Posted on 09/27/2013 12:22:05 AM PDT by freedom462
So as conservatives rally behind Cruz for taking on the establishment and doing such a great job trying to prevent the statist from destroying health care, I have figured, soon after it will be time to turn the same attention to the gov't's attempts to take over our education and gov'ts attempts to use education to enslave the people. Student loans are pretty close to being as dire a crisis as saving health care from gov't tyranny. The following are solutions that conservatives have suggested for student loans:
1. Privatize student loans entirely
2. Cap the amount students can borrow from the Feds at a very strict limit, i.e. no more than 30,000 total for any undergraduate degree
3. Force colleges to pay a part of any debt that their graduates default on
4. Allow them to be discharged to bankruptcy
5. Require that all employers be informed of prospective employees who have had student loans defaulted on or "forgiven"
6. Some combination of the above policies
7. Eliminate student loans entirely, public and private
Do you support any of the above options for student loans or do you support a different option?
bookmark
Congrats on your educational success, but the only actually conservative solution on that list is to get the government out of the student loan business.
Privatize lending and reduce the lenders' security level to that of mere consumer debt or credit card balances.
It would simultaneously become both a lot harder to get student loans and to charge outlandish tuition.
What do health care and college have in common? The government!
Only allow engineers/science student to get the loan. No Loan for law, art etc.
I’ll read your post tomorrow, but the title reminded me that it has been a couple of decades since conservatives had a few years of offering alternatives to the left’s idea.
I remember something about a deal that had the incentive of spending your money on health care, or building savings by not wasting it, among other ideas.
I wish William F. Buckley was still here. (and his magazine that “grew” after his death)
I might add that those loans should be on condition that they can provide a very clear cut plan from the beginning, i.e.e show what kind of jobs they will get or demonstrate an ability or willingness to go to a med school or an MS/PhD school where they will get a job that they know will pay it back.
I know that those who get into upper tier med schools and STEM grad programs, only a small minority of them even had the time to work at a job of any kind while going to school unless they got a TAship, and if they got one as an undergrad there was often a lot of luck involved. Some of them spend a bare minimum of 14 hours a day, all 7 days a week, in classwork and in research labs.
In any event, their situation would clearly be different from, say, someone majoring in anything ending in Studies.
I would agree...if you aren’t working on a science, engineering, or medical degree....there ought to be a limit of $20,000 max that you can borrow for higher education. The mere suggestion that you get an art degree, with a loan of $60,000, and hope to pay it back over fifteen years is silly. You are simply giving up your chances of buying a house or accepting a marginal IRA account at age 65.
The reality here is that we used to have a limited number of people show up at a university, and the vast majority studied science or engineering. After WW II and the GI bill....that all went away. An idiot will borrow $90,000, get a multi-media degree of some bogus nature, and then fall into shock by age twenty-four at the limited job options, the limited pay, and the amount of taxation. I know people today....who are forty-two, and still owe over $20,000 in student loans. Their lives have been marginalized by this act of stupidity.
Wrong!
Who gets loans for what amount at what rate for what major should be up to the market.
The market will probably get it right, but, if not, no gubmint bailouts!!!
Allowing them to be discharged in bankruptcy leads to more borrowing, especially when the loan is backed by the government. (Banks willing to lend more with the gov guarantee.) If colleges faced a shrinking market due to available education funds, tuition and fees wouldn't keep going up. Why does it cost $60,000 a year in tuition, fees, room and board at most private institutions? Because that's what the consumer will/can pay with the system we're stuck in.
Yes, husband and I both had student loans and hated sending that check out every month. But it was our debt so we payed it. We live in a smaller house because of that debt, but as we get a little older, and the loans are payed off, we're also glad our home will be payed off in three years.
And then child number 1 will go off to college, but I'm not giving them a blank check. They need some skin in the game they are responsible for.
Kid 2 is already (in jr high) thinking about job first, learn a skill, college pay-as-you-go.
That seems reasonable. BTW, do you think me and my parents necessarily made a huge mistake in relying on scholarships and then using family savings to pay for about 4700 dolalrs a year for the rest of college costs? Do you think that could be ok in some cases? I admit that when i was graduating high school in numerous ways I was sort of going along with some of the things my parents wanted to do (for a multitude of reasons) and getting a full time job and learning a skill before going to college, and using money from that job to help pay for college, never actually crossed any of our minds, mine or my parents. Another factor is that my parents had extremely different views on college than many posters here, including the idea that going to college right after high school was sort of an absolute necessity that had to be dcne.
Exactly—the amount of social engineering, however well intended, on this thread is disheartening.
$60,000 will get you one year with room and board at places like Syracuse, which I use as an example only because I remember being shocked at the $25,000/yr price tag and I'm not that old!
Let's sell Hitler gas.
I have no problem with the way you paid for school! Actually sounds like an ideal scenario. A small amount of student loan is not a bad thing, and if paid back on time helps to build credit. Any money from your parents— thank them and pay it forward if you have kids! Earn a scholarship—awesome!
My first kid will insist on going to college immediately after HS as well, and I agree with her. Knowing her, NOT getting a job and going directly to school is the right move. It was the right move for me as well, keep moving toward that educational goal, and I believe the statistics show it’s more likely to graduate if you don’t take a break, if possible.
Second kid is more like my husband, who Graduated from high school a year before me and undergraduate two years after. He worked and figured out he needed an education! He also has a skill that he will always have and has been helpful in life as well as employment. My second is only 12 so who knows what life will be like at 18?!
Because we want some Conservative teachers, lawyers, doctors, writers/journalists, engineers, climate scientists, etc, etc, etc!!
I enjoyed being one of the few conservatives to speak up in class! There are more conservative students at our colleges then you think, and they have more influence on fellow students then most professors.
I should add that while I said private student loans are the only way to go concerning student loans, as it stands now only parents and not full time students can take out these private student loans, unless the student has employment that can pay back the loan immediately. For many full time college students that simply isn’t possible. The system of lending to students would have to be changed.
But as with most things, Government involvement has not helped the situation but made it worse.
I think folks ought to sit down and ask themselves the real value of some degree (doesn’t matter which college) and how it will be funded/paid by in time.
If I were 18 today, and you laid out the eventual cost of $75,000 at some southern no-name college for everything, and my dad would only cover $20,000 of that....I’d probably walk away and join the Air Force. You just couldn’t convince me of standing there at 21, and owing over $50,000 for something of a perceived value. If it linked up with a job and I knew I’d pay back the loan in ten years...it’d be different, but there are no guarantees in this whole business.
For this reason, I’m convinced the only way ahead over the next decade or two...is community college, and living out of dad’s house, with a part-time job at Pizza Hut or Piggly Wiggly during this tight-money era. You graduate with almost no debt....get a real job in two years...and generally make $40,000 by age thirty-five. In the long-run...it makes economic and common sense.
The idea of some idiot finishing four years of college, and ending up as the shift supervisor of some car rental shop at the airport...is a joke. All that education, and you run a car rental shop? Two decades ago....it was a guy with a high school diploma. We’ve lowered our standings and educational expectations.
Well gee...Looking for a conservative solution to the student loan problem.
How about the old fashioned one, you know, don’t make financial committments one can’t possibly keep. When one is playing Three Card Monte with other peoples money there’s little incentive to be fiscally responsible.
Old school way of my age cohort was to work summers and after school to SAVE money for college. To work part-time during the school year and during summers. I If one didn’t have enough money for a full academic load one worked full time and took night classes. Took longer but one it certainly focused one’s efforts to actually learn and look forward to a debt free degree.
That work experience also translated into higher starting salaries and a more responsile position upon entering the market place. If the prior work experience was in one’s chosen so much the better.
Tough? You betcha! So is life.
It can't be done without rescinding Obamacare. The ACA made student loans an arm of the federal govt.
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