What we REALLY need to do is fund non-profit vocational schools to train more plumbers, beauticians, nurses, and other professional workers who currently fall prey to scam schools that leave them with high debt and a useless piece of paper that only says they’re suckers. That goes doubly for film school.
Four year college is a scam anyway. It’s really just a test that rewards conformists with good memories. Then you get out in the real world and employers start you at the bottom and train you how to do the job the same as anyone else. Employers don’t care what you learned in college, they only care that you learned it. But if you don’t go to college, they won’t even let you start at the bottom.
We need to teach people REAL skills and not force them to pay for classes on Shakespeare and Freud. People can always learn that stuff on their own, once they’re making real money as skilled professionals.
How are you being penalized? You made your life choices and apparently think they were the better ones, so how is this punishment for them that people who took on student loan debt might get some help? You want a handout too? Is that it? You believe that it’s unfair to you that they no longer be hampered by student loans when competing with you in the personal finances Olympics…that you’re losing some sort of advantage you earned?
Here’s a big fat hint: overwhelming student loan debt is harming you too, not just those of us weighted down by it.
Whether you agree or disagree with her proposal can we agree we need more of this i.e. a willingness to make a concrete proposal instead of blowing Unicorn farts? That we should be supporting this type of politician instead of the shouty ones?
It’s the difference between choosing a person who’s willing to be a wonk and know their stuff vs a @#$%*^& celebrity (we know how well that’s turned out).
Fully on board with everything except making a 4 year college education free. It sounds great to say “everyone should get a liberal arts degree” but I’ve always felt there’s a hidden bit of elitism in that notion. A liberal arts college education simply isn’t for everyone, just like becoming a carpenter, or a plumber or an auto-mechanic isn’t for everyone. All are noble pursuits.
Free community college is a great idea since it will let people sample the waters and see if this is something they’re actually interested in and at least reasonably good at it. This should be paired with an emphasis on making trade schools or apprenticeships or what have you affordable and available to those who prefer, or are better suited, to that. And then yes, if you do wish to get a 4 year education (or more) and have the skills to succeed at it then nobody should have to give up that option simply due to a lack of funds. But that’s an issue that can be addressed in ways other than simply making it a blanket free option for everyone out of the gate.
I say this as someone who has spent significant time teaching at public 4 year universities where there are inevitably students who are wasting their time and money pursuing something that clearly doesn’t really interest them and/or that they are simply not very good at. Part of this latter issue of course circles back to problems with the K-12 education system, but expecting to fix that problem by plonking an under prepared or uninterested student into a liberal arts program is putting the cart before the horse. This is again why a free start in community college is a better idea.
And I can’t say clearly enough that I am not framing this as saying some students are not “worthy” of a college education. I’m in fact saying the opposite, which is that I believe we put far too much cache and worth on a college education vs. other forms of training and education which are equally valid, worthy, and viable.
That’s not unfairly judgmental, at all! Curiously, what percent of those with high student loan debt do you think are among those who made ill-informed choices?
I think it may need a means testing component (and no photoshoping of faces or someone else’s body), and a performance tracking element that would be part of the mix. I don’t want a smart and talented kid to be kept out of college and future opportunities just because college has become such a ridiculously expensive commodity. (Of course, I am also not talking about Harvard or any of the private schools, just the state ones or perhaps even community college.)
Exactly! There is an actual shortage of skilled tradespeople - plumbers and electricians specifically in my neck of the woods. But there is an abundance of people with debt they can’t afford for jobs they could have realistically qualified for based on a high school diploma alone.
At the moment, I am beginning to think that Warren could be spotted walking on water or raising the dead and she still couldn’t get any serious media attention. They must be absolutely terrified of her.
This sounds like a good idea to me despite the fact that I’m one of those people who already paid off a rather large student loan and would have been eligible for this if I hadn’t.
I’m not worried about someone today getting an advantage I didn’t have 10 years ago.
Why should I be?
It doesn’t hurt me a bit.
Also, I know people saddled with student loan debt who don’t look to me like they’ve made these alleged “bad choices” in life or are slackers.
That old canard about “uninformed choices” tends to ignore that no-one can predict the future and that the economy has been drastically changing in the past 30 years. Even with an informed perspective 20 years ago, it would be possible to have gotten into the student loan debt trap.
It’s also relevant that the whole debacle with how we treat health care can dovetail into this on an individual level and create student loan debt (when putting it into forbearance to pay medical bills).
So, some undeserving people will benefit (true of every policy, ever) therefore no one should have it. Deeply unsound and selfish reasoning.
This is also not some private university student pay-off. 66% of public university students graduate with student loan debt (compared to 68% of all graduates). This helps everyone, roughly equally.
I’m fascinated by the responses here that are essentially “We can’t do something that would be wonderful for the vast majority of younger americans because there’s a chance that a few people might benefit unfairly.” That kind of division is exactly what the republicans count to keep progressive ideas out of the mainstream while they pass legislation whose entire point is that a few people benefit unfairly.
If nothing else, we should applaud Warren for moving the Overton window on college financing. And yeah, there should be sweeteners for people who have scrimped to pay off their debts already. But I remember my classmates already figuring out what courses they should take not bases on what they wanted to do, rather on what would get them the best-paying jobs to pay off their debt. Even if those jobs were objectively worse for society. College debt lock-in is a lot like the people who used to be locked into jobs because of pre-existing conditions, only no one ever claimed that was somehow morally uplifting.
Warren is way ahead of the rest of them, in terms of being an outstandingly good presidential candidate. But what she really needs to do is make herself younger, more telegenic, male, jump up on coffee shop counters, and pander to Republicans. Only then she will be a strong candidate.
