this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
748 points (94.4% liked)
politics
18601 readers
4327 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS.
It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments.
Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Register To Vote
• Citizenship Resource Center
• Congressional Awards Program
• Federal Government Agencies
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• The White House
• U.S. House of Representatives
• U.S. Senate
Partnered Communities:
• News
• World News
• Business News
• Military News
• Global Politics
• Moderate Politics
• Progressive Politics
• UK Politics
• Canadian Politics
• Australian Politics
• New Zealand Politics
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Important to remember, in many cases it was a goal, not a side effect. When someone lived out their life and they're kinda miserable and unfulfilled, they might justifiably hate our world, in a sense. There's really only one way to take revenge on it, and that's to perpetuate and worsen the shittiness so that nobody can hope to escape it.
Misery loves company, or so the saying goes.
Says a lot about the people that absolutely don't want for student debt to be cleared in the USA because they had to clear it themself.
The worst part is that the student debt they paid off was a small portion of the debt that people cannot afford to pay off now because the same people defunded universities.
When I was a young kid a summer job at minimum wage could pay for a year of state college. By the time I attended a summer job paid for a semester. Now a summer job at the minimum wage will barely pay for books, since the minimum wage has stagnated and tuition goes up year after year.
I don't think it's particularly complex.
They captured state houses and gutted state budgets for direct funding to universities. Simultaneously, democrats tried to make up the difference at the national level by pushing for and getting pell grants, which are dedicated grant funds. This means there's a dedicated amount of federal funds on the table every year, which mitigates against the market forces that would otherwise push tuition prices back down.
Students are then encouraged to take personal loans to cover the manufactured shortfall. Students can't discharge this in bankruptcy, which encourages bad lending practices.
Almost all of this is very normal cause and effect with plenty of analogous historical examples, so even if we the idiot people don't get it, you can be pretty sure that our highly educated and wealthy elected officials knew exactly what would happen.
If this were all too confusing or complex to know the outcome, then at least some of the time we'd see benefit randomly go to the individual. But it doesn't, ever.
You know what would help with rising costs and increased enrollment?
Not eliminating funding.
Let me clarify. It is complicated - there are a lot of moving parts, as you say. But again, that is 100% design choice.
Complexity means that there's some level of uncertainty. I don't believe that there's any uncertainty with how we have structured education. It works consistently to force individuals to shoulder the burden, while providing benefit to the people who need it least. If you implement these policies, you'll get the same outcome every time.
That last paragraph is a mess. Nice.
Sure was. Was using swipe typing in bright sunlight. Fixed a few of the glaring typos. Thanks!
More complex, sure, but that is the primary reason.
I’m not sure I agree. It’s had a huge impact on community colleges and a lot of state schools, but the issues really are varied and impact different schools/states in different ways and to different degrees.
Make no mistake, the democrats are better for schools than republicans. But we can’t just blame every single thing on republicans or we sound like them calling everyone they disagree with a commie in the 2000’s/2010’s.
You should cite some of the other reasons rather than just saying they exist. For example administrative staffing costs have risen dramatically over the last few decades. The upper management of universities now make CEO like wages. Universities are competing on amenities more than they are academics. Nice housing and recreational complexes are the norm while full time professors are all being replaced by adjuncts who aren’t paid a living wage. The economics are broken.
I did cite multiple pieces in my follow up comment because both of us were speaking in generalities.
While correct, the real problem came when they made banks unable to refuse college loans. Suddenly, colleges could set whatever price they wanted, and the banks had to agree. That skyrocketed costs and directly led to the current situation.
Of course, it really started even further back than that when we allowed education to be privately funded rather than a public good.
The fact that people don't understand that more free education means a better life for everybody is really frustrating
We don't bat an eye at having tax-funded libraries (well the GOP is starting to...) because we have internalized as a society that they're a good thing. I have never understood why we can't do the same with schools.
If Republicans didn't spend the majority of their energy on destroying anything publicly funded I would stop blaming them first for destroying everything publicly funded.
Deflecting from the biggest part of the issue is why so little progress is made in solving complex issues.
They'd have a lot harder time justifying massive administrative pay to a funding subcommittee than they do justifying it to a bunch of trustees who are also rich assholes and know they can charge as much as they want for tuition because everyone just gets loans.
The Department of Education is audited regularly. The DoD isn't.
I would be surprised if the people most aggressively against student loan forgiveness had any personal difficulty with student loans themselves at all. The politicians beating the drum were likely wealthy enough for tuition to be an afterthought, and their constituents do not value education enough to have needed the loans in the first place.
If you're in the second camp you're probably also bitter that these educated liberal elite, that think their so fancy and embarrass you with their big city talk, want now to get their education, which they lord over you, FOR FREE! You're probably angry that these young people with their hip culture you don't understand or have time for, because you're waking up predawn to drive 45 minutes to your manual labor job which is wrecking your body, "don't have to work like you do." In short, you're probably not very big picture oriented, your self esteem is probably pretty fragile, and you're probably not the strongest abstract thinker. You're likely angry to the point of antisocial, and relish any opportunity to leverage your will.
If those people are over a certain age, they "cleared" it themselves with GI benefits and/or they worked during the summer to pay for tuition.
Hurt people hurt people. Also, dumb people hurt people.