profit.
For the program itself, i would have the colleges set up drug manufacturing classes which should benefit students in other chemist and medical fields so it should draw in quite a few people. With the drugs made they then would be sold by college ran businesses whicj could also employ students to have on the job experience and to keep more money in the colleges sphere of influence.
At these centers where drugs are sold, there will also be areas for people to partake in the more dangerous drugs, which should be inheritly safer now that its not being tainted with other nonsense. There would be medical students watching and taking care of their patients making another facet of experience that will help in future jobs.
With all this taking place in the college system, and with plenty of opportunities to view patients, it should be easy to spot people who are in a real bad place that would benefit from health and life counseling. So for the people in need of help, counselors will approach giving an offer to participate in a program to train psychology students that comes with a heavy discount for their drugs while in the program.
My whole idea had several beneficial aspects for all of the country.
Lower colleges tuition
Raising the educational level of general poplus
Lower drug dependencies rates
Lower crime rates
Getting people help who need it
Reduction of drug over doses
Less burdens on are justice system clogged up with drug related crimes
Hampering outside nations who push dirty cheap drugs into our country
Extra tax money
Etc
Idk if anyone has any comments on my wistful thinking, but im open to revisions of my plan.
TLDR: Decrimnalize drugs and make collegese create dispense and sell said drugs to fund the well being of our society.
Jesus fucking christ this is the stupidest shit with the purest potential. I’ve never loved and hated anything so equally. I’m left completely indifferent.
You’re ambivalent not indifferent.
How Did This Happen?
College loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Simple as that.
With lenders knowing that the government will make sure they get paid, they’re happy to loan out any amount of money to anyone regardless of credit worthiness, because they take on literally zero risk.
Then colleges realize the same, and jack up their prices in turn. The feedback loop brings us to where we are today. There is no market (or other) force putting any downward pressure on tuition costs, at all. This is the inevitable result.
People are willing to pay it, therefore they will charge it.
We badly need people in the skilled trades. The jobs pay well, are in high demand, and don’t require you go go into massive college debt.
They also are not hiring, or require someone to help you get through the door, just like everything else these days. Telling people to do trade work is incredibly tone-deaf.
Which trades are you referring to?
I live close by to a community college that allows basically anyone to fairly quickly (1-2 yrs) get into a trade. I know several people who did. It’s not “easy” in the sense that yeah, you’re still learning a whole fucking skillset and trying to land your first adult job, but it’s definitely… extremely doable…?
Exactly. Presenting people with real solutions to their problems is important and getting into a well paying trade job is a solution the average worker can achieve if they so choose.
The government also made huge student loans widely available. So government tried to narrow the wealth gap. In response, colleges just raised their prices, and students were forced to take out bigger and bigger loans.
Yep. You hand out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who haven’t yet had to balance a bank account and it’s going to get spent en-mass. Why go to a trade school or a community college when you can go to [insert most expensive school that accepted you]?
A potential solution here is to cap the maximum amount of loan that is immune to bankruptcy discharge. This will have the effect of depressing the total amount of loans an average student has access to and force colleges to follow suit if they want to see continued enrollment.
