The True Cost of Student Loans

American Thinker ^ | 08/27/2022 | M.J. McManus

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The cancellation of student debt has echoes of two other unwise political decisions, one made by a Republican President, the other by a Democrat President.

In 1987 Ronald Reagan agreed to an amnesty for illegal immigrants. At the time it was a deal that would see current illegal migrants given amnesty in exchange for more border security. The border security was never delivered but the amnesty part was, naturally. There were as many as 11 million illegal migrants in the U.S. at the time of the amnesty, and at least three million were legalized under the exact terms of the amnesty. This amnesty did nothing but incentivize further illegal immigration. The precedent had now been set that the U.S. was in the habit of forgiving illegal immigration. All you had to do was sneak into the U.S., sit tight, and wait for the next amnesty.

The second one was the decision of the Clinton administration to allow people to have access to mortgages they had little chance of actually repaying. Under Clinton’s Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in “credit-deprived” areas. In short people with low and poor credit were still given massive loans for homes, despite the obvious risk to both borrowers and lenders. The government made clear that it would take the hit for any mortgage default. As a result, banks realized that the smart money was not in being careful with mortgages, but instead lay in getting as many people signed up as possible. After all, Uncle Sam would bail you out. This caused the 2008 economic collapse.

Both examples are useful when considering the announcement this week to cancel student debt. The decision is comparable to the illegal immigration amnesty,...

[olivia3boys]

Good article. And it makes a very good point that it’s difficult to weave “woke” indoctrination into Calculus. All my kids earned or are in the process of earning BS degrees, not BA. Computer Science, Econ, Business, etc. . .

But universities get around that a bit by REQUIRING woke classes as GEs in order for everyone to graduate. Cal State requires 3 of them (ethnic studies, world studies, diversity studies). Northern Arizona University requires all those plus one more! That’s a whole semester—thousands of dollars—for required wokeness. Even for the engineering majors.

My 2nd son got a minor in Philosophy because “the left hasn’t ruined that yet.” They still study Aristotle, Plato, etc.

[dearolddad]

I don’t remember any reporter asking these folks crying about their student loan dept what their degree is in.

[caseinpoint]

I recall in my university decades ago a “major” titled “General Studies”. It was for kids who wouldn’t commit to any real major. At any rate, I saw an article a couple days ago about students’ reactions to the Biden Debt Shift Scam and one woman was very much in favor of it, She was still an undergraduate but had racked up about $100k loan debt thus far. Her major was “Environmental Sciences” and that sounds suspiciously like a slightly more specialized version of “General Studies.” The “sciences” gives the game away to me.

[dearolddad]

I have always thought that the dollar amount of the student loan should be based on the damand for the particular degree in the workplace

[wgmalabama]

I got a BSEE. The only woke class I had to take was engineering ethics. No a bad idea but the class was taught by a hippie feminist that was jealous we would all graduate making more than her. The real issue was most of would go to defense industry making ever smarter weapons.