AOC: Thinks It's American Taxpayers Job to Pay Off Her Student Loans!

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., slammed Republicans after she revealed she owes nearly $20,000 in student loans at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on college debt Tuesday, according to a report.

“I’m hearing people on this committee say it’s not our job,” she said, referring to Republicans, according to the New York Post. “This is our job.”


 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
So did my oldest daughter....a lot more than that actually. And now, at age 35, she’s one year away from having her loans paid off.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
“I’m hearing people on this committee say it’s not our job,” she said, referring to Republicans, according to the New York Post. “This is our job.”

And one of the articles referenced says there's as many as 70 members of Congress with average student debt of 37k and a few over 100k.
So like, there's no conflict of interest.

I can't figure out where this person comes from - when I bought my house - and the ones before that - I knew what I was getting into.
I knew there'd be times when income might dry up. I don't expect Uncle Sam to PAY IT OFF because it got hard.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
As a college graduate and elected Representative of they, the people of her district, it should be easy for her to show the constitutional requirement to take money from we, the people not in her district, and pay for they's loans.


I'll wait.
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
And one of the articles referenced says there's as many as 70 members of Congress with average student debt of 37k and a few over 100k.
So like, there's no conflict of interest.

I'm not for free college or paid of student loans, but this is a weird argument. Nearly every law under consideration will have a "conflict of interest". How many congress critters are old enough to collect social security? So they shouldn't vote on legislature considering changes to SS? What about retired military? How many use incandescent light bulbs? We can get pretty silly with this, but the point is nearly any law they consider is going to have a lot of congress critters with conflicts of interest.
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
As long as we're talking about expensive college and loans. I had a thought about this the other night.

A two part plan that could significantly reduce costs and would be (mostly) fair.

First part.
A law that proposes that in order to have access to grants/federal funding a school must have costs equal to or lesser per credit than the lowest quartile of equivalent institutions (meaning junior colleges not averaged with medical schools). This value will be re-assessed periodically (4 years perhaps). Funding related to contracted services (like the work Lincoln Labs does for the military) would not be impacted so we still have access to the best talent regardless of which school they are at.

Second part.
Federal loans, grants, and scholarships for students will be limited to that same per credit value. And Federal loans of this value will be provided as no interest loans (still not dismissable in bankruptcy). Those with existing debt will be allowed to transfer their loans to the new program.
.
.
This will have multiple impacts. Schools that are close to the limit will strive to cut the fat to get under the amount in order to maintain their Federal grants and be attractive to students. Schools that are well above the limit may choose to reduce or externalize some costs (maybe they keep the student sauna, but charge separately for access) in order to make their schools more attractive for students who will want to limit costs above the federal limit .

And when the per credit hour limit is reassessed, the value should reduce as the schools trim the fat. This process would continue until such time that reductions become minimal (we approach the actual competitive cost of education). At that time we may choose to raise the value to the second quartile (the approximate mean average cost) amount to allow students relying entirely on Federal loans access to a greater number of schools.

I think this reduces costs of education (reducing loan sized), may possibly reduce Federal costs overall (grants vs no loan interest), allows private institutions to continue in any way they see fit with minimal impact (they don't rely as much on federal grants to begin with) and prevents a snowball effect where students that do not end up with high paying employment can never pay off their loans due to interest.

It's also not as unfair than "free college" or paying off all loans to previous generations of people that worked hard to pay off their loans or made concessions on which school they would attend specifically not to incur this debt.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
I'm not for free college or paid of student loans, but this is a weird argument. Nearly every law under consideration will have a "conflict of interest". How many congress critters are old enough to collect social security? So they shouldn't vote on legislature considering changes to SS? What about retired military? How many use incandescent light bulbs? We can get pretty silly with this, but the point is nearly any law they consider is going to have a lot of congress critters with conflicts of interest.

Laws on light bulbs affect absolutely everyone - and not one of them puts money in most of their pockets.
If you signed a law that would instantly write off 100,000 bucks of your own personal debt - I think anyone might call that a conflict of interest.

Nevertheless, that was not the primary point I was getting at or at least hoping to get to - and that's what kind of nitwit thinks that when you get into debt for any reason, it's up the government to pay it off for you? I have a LITTLE sympathy for people who fall prey to serious medical conditions - but no one twisted your arm to go to college - and you KNEW you'd have crushing debt when you got out.

I mean, try to imagine you have a neighbor who decides to throw an enormous block party with free beer and bushels of crabs - and when they get the BILL they decide the POA is going to up everyone's bill because they can't pay for it. No one compelled you to go to college - it took place over several YEARS, so it's not like you had no warning - in all likelihood the bank told you how much you'd pay each month - and NOW the rest of the country has to take it up the ass because of poor planning?
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
As long as we're talking about expensive college and loans. I had a thought about this the other night.

I've had a few thoughts about this as well. A friend of mine and I had a discussion about this about a decade ago, and we still arrive at the same conclusion - college costs a lot now because 1) the easy availability of student loans and 2) somewhere there's a college that will admit you no matter how bad your credentials are. You might not get into Harvard, but someone will take you.

I don't know what the numbers were like in the past, but as of right now, about half of all those entering college will leave without a degree. They don't finish. Maybe it's money. But maybe they shouldn't have gone in, in the first place. Businesses are requiring degrees for jobs that seriously don't need them. As far as I can tell, they're used to weed out applicants.

So another reason it costs so much is - demand. Colleges admit as many as will apply - because their admissions requirements are "flexible" - so they up the cost. And the half that drops out leaves with a debt burden they should never have undertaken.

So what should we do? Well, right off the bat, admissions needs to be tighter and loans need to be harder to get. I'd go with part of the idea that federal and state dollars ought to be conditional, but that the conditions be part of financial aid. A really, really good student shouldn't have to walk out the door with a lot of debt every bit as much as a lackluster student shouldn't be admitted at all. Schools getting federal dollars need to up their financial aid packages and scholarships.

The second part - well the second part is a systemic change. We need to as a society adopt some kind of system where we can hire a person whose skill set is directly related to their education. Right now most schools still observe a sort of "university" standard of broad education which is antiquated and mired in the 18th century, where rich kids got a liberal arts education, learned a language, learned history, some math, maybe Greek or Latin - but they were being trained to enter rich society. We don't live in a world like that anymore - everyone tries to go to college, not just the upper crust. You want to be a botanist? What do you need history and the arts for?

FIND a way to gain certificates or training FOR the job you want. Maybe it will take industry to cooperate - more internship programs. We have scores of people out there that took certified network courses but never went to college - they know more about networks and security than any kid leaving college - because they were trained for it. And a kid leaving college with a comp sci degree will invariably be trained on the job for his eventual career - why not START there? What the heck did they waste four years and a hundred thousand bucks to be trained all over for?

Anyway - my kids won't be going. One will never qualify, and I can't afford the other two anyway.
 

glhs837

Power with Control
Stop lending 30-50K to every chump that wants a degree in a field where there are five openings a year in that field. If the best job you can get with your 40K loan is friken bartending, we should not be backing loans for that degree.
 

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
Somewhere out there is someone with a Doctorate in Gender Studies complaining they can't find a good job.
 

RoseRed

American Beauty
PREMO Member
140677
 

kom526

They call me ... Sarcasmo
We went to a campus open house in PA with my oldest son this past weekend and as we were sitting there waiting for the Dean of Admissions to kick things off we watched a PP of current students and recent grads. I was noticing the degrees these folks had graduated with and was impressed by most as they were degrees that were in marketable fields. I did say "most". There was one dance major w/ a gender studies minor that was featured ... my son totally LOL'd from the front row. True story. (This is not an inexpensive school)

As to what Sam said about there being colleges that will take anybody, there was one prospective student sitting in on the college of engineering seminar and mom asked, "What if the student doesn't have the math classes/grades to get into the engineering program?" :shocking::whack: The engineering program at this school only admits a max of 200 applicants per year and is ranked as one of the top 10 engineering schools in the country. But, that kid will get accepted to some engineering program at some school and will probably be destined to design the next generation of Takata airbags.
 
Grade schools pushing children through the grades and graduation even when they don't meet qualifications resulted in high school diplomas carrying little weight in the eyes of employers... so too will college degrees.
 
Based on the candidates I've seen over the years, a college degree is becoming the red-flag for pampered putz.
Exactly. My daughter graduated from an accredited college and in 4 years earned a BS in Chemistry and a BS in Applied Mathematics both with honors. She landed a great math related job that had very few positions they were filling and lots of candidates. They were impressed with her college transcript but what excited them THE MOST was after she graduated she did a 1 1/2 year stint working her way up through management at a retail store. They were super excited that she was bringing work, time management, customer relations, employee supervision, etc. to the table. Turns out that no matter how brilliant the college graduate, without true work experience they sit like deer in the headlights for about the first couple years of employment and need to be micro-managed to get any reasonable amount of self-motivated effort from them.
 

WingsOfGold

Well-Known Member
I suggest students take online courses... hell of a lot cheaper. They signed on the dotted line, not me, Joe Taxpayer.
 

BOP

Well-Known Member
Exactly. My daughter graduated from an accredited college and in 4 years earned a BS in Chemistry and a BS in Applied Mathematics both with honors. She landed a great math related job that had very few positions they were filling and lots of candidates. They were impressed with her college transcript but what excited them THE MOST was after she graduated she did a 1 1/2 year stint working her way up through management at a retail store. They were super excited that she was bringing work, time management, customer relations, employee supervision, etc. to the table. Turns out that no matter how brilliant the college graduate, without true work experience they sit like deer in the headlights for about the first couple years of employment and need to be micro-managed to get any reasonable amount of self-motivated effort from them.
I'm still that way after nearly 20 years at my job.
 
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