Posted on 12/09/2020 11:59:52 AM PST by Kaslin
Jim and Jill were born a little more than a year apart to the same unmarried mother in Southern California.
Jim was adopted by a working-class family in the San Fernando Valley, where the father made his living as an auto mechanic and the mother as a maid.
Jill was adopted by an upper-middle-class family in Pasadena, where the father was a lawyer and the mother stayed home.
Jim was a decent high school student and football player -- but not good enough at either to win a college scholarship. When he graduated from 12th grade, his father encouraged him to follow in his own hardworking footsteps as a constantly employed but only modestly paid auto mechanic. He did -- earning a mechanic's certificate at the local community college and taking a job in the same shop as his dad.
Jill was a very good student at a prestigious local prep school. She was also a nearly Olympic-quality swimmer.
Harvard recruited her to join its swim team. She was admitted -- and wanted to go.
But Harvard does not give athletic scholarships, and even though her adoptive father made a good living as a lawyer (too much, in fact, for her to receive financial aid), the $73,391 that the college board said Harvard costs a student each year for tuition and fees, room and board, and books and supplies was a bit of a stretch.
By contrast, she could go to the nearby University of California at Los Angeles and live at home, and her family would only need to pay $15,052 per year for tuition, fees, books and supplies.
Her father, however, understood her desire to go to Harvard and the great opportunities it would afford her. He told her he would cover most of her expenses -- as long as she was willing to take out federal student loans to cover the balance.
Four years later, she graduated, owing $24,000 to the federal government.
She was admitted to Columbia Law School and intended to move to New York and take out more student loans -- and follow in the footsteps of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Life was quite different for the other half of this fictional pair of siblings.
Jim -- the brother Jill never knew -- was making almost exactly the $44,890 the Bureau of Labor Statistics says was the average annual wage in 2019 for auto mechanics. Every month, he saved whatever he could, hoping one day to have enough to cover the down payment on a small house somewhere on the fringes of the valley.
Over time, he thought, he also might start his own auto shop -- if he could save even more.
Then Joe Biden was elected president.
This Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer held a press conference on a New York sidewalk to promote a plan he and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have proposed Biden undertake.
"Student debt is just a huge burden on the shoulders of millions of New York students and tens of millions of Americans," Schumer said.
"We have come to the conclusion that President Biden can undo this debt, can forgive $50,000 of debt, the first day he becomes president," Schumer said. "You don't need Congress. All you need is the flick of a pen."
Specifically, under the Schumer-Warren plan, the secretary of Education would issue an order forgiving up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt for each person who holds such debt.
Who would ultimately pay for this plan, and who would benefit?
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office published a study on federal student loans. "Between 1995 and 2017, the balance of outstanding federal student loan debt increased more than sevenfold, from $187 billion to $1.4 trillion," it said.
The study discovered an interesting coincidence: As federal student loans increased, so did college tuition.
"Tuition increased substantially between 1995 and 2017, and that increase put upward pressure on borrowing," said the CBO. "(Some research indicates that the expansion of the federal student loan programs has induced colleges and universities to increase tuition.) For example, the average published in-state tuition -- also known as the sticker price -- for public, four-year undergraduate institutions increased by 120 percent (adjusted for inflation) over that period. The average published tuition for not-for-profit private institutions increased by 76 percent."
"The increase in students' ability to borrow may have induced colleges to increase their tuition," said the report.
So, federal student loans caused money to flow as follows: Jim worked as an auto mechanic and, along with millions of other hardworking non-college-educated Americans, paid federal taxes. The federal government took some of that money and sent it to Harvard and other colleges in the form of student loans. The government attributed these loans to people like Jill -- the sister Jim did not know -- as payment for their tuition.
The first winner in this exchange: Harvard.
The second winner: Jill, who got a Harvard degree -- albeit while running up $24,000 in debt.
The Census Bureau has reported that in 2019 there were 221,478,000 people in the United States who were 25 or older and who were not in a prison, a nursing home or another institution. Of these, 79,816,000 -- or 36 percent -- had a bachelor's degree or higher.
The median income in American households where the householder had a bachelor's degree was $100,164 in 2019. The median income in a household where the householder had a professional degree -- such as a law degree -- was $162,127.
But the median income in a household where the householder only had a high school degree was $48,708.
Can a college graduate -- whose median household income is $51,456 more than a high school graduate's -- afford to pay off $24,000 (or even $50,000) in student loans?
Or should an auto mechanic pay taxes -- and interest on an increased federal debt -- so Joe Biden can forgive a Harvard graduate's student loans?
Heh, and it’s the auto mechanic who will prove most useful to most people.
I’ll take some Harvard STEM grads, but as for the rest? Well, they’ll make good tv “talent” and baristas.
The media endorses this, Americans are no longer bright enough to figure out what’s being done to them.
You chose not to go to college because you couldn’t afford it? Sorry Bud, you’re going to be paying for Chad and Tiffany’s worthless degrees in Womyns Studies now. Why complain, you’re already paying for their food stamps and subsidized housing, this just completes the picture.
Specifically, under the Schumer-Warren plan, the secretary of Education would issue an order forgiving up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt for each person who holds such debt.
Who would ultimately pay for this plan, and who would benefit?
—
We know the fat corporate banksters who wrote the loans won’t cover the defaults because they ponied up the cash contributions to Biden’s campaign.
A good Plumber in Los Angeles that owns his business makes 200K if he works long and hard hours.
Every Educational Institution should be Responsible for the Loans their Students took out.
I would like to help build as many gallows as we need to hang the fu##ers
“Americans are no longer bright enough to figure out what’s being done to them.”
Yup and they were deliberately kept ignorant by the Left wing slime who identify as teachers.
The $24k society pays for Jill’s loan will be paid back by Jill many times over through the higher taxes she pays as a high earner. Over time the higher taxes she pays will not only repay the loan but lessen Jack’s tax burden as well.
This isn’t a zero-sum game.
UGH, bailing out stupid borrowers is nonsensical.
“Yup and they were deliberately kept ignorant by the Left wing slime who identify as teachers.”
Agreed, see my tagline.
One thing’s for sure: those education funds that we’ve been setting aside for years for the grandkids are going to get a complete review, and whether they actually receive them or not will be based on where they’re headed. Otherwise, we’ll just use em in our retirement, and they can get the funds from Schumer.
Schumer’s for the ‘little guy’ cause the little guy is easier to take to the cleaners...
Elite’s greed is bottomless... they would steal from their own grandmothers if they were sure granny couldn’t fight back.
We have to reform the student loan business.
Make the loans dischargeable at bankruptcy, and have the schools be on the hook for a non paying student. Have the average wage and employment stats presented to ALL prospected students entering a program. This was common in STEM fields, but I have learned it is not done in most fields. So you have a kid graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, no job prospects, and everyone telling them “YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!” And then we wonder why they go vote for socialism. There were as big of victims of fraud as the social security recipients were when that goes belly up in a few years.
Right now the student loan debt can never be wiped out, the schools have all the incentives to jack tuition with no incentives to cut it, and a bubble bigger than the 2008 housing crisis is ready to pop.
Much of this debt will never been repaid, and should never have been made. Usury kills.
“Heh, and it’s the auto mechanic who will prove most useful to most people.”
Until electric cars come out.
Not near as complicated as internal combustion with transmissions and rear ends.
I read the other day cars not long from now will have lifetime brakes never needing changed by use of electronics.
No more exhaust, oil changes, trans fluid changes, no air filters to check
If Jill’s taxes were not so high she could afford to pay off her college loans.
that’s actually a terrific argument. need to get it to fit on a bumper sticker.
Relax, kids. You don’t have to pay back the money you borrowed, the taxpayer will take care of that. By the way, what exactly did you become when you graduated and got a job?
[The media endorses this, Americans are no longer bright enough to figure out what’s being done to them.]
Yep. I have never forgotten the collapse of the middle-class actually started under Jorge. Then came Barky. Now, they are best-buddies.
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