Well, that’s not good, but while you can show me funding cuts that happened in a certain time frame, I think I remain unsure that the Boomers got together and did that particular thing all on their Boomer own because they’re the uniquely awful Boomers. We’re kind of famous in this country for taking a multigenerational approach to consistently underfunding education for anyone but our own kids. We have world-class districts where the affluent live and mediocre to terrible ones most other places. We don’t value education as a good in itself, or as a thing everyone deserves done right. We’ve always been stuck in the middle of the pack as far as test scores compared to many other countries in Europe and Asia whose outcomes are much more equitable across class lines.
College tuition has become a scam. I went for free to get my Master’s Degree. I actually got paid for teaching as a Grad student. My tuition for undergrad college was $500 per semester. That was in the 1980s. I wouldn’t be able to go to college today. My daughter owes $20,000 in student loans.
Boomers fit solidly into the timeline of the people who drove the funding cuts, but it’s obviously a small enough subset of boomers that it’s unfair to pin it on boomers. I think it’s fair to call this subset “Republicans.”
I’m thinking of Proposition 13 proponents Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, born in 1903 and 1912, respectively. Not boomers. The 1978 law resulted in decreased education funding in California. There’s a lot of theorizing about how the proposition came about but nobody suggests that boomers were clamoring for it and nobody else. So again, we’re left with a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking about the boomers.
Because reasons. Ken Paxton would sue in a flash because a (D) can not be a Unitary Executive. Only an ® can be one.
These are averages debt situation for POC is much more burdensome both relatively and in real terms.
I think public schools should graduate all their students debt free.
But if we are going to have a debate about education spending to me the bigger need is to bring k-12 achievement up to national averages or better in disadvantaged communities.
Ideally I’d like to see free public college AND improved k-12 spending.
In the meanwhile can we all agree that the rules for students loans need to change
bankruptcy et al.
student loans should be a not for profit below market interest gov direct program, let’s keep the for profit financial sector out of education.
Similar depredations befell the UMass system in the 90s. Having Whitey Bulger’s brother running the system made it worse, not better. Ex. Once a world class language department - by 9/11 there was no longer any graduate instruction in Arabic, Farsi, etc., and nothing more esoteric like Pashto, Tagalog, etc.
Tagalog is hardly esoteric if you live in a town with both a
JollyBee
and a Sea Food City 
Heck in my neck of the woods there is a Filipino aisle at the Walmart Supermarket.
The difference between public / private is not as big as imagined. Those accepted to
private liberal arts college ($55,000 / year tuition) will typically get a $25,000 + scholarship
package. State four year schools might be $25,000 / year but offer much less aid.
I have a kid in each category and the debt is not much different after four years.
And I graduated college with $10,000 debt back in 1975, 10% of my kids debt (actually
much is mine as parent loans)
My Dept. of Ed. parent plus loans stand at 8.5% interest. Just reducing the interest rate would make a huge difference.
$10,000 would barely dent the debt of millions of debt holders.
I agree that making it more meritocratic will help silence the ignorant critics and provide the incentive to finish degrees. The current system is horrible in that it encourages both people taking out huge loans for degrees that won’t allow them to pay them back and encourages banks to make those loans because the government backstop means they don’t really have skin in the game. It’s the best investment we as a people and students as individuals can make in the future, we just need to find a balance that isn’t purely a vehicle for bankers to insert themselves as middlemen.
Granted, but if the average student loan burden is roughly $29K, that $10K could make a big dent. If this gonna happen, you gotta start somewhere. I’d prefer to target those at the lower end of the future earnings potential.
[What’s the Average Student Loan Debt for a Bachelor’s Degree? - NerdWallet]
Residency, the type of school you attend and your ability to pay without loans will affect how much you borrow for a bachelor’s degree. The average is $28,950.
You can sue anyone for anything, doesn’t mean you will be successful.
I am having trouble who would even have standing to sue in this case. Maybe the private companies that administer student loans?
Agreed!
Student loans should not be a profit center.
Should be a revenue neutral government program.
$29k may be the average, but that still leaves millions with closer to $60k-100k+ range (with very high interest rates mind you). So many people seen to forget that those with extreme debt isn’t a trivial number and it’s those people who have it worse off. By doing only $10k all you’re doing is saying "well we’re just gonna help out this group at the bottom who isn’t really strapped with a lifetime’s worth of debt.
I’ll agree with you that the interest rates are usurious, and should be addressed up front. But the odds of the GQP agreeing to bail out an MD, JD, or IT now on a path to a high paying job is pretty remote. Let’s take incremental steps and work from the bottom up, rather than the top down.
YMMV.
Certainly, the republican boomers stood on the shoulders of their political ancestors.
Why do you assume that people with excessive debt are those in high income jobs? Or is this just a case of not wanting to include those high earners in any sort of relief, in spite of those who don’t have those high earning jobs?