Yay; Biden "slow," at best - regarding student loan forgiveness

[Pornfan99]

It will involve multiple levels of Government / be thought-out, if it is to happen:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/biden-student-debt-loan-forgiveness-cancel-173246655.html

I don't have children, by choice. Don't have the patience, nor want the financial responsibilities. So, *why* should I have to pay for others' children to leave home and party, and get a useless college degree that didn't allow them to earn a living??

 

[Theopolis Q. Hossenffer]

I don't expect it to happen, at least as some visualize. Reforming how College is funded needs to be done. And maybe income based repayment plans. But complete forgiveness, no.

 

[mongo18]

It will involve multiple levels of Government / be thought-out, if it is to happen:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/biden-student-debt-loan-forgiveness-cancel-173246655.html

I don't have children, by choice. Don't have the patience, nor want the financial responsibilities. So, *why* should I have to pay for others' children to leave home and party, and get a useless college degree that didn't allow them to earn a living??

I don't normally dislike posts, as a general rule. I think this might be the first one I've disliked. This attitude of my contribution should ONLY go towards things that benefit ME personally and NOTHING else is one of the major reasons that the USA is failing as a society.

 

[Pornfan99]

Mongo: uh, no. For over a decade, I've sponsored children in third world countries through World Vision. I'm also well aware that my taxes go to support welfare, state-sponsored colleges and universities (over 20% of my State Taxes go here already), etc. What I *am* against is when people knowingly accept debt for a service (education), and then seek a bailout.

 

[xfire]

Because education has turned into a big lie, they dangle the prospect of good jobs over high school kids heads and then when you get your degree and get out into the work force you're education is shit on and there often is no advantage to having gone to school, people that don't have degrees have degree envy and revel in the idea of some uneducated schlub being in a position of authority over a college graduate. Fuck yes, student debt should be cancelled, they have no problem bailing out corporations worth billions and subsidizing farmers anytime their profits slightly dip.

 

[mongo18]

Well, xfire pretty much summed it up already, but as countless economists have pointed out, America's crippling university debt problem is seriously hurting the economy by removing vast numbers of people for decades at a time. People are not buying houses and cars and starting families and essentially putting their lives on hold to pay off huge debts, which makes the penalty for getting a degree a lot longer than the 3 or 4 years it takes to get through school.

I also notice people tend to love blaming the students for making "poor life decisions" at the age of 17 or 18. Well, you took on the debt, you're a moral failure if you don't pay it all back at an extortionate interest rate. Oh, and it doesn't matter if the ass falls out of the economy and that job that every parent, teacher, and society in general promised you never materializes and you end up working a low-paid, unskilled job, you'll still be treated as if you're making all the money you were promised for the purposes of paying it back!

I know this is one of those terms that makes the eyes of many glaze over, but university education in the states has really become a weapon in the class war. If you don't come from a family that's in a position to hand over tens of thousands for an education then sure, we'll loan you the money, but you'll pay interest similar to credit card rates and be forced into payments similar to the mortgage on a respectable suburban house for at least a decade. That'll keep you where you belong. Can't have poor kids competing with our elite princes and princesses just on raw talent and ability, how could we keep them in their place???

 

[xfire]

It's only socialism if you're poor. Privatizing profits and socializing losses for taxpayers is the suck-nut Republicans idea of "Capitalism". The big tools of military recruiters when harvesting poor people to throw into the war machine are free housing, free healthcare, a guaranteed job in the career field you get free education and training in.

 

[Pornfan99]

Part of it is the college / university systems.. I took a look at the .. 96 majors offered by one of the bigger state universities. It is in the middle of nowhere. Even being generous - I counted 27 of the "majors" as being borderline useless in the real world. Some examples, by page: 1) Art Education; Art History (#s 2,3,4,5,8,9,11,20,21,22); 2) Equine Concentration (#s 2,5,12,14, 18); 3) Judaic Studies (#s 5,6,15); 4) Philosophy (#s 4,8,11,12,16,17,20,21); 5) Turfgrass Science and Management (#s 2,5,6,7,8).

 

[Theopolis Q. Hossenffer]

Remember though folks, A BS/.BA degree is the new High School diploma. My son is a VP of a company and one of the ways he has to sort out people to hire is to see if they have a degree. If they do, great, if they don't they may still get a job but the degree is very important in determining who get an interview. And many young people have over the last 50 years or so been convinced that working with your hands is some kind of second class thing. Just not smart enough to make it into college Huh? Thus a lot of trades are now the dreaded immigrants who never learned how dumb they are.

 

[mongo18]

being borderline useless in the real world. Some examples, by page: 1) Art Education; Art History (#s 2,3,4,5,8,9,11,20,21,22); 2) Equine Concentration (#s 2,5,12,14, 18); 3) Judaic Studies (#s 5,6,15); 4) Philosophy (#s 4,8,11,12,16,17,20,21); 5) Turfgrass Science and Management (#s 2,5,6,7,8).

This is almost too dumb to respond to, but wtf, we've just spent 4 years living through trump, there doesn't seem to be a floor on stupidity these days.

Equine concentration is an animal science bachelor's with a focus on horses. Definitely no money to be made in horses. Useless as fuck.
Turfgrass science and management. Yep, total dead end being a high end greenkeeper. And nobody would ever pay someone to come up with suitable grasses for difficult soil, not when you can just paint the dirt green!

Just a couple more lazy links because I grow weary of this...
https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/where-can-philosophy-take-me
https://www.apu.edu/vpa/programs/modern-art-history-masters/careers/traditional/
https://www.pdx.edu/careers/what-can-i-do-with-a-degree-in-judaic-studies (I might be with you on Judaic studies, they are a people known for not having money, so being knowledgeable about their culture is surely worthless)

Remember though folks, A BS/.BA degree is the new High School diploma. My son is a VP of a company and one of the ways he has to sort out people to hire is to see if they have a degree. If they do, great, if they don't they may still get a job but the degree is very important in determining who get an interview. And many young people have over the last 50 years or so been convinced that working with your hands is some kind of second class thing. Just not smart enough to make it into college Huh? Thus a lot of trades are now the dreaded immigrants who never learned how dumb they are.

In Australia now, tradies are pretty much making a killing, and people with degrees are a dime a dozen, not even bullshit degrees either, real ones like engineering. There's so much competition for professional jobs that a lot of employers won't even look at entry level applicants, they know the person with the exact experience they want is out there somewhere.
Free degrees for all isn't any more sustainable than degrees only for the mega rich. I still believe that a degree should be as close to free as practical, but numbers have to be controlled through academic performance.

 

[xfire]

I knew I was fucked when I was in grad school and got to talking with an older Egyptian guy that worked the meat market at the local grocery store, I'd known him for years but got to learning his backstory, he had an MS in electronic engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and worked at Texas Instruments for a few years but they hired and fired so much that he couldn't maintain steady employment and it was like that all throughout that career field. If a guy with a graduate degree in hard science like that couldn't keep a job in his field what chance would anyone in any other field. Companies fuck people, they know they can find someone with a fraction of the experience they can pay a fraction of the salary.

 

[John_8581]

Turfgrass Science and Management?

 

[gmase]

It will involve multiple levels of Government / be thought-out, if it is to happen:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/biden-student-debt-loan-forgiveness-cancel-173246655.html

I don't have children, by choice. Don't have the patience, nor want the financial responsibilities. So, *why* should I have to pay for others' children to leave home and party, and get a useless college degree that didn't allow them to earn a living??

I agree with you and @bubb

I don't expect it to happen, at least as some visualize. Reforming how College is funded needs to be done. And maybe income based repayment plans. But complete forgiveness, no.

Reforming the costs of attendance should be the #1 priority.

I've covered my positions elsewhere and I still stand by them. Forgiving debt penalizes those of us who paid cash for our kids to go through schools. And, as later posts illustrate the varied options, they got (one is 5/8 done) real degrees.

 

[Theopolis Q. Hossenffer]

Of my three children all have college degrees. One has used his and as I mentioned is a VP at an educational software company. BA and Masters. In Education and then Computers. Number two got a two year degree in Police Science. Was going to be a cop. Then went into corporate security for a big retail company. got screwed over there and started working for a privately owned Veterinarian and when he sold out due to an illness, she became the Practice Manager. Last one has a BA in Biology from a well respected private college near us. 2014. Never got a job offer. Went to work for a Veterinarian as a receptionist. Now working for a Vet hospital in Oncology and Dermatology as an apprentice. So did the degrees help. Number one, absolutely. Number two, probably not. Number three, maybe. That is the problem with college and even trade school here. You never really know. With a corporate mindset of cheap labor and limited interest if any in training it is very hard to make any decisions unless you are from the upper reaches of society and will get a position even if your degree is in Native Basket weaving.

 

[mongo18]

That is the problem with college and even trade school here. You never really know. With a corporate mindset of cheap labor and limited interest if any in training it is very hard to make any decisions unless you are from the upper reaches of society and will get a position even if your degree is in Native Basket weaving.

Yup. I have a bachelor and master in computer science. <Sarcasm> Absolute, rock solid, future-proof lock. Write your own fucking ticket </Sarcasm>. In the states it was easy to get a good paying job. But moved back to Australia and every job I applied for in the field had hundreds of applicants with decades of experience (I left the US with barely 5 years in the field). On top of that, they mostly pay barely more than I make working a pretty much unskilled job, and often require a lot more hours. And I spend most of my days out in the scrub in 4WD instead of staring at a computer screen. On a good day I see more snakes and roos than humans.
Now I'm halfway through another bachelor's, civil engineering. I'm hoping that pretty soon common sense is going to come back into fashion and there will be a lot of work in trying to mitigate the impending disasters by rebuilding infrastructure.

I never wanted to go to university. I wanted to drop out and get an apprenticeship in carpentry. But I was told there was no future in that. I'd be a loser if I didn't go to university, and that if I went to university I'd be rolling in money. Now I look at my mates who did what I wanted to do, and they're all well established, many own their own businesses, and they're pretty much all better off financially than I am. I'm sure moving to a different continent twice has had its impact too, but if I could go back, I would have ditched school and done a trade for sure.

 

[xfire]

I love the, "useless major" canard, such a glowing example of bullshit. Some career fields are better than others, that's true, but they all require two years of a core curriculum in either arts or sciences, and they all have value, it's the workforce that devalues education, looks for exact credentials and experience, and often awards hires and promotions on the good ol' boy system instead of any sort of merit. Companies complain that they can't find people, but the truth is they aren't really looking.

*Had a guy in administration comment how they can never find qualified applicants, and I'm like, "motherfucker, I know someone that applied to your bullshit establishment for three years straight and finally got a callback, got an interview and got hired after having to work two part-time retail jobs in those three years just to make ends meet." True fucking story.

 

[mongo18]

Yeah, nepotism is really big here in Australia. A couple years back my supervisor moved on. While he worked there it was always me who filled his role. When he left I applied for the position, but a mate of the boss was promoted from beneath me to above me. He's an illiterate ex-infantry moron who couldn't manage a fuck in a brothel (next guy up who put him in that role is the same, worst manager I've ever seen). After less than a year it became too obvious that he was useless so they pulled him off managing people and made him "operations manager," which puts him in charge of new projects and technology. Not the guy with the post grad in comp sci.

I think a lot of the problems with hiring has to do with HR. Come to think of it, I think a lot of problems in general with how businesses function have to do with HR, they're the only people in a company who don't know how to do any job, but want to tell everyone how to do their jobs. But back to hiring, there's a whole recruitment industry in Australia now that takes care of all the advertising and filtering of applicants, and in my experience they're writing ads and trying to find people for jobs they couldn't possibly understand. There's just too many layers of inefficiency. Businesses are terrified of hiring now too. You wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to get rid of someone who sucks even when they're employed on a casual basis. Can't give anyone the ass until you can prove that you tried your damnedest to train, retrain, and teach them that they actually do have to do the simple thing they're being paid to do, and even then they will attempt to claim anxiety or depression or some bullshit.

My 13yo has started catching onto that shit too. Apparently it's normal now for high schoolers to just not do things, like gym or public speaking, because they have "anxiety." I keep telling her everyone gets anxious before public speaking, nobody likes it, that's the whole reason they make you practice it in school. One day you'll be out of school and nobody is going to give a shit about your feelings, life is 95% doing shit you don't wanna do.

Crap, I think I meandered a little. It's early!

 

[Theopolis Q. Hossenffer]

Yeah, nepotism is really big here in Australia. A couple years back my supervisor moved on. While he worked there it was always me who filled his role. When he left I applied for the position, but a mate of the boss was promoted from beneath me to above me. He's an illiterate ex-infantry moron who couldn't manage a fuck in a brothel (next guy up who put him in that role is the same, worst manager I've ever seen). After less than a year it became too obvious that he was useless so they pulled him off managing people and made him "operations manager," which puts him in charge of new projects and technology. Not the guy with the post grad in comp sci.

I think a lot of the problems with hiring has to do with HR. Come to think of it, I think a lot of problems in general with how businesses function have to do with HR, they're the only people in a company who don't know how to do any job, but want to tell everyone how to do their jobs. But back to hiring, there's a whole recruitment industry in Australia now that takes care of all the advertising and filtering of applicants, and in my experience they're writing ads and trying to find people for jobs they couldn't possibly understand. There's just too many layers of inefficiency. Businesses are terrified of hiring now too. You wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to get rid of someone who sucks even when they're employed on a casual basis. Can't give anyone the ass until you can prove that you tried your damnedest to train, retrain, and teach them that they actually do have to do the simple thing they're being paid to do, and even then they will attempt to claim anxiety or depression or some bullshit.

My 13yo has started catching onto that shit too. Apparently it's normal now for high schoolers to just not do things, like gym or public speaking, because they have "anxiety." I keep telling her everyone gets anxious before public speaking, nobody likes it, that's the whole reason they make you practice it in school. One day you'll be out of school and nobody is going to give a shit about your feelings, life is 95% doing shit you don't wanna do.

Crap, I think I meandered a little. It's early!

After reading this I am pleased to see American culture is still permeating the world. (sarcasm alert)

 

[mongo18]

Oh yeah, sometimes I forget how isolated Americans are from the not America part of the world. You influence all western democracies at the very least, if not the entire world. Hence our great concern over your last 4 years and the last one in particular.
Doubt we can attribute all of it to trump and republicans, but extreme right wing nut jobs are getting bolder all over the place, and often coming quite close to legitimate power. It's a bit more blatant in the US because the entire country leans so far right, but it's by no means a uniquely American trend.

 

[Theopolis Q. Hossenffer]

This shit has been going on since Reagan.. Trickle down, union busting, moving everything overseas in the name of profit. Money over all. And I am so damned pessimistic that I just don't see if changing without a blood bath. And that could go either way. I don' know if any of you remember my referring to a friend of mine who is a retired Naval Officer. He maintains that what we are now seeing is the Fall of Western Civilization. Been going on for a while and will take a while more yet. But surely coming. All the others have and we are no better than they were. Despite our protestations of being more civilized.