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OT: American Politics

cmon3 said:
My solution would be:
First stop the problem. Get rid of school loans. Or make them follow typical standards like we’re not loaning you 25k per year to get a degree that pays 40k per year.
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This is very harmful. Rich ppl can afford post secondary and nobody else. Student loans with zero interest give opportunity to everyone but ideally it should be free.
 
The problem is stagnant wages, universities gauging to pay increasing administration costs and offering too many degrees that don’t teach marketable skills.

In the current system your prospects are way better learning a trade than going $200k in debt for a BA in gender studies or art history or whatever.

But if you go into medicine or computer enigneering it’s till a good deal.
 
leafman101 said:
The problem is stagnant wages, universities gauging to pay increasing administration costs and offering too many degrees that don’t teach marketable skills.

In the current system your prospects are way better learning a trade than going $200k in debt for a BA in gender studies or art history or whatever.

But if you go into medicine or computer enigneering it’s till a good deal.
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Yeah, frankly nobody should be going into so much debt outside of like medicine. But people are idiots at 18, and it's frankly idiotic that we let people make decisions that can have such terrible future implications at that age. So giving people some relief so they can get out of poverty and not be saddled with the debt is a good thing.

The system does need fundamental changes. That doesn't get discussed enough in the student loan discussions. But I don't know what the answer to that is.

But in the end, debt relief for students is basically a roundabout way to just subsidize universities. They charge more, people take more loans, the government pays back those loans = government funding of the schools.
 
Jean-Paul Sartre had the perfect definition of disingenuous MAGA choades like FlyGuy.

“They play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
 
cmon3 said:
On the border. Fix it so it’s not a sieve and we’re not just allowing anyone in. Then figure out what to do with the people here that shouldn’t be.

Some need to go some should stay. It’s been 50 years of this crap.

Biden and Harris didn’t give a crap about it until they saw it was going to cost them the election.
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we aren't necessarily too far off on this issue. I will say you have to remember that covid was still raging when Biden/Harris came in, their main focus for a couple of years was dealing with the pandemic and then doing an overall great job at getting the economy on track. I think work on the bill started last year, but wasn't finalized until early 2024.

But you also make a good point that this has been an issue for decades. Meaning that it's an American issue, not owned exclusively by the Democrats, that hasn't been solved because it's an extremely fucking complicated issue to "solve".
 
UWHabs said:
Yeah, frankly nobody should be going into so much debt outside of like medicine. But people are idiots at 18, and it's frankly idiotic that we let people make decisions that can have such terrible future implications at that age. So giving people some relief so they can get out of poverty and not be saddled with the debt is a good thing.

The system does need fundamental changes. That doesn't get discussed enough in the student loan discussions. But I don't know what the answer to that is.

But in the end, debt relief for students is basically a roundabout way to just subsidize universities. They charge more, people take more loans, the government pays back those loans = government funding of the schools.
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It’s good policy in the short term to help people who need it, but long term it’s not sustainable to have taxpayers pay for the most useless of college educations that don’t pay for themselves.

The change and the debt relief should go hand in hand. Can’t just keep making the same mistake.
 
cmon3 said:
Students signed up for the loans. They shouldn’t have ever been made. Universities selling the idea that you’re going to be able to get a great high paying job in all kinds of areas of study that are not needed and just follow your dreams etc. the universities should refund their students for misleading them and charging exorbitant prices to attend. Plus the structure of 4 years for a basic degree to make sure they get their money. If you borrowed 100k for an inane invaluable degree did you not look into that before? Or how much of that was so you could live in the posh dorm while you were there.

My solution would be:
First stop the problem. Get rid of school loans. Or make them follow typical standards like we’re not loaning you 25k per year to get a degree that pays 40k per year. And make it qualified on maintaining a minimum gpa etc.

Then allow students to sue universities for excessive tuition charges. Regardless of if they have loans.

Why should a 28 year old nurse who worked her way through school pay taxes to reimburse the 30 year old drama major who borrowed $150k so he/she could stay in a nice dorm in an expensive private school and also spend a couple summers abroad and who still goes on a couple high dollar vacations every year?
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I mean people should be able to go to school. Loans help pay for tuition and living expenses. Schools do need to be held accountable for how insanely expensive it's become to go to them though, I agree.

I don't buy the argument saying, what about the people who paid their loans, I mean I get that it sucks but we have to be smarter moving forward. It's not a legit argument to say we shouldn't decriminalize marijuana or raise the speed limit on a road where it's obviously needed because people in the past were charged with possession or given speeding tickets. The past is not the future, that's the whole point of government fixing things that are broken.
 
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There’s nothing wrong with student loans. I’m less keen on debt forgiveness, it would require very limited and special circumstances.

The cost of university tuition, however, is outrageous. There’s a lot of fat that can be cut from the system.
 
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