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Ron Paul Wants To End the Federal Student Loan Program
On the heels of declaring his intent to axe a few departments from the federal government, Ron Paul has revealed more plans should he become President. The_THOMAS writes "Ron Paul wants to end Federal student loans stating that the Government involvement artificially inflates the cost of a college education and that once the government is out of the situation, students will be able to work their way to a college degree. What do you think?"
Maybe if he had to actually work for a living at a minimum wage job, he'd stop asking those with little to no money to give up their chance to be raised up.
Subsidized student loans are "free" money that enslaves most for a lifetime, moreso today than at any time in living memory. There was a time when working part time over the summer would be enough to pay ALL college expenses, now you have to work some 35 hours a week during the semester plus full time in the summer and over breaks. This is outrageous.
In a lot of ways, they do inflate the cost of education. However, the quality is also going down. The bigger problem is that the demand is being artificially inflated at the same time. Nearly every job requires a BS or BA...even if they don't care which subject. A University should be a place of higher learning and research, not a factory for just the next step in education.
I agree that eliminating the student loan program will help. However, there need to be a lot more changes then that.
Because deregulating financial matters always ends well.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Taxation is a valid function of government and has been since 1787. And if the government was going to spend the money you pay in taxes solely on you, then it would hardly need to raise taxes to begin with.
Acquaint yourself with American history. Some degree of redistribution of wealth has always been part of the operation of the federal government. Now, you may disagree on particular spending, and you have a right to choose representatives who might push for change -- it's taxation with representation, a just way of doing things. But your rhetoric is out of touch with American democracy even as the Founding Fathers conceived it.
Student Loans should include two things:
1. Fixed low-rate loan (2-3% even for private loans)
2. Allowed to be paid with pre-tax income (like money put towards retirement etc)
If they want to remove the government's involvement and make it private only, these rules should still be added. We should be helping student's get through school to make this country a better place.
-SaNo
All of the sudden all the schools cost $60,000.
Tadaa!!! http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2071147,00.html
Yes, like the last time it was applied, from 1875-1913 in the USA. You know, the time where the US went from being a colonial backwater to an industrial superpower.
Oh, or did you mean to imply that the disaster that is today's economy was caused by the free market? Well, you can't have a free market when the government is intervening every five minutes to keep some company from collapsing. Can't even have one when you have a central bank that sets interest rates. What we have now is a MIXED market. The MIXED market has failed us.
A lot of those schools exist to process students and take their money. They are money making institutions that happen to award credits when you pay the exorbitant fees. A lot would shutdown if the loans system was removed.
Another problem is that until the prices lowered, superior education would only be the purview of the rich - RPs kids would do just fine, but the average person's ability to help get their children into a higher level of living would be removed. People say there are far too many university graduates, and far too many positions for which a degree is the expected minimum, and thats definitely true. I have no degree and many many jobs are closed to me, despite the fact that I could easily do many of those jobs. However no one wants to be amongst the first people who no longer get the benefit of a good education, when the other side of the equations (business/Government) is not going to change their standards any time soon. Why should they, they can ask whatever they want, at whatever rate of pay, and someone will come along and take the job, no matter how awful it is.
At my old Alma Mater the pressure seems to be on generating income, so the Engineering Department gets brand new buildings, while the Fine Arts department only got out of its WWII Quonset huts a few years ago - they had been there for 30 years at least. The university education system is focusing on things which can turn quick bucks (business degrees, Engineering degrees and people getting the school patents, new business development), all because the Government has stopped supporting the schools and they are expected to survive on their own. The problem is that the nature of education gets changed in the process.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I love Ron Paul. He's the most idealistic person I've ever known. He's basically lying to everyone though. Most of the things he says go like this:
1. Cut funding
2. ??? Allow free market to do it's thing ???
3. Problem solved
He doesn't mention two crucial things. One is that step 2. may take a very long time. The other is that for 2 to happen effectively, we have to equalize any unfair and corruption-driven advantages that others have gained in a crooked system over two hundred years. Once highly paid yuppies get busted for illegally claiming "expenses" as tax free money and corporations get busted for gambling with pension funds at the same rate that people get busted for stealing a piece of bread or robbing a grocery store, then we'll have a truly fair environment for the free market to do its thing. In the meantime, Ron Paul is selling pipe dreams. Awesome pipe dreams, but ultimately dreams without good plans to back them up.
In California, since the 1970's, the state has subsidized less and less of the tuition for students, while student loan amounts have not been increased substantially, and yet the state universities have not gotten less expensive in the process.
Sometimes Ron Paul says things that are correct, but silly (like how we could lower health care costs by removing the requirement medical providers be licensed. Probably true, but....) Mostly though, he just says things that are incorrect and silly. His supporters piece together some sort of reality from this that makes sense to them, I guess.
And what of the flip side? The people who really achieve in the field they studies at University, but wouldn't have been able to go were it not for student loans. Are they a price worth paying for libertarian ideology?
Can America afford to be less educated?
Nah it's the "No True Scotsman" of economic theory. The closer you get to it, the fewer regulations, the worse things get.
Apologists always have 'reasons for it though', and it starts with not considering voters to be part of the market, and believing that regulation comes from an entity independent of the people. That's why they are currently trying to make people believe that they aren't represented by our representative government. They are working very hard online to convince people of this, too.
In any case, it's always 'No TRUE free market has (X)' or 'a TRUE free market would need (Y)' as an excuse as to why things get so much worse when 'free market' principles are applied. It's really amusing to hear adherents claim that no matter how hard their 'solutions' fail, they would have worked if it was a TRUE 'free market'. Its a matter of dogma, of faith with most of them. Finger-pointing is a way of life for the free-marketeer.
Almost as funny as the current ifn-yer-aint-fer-us-yer-agin-us meme that anyone against deregulation or for common worker representation at contract negotiations is Socialist/Communist scum trying to destroy the economy - when deregulation is what did it this time, around, and lack of regulation is what did it last time. And the ridiculous notion that we should trust 'market forces' and some magic invisible hand to adjust the market (while ignoring the fact that the people are the market, and the voice of the people is the 'vote', so gov regulation IS their invisible hand) as the only answer? That depends on all things being interchangeable, and there being an infinite job market not subject to supply and demand...
The 'Free Market' would seem to be a frail thing indeed - so frail it could never exist or last, even if it worked...
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See what is happening in the UK. They are on the route to a 'market' experiment in higher education. This has been launched by no other than lord Browne, the CEO of BP who had to resigned in 2007, and then named at the head of a commission to review higher education finances.
Academics are waking up to the meaning of a law that has been passed without the preliminary white paper, that is, without sufficient public discussion.
They are going to cut 90% of public financing to the universities, and harnessing the student with the resulting debt. They call that: "putting the student at the center of the reform".
Stefan Collini is the foremost critic of this idea and has just published a book about this. Read this article in The Guardian (free access) to get an idea of how the UK is on the path to destroying one of the finest higher education system: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/university-market-white-paper
An experiment of this sort has been carried on in New Zealand in the 90's. The result has been catastrophic. Proposals of this kind, all with a libertarian/market flavor, are being proposed in legislatures all over the world at the moment. It is as if the right had found its next target.
A loan isn't a subsidy. But if student loans were indeed the cause of the high price of college, what makes you think stopping them would make the price go down?
I went to school on the GI bill, and the state of Illinois paid my tuition. That's s subsidy. But I still had to work and was still dirt poor. That was in 1975; when did the school cost inflation begin?
Without student loans, only children of the wealthy will be able to go to college. The price keeps it out of reach of the working class, and always has. Education never was inexpensive.
Free Martian Whores!
I had it easier than you- 90% of my schooling was paid through scholarship and grants- of the remainder my parents paid some towards my school- and I worked 35hrs a week (just one job... but year round) for the rest of it. I emerged from University with no loans.
I HAD to complete it in 4 years because of scholarships- I didn't have the option of spreading it out over more time to spread the burden. So despite major scholarships I still worked full time in order that I could live a meagre existence of 50cent microwavable mini-pizzas and TJ Maxx clearance clothes- I hit the jackpot on super cheap rent- paying only $250 a month- a great place with free cockroaches and lead paint.
Had I not had the scholarships- I couldn't have done it. Had I not had support from my parents- I couldn't have done it.
This was over a decade ago- since when costs have skyrocketed.
College now costs more than what an uneducated full-time worker makes.
You might have been able to get by in the 80s working jobs to pay your way- nowadays kids don't have that option.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Some points to consider:
Total outstanding student loan debt recently topped $1 trillion (e.g. see link).
Student loan debt now exceeds household credit card debt (see link).
It isn't possible to escape student loans via bankruptcy - they will follow you your whole life, no matter what. This puts them in a class by themselves.
Obviously, the current system is badly broken. Why should the federal govt be in the business of hooking young adults on these onerous loans? If the goal is social leveling (a goal I can get behind), then we should be talking about grants, not loans. What we're doing is creating a new class of indentured servants.
The problem isn't the loans in a practical sense. The real problem is companies driving degree inflation. Example: early Internet days, how many ISP technical personnel had 4 year degrees? I'm talking about the guys maintaining the lines / switches / routers. Not very many at all. The guys in charge often did, but even that wasn't guaranteed. I, personally and through company programs, trained many High School kids on the intricacies of R&S. Try getting in today without at least a 2 year degree. A 4 year degree will be preferred, if not required. Heck, even help desk which is entry level, often requires a 2 year.
Companies drove us here because a 4 year degree student is "better" even if it doesn't really matter.
People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why? Is there any shortage of bad ones?
California had free higher education for residents paid by taxpayers(and it is set in the charter for higher education in the state, which all of the school systems now openly violate). From UCLA and UC Berkeley to Bakersfield Community College. Free. Over time this has changed while at the same time loans have been backed by the government and student debt has been increasing. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but it's there, it happened
Speaking as a successful software developer who needed student loans to attend college. Bullshit. Student loans SUCK, but they are the only thing that allows a large number of low to middle income people get into the career they want and need.
There are alternatives to student loans:
Ron Pauls solution: only the wealthy may attend college. Tuitions will skyrocket even farther because there are so few new students. Hundreds of universities are forced to close their doors and all we are left with are a lot of trade schools and the Ivy Leagues.
Something rational: Recognize that state universities are state universities and have no profit obligation and should not be run like corporations. Cut administrative costs (tuition increases go almost 100% to higher administrative wages and more administrative positions instead of to professors and facilities) and offer low or free tuition subsidized by the state.
You are disturbing the Glibertarian Om. Only in a fact-free plane of existence where no real-world examples of their horribly misanthropic ideas can be found will Glibertarianism succeed.
You're FUCKING UP HIS GROOOVE! Finland isn't a real country anyway! Quiet!
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How many 18 year olds do you know with good enough credit to buy a car, let alone a house?
How many private banks are going to be willing to fork over $20,000-200,000 for an education for an 18 year old kid with no credit history, no job, and a low likelihood of gaining employment in their first 5 years that will pay anything close to enough to be able to aford the payments on that loan?
The reason the federal student loan program exists is because it ISN'T profitable to make that loan. Most kids are going to default, and the banks will be left holding the bag.
The government program exists in a market where the private market doesn't want to go. That's a significant purpose of the government in a capitalist society.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Anytime a government subsidizes a product or service - the price will increase to match the subsidy. Period. The producers know how much the subsidy is(A), and how much a consumer can spend(B). They will always add a+b in the end because the elasticity of price can be known to support that level.
There isn't even an unknown pricing curve here - the University already knows your finances when you apply for financial aid. They can simply and easily price an education to target the population of students they want.
How many (fiscally) bankrupt universities have you seen lately? I only know of Huron University in South Dakota in 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_universities_and_colleges_in_the_United_States
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Support for Ron Paul by the young and sometimes geeky has intrigued me for some time. Is it a result of reading Ayn Rand? Is it because his ideas seem so much more sensible than so many others? Is it because he does not appear beholden to any lobbyists? Is it primarily because he wants to end drug Prohibition? Possibly all of the above.
But it's also confused me because a number of the things Ron Paul wants to do away with are things that help the young find their first footholds -- things like student loans (or even grants). When I read this headline, I thought for just a second that perhaps Dr. Paul wants to throw open the universities for all, call a full education a civil right that you get to take advantage of based on merit. But I dismissed that thought before I saw the rest of the post, and I was right to do so. My response: his analysis may have some truth in it but it's so simple as to be suspect, in my view. On balance, like much of what Ron Paul says, it's too simple to be right.
Whoever thinks Ron Paul is cool, whatever lobby groups he is not beholden to, make no mistake: the über-rich and powerful wish his ideas well because their adoption would entrench and deepen the growing class divisions in America and put an end to the American dream as anything but that: a wistful dream of what expectations used to be.
Something is rotten in the way the US is going these days. For instance, in my lifetime, before 2008, I had never heard a leading politician in the US say of their president from the opposing party that they wanted him to fail. Whether you agree with Mr. Obama or not, that attitude on the part of any member of your government is pernicious. I'll stop there because the list of things going wrong is so long (most of them decades in the making) as to make this too-long post ridiculously so.
But Ron Paul is not the answer to those problems: his ideas (and incidentally those of the Tea Party) are only going to help the rich get richer and inherit the meek (and the not so meek). Do yourselves a favour, folks, and elect leaders that remember what they learned in Kindergarten (without forgetting all the things they learned since) and value their neighbours over hard lines -- internal neighbours, of course! I wouldn't advocate that you would elect the people I, your Canadian neighbour, want you to elect. I'm just confident that if, overall, you voted in line with your interests (and that may take a lot of thinking to figure out who's going to serve those best) and do well, then you won't become neighbours that we have to fear from across that longest unarmed border in the world.
be good to each other, folks...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
So the answer is to cut off higher education at the knees and hope that eventually the market comes around before we enter a new dark age?
Maybe there is some other way we could go about doing this.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Besides not having a clue about Education, how it works or whats going on in a University. The idea that shoving people in a room and thinking that $1 per student for "rental" costs makes any real sense.
As for the purpose of an Instructor neigh Educator in the class, if showing the material, in written or video form was effective then you would find those institutions that are for profit and run by business men, implementing that years ago. They haven't because it is not as effective a teaching tool as having someone there to answer your questions, on the spot and to clarify things not understood through example, analogy.
Everyone comes to the classroom from a different background. All disciplines have their own sub-dialect. The Educator translates that sub-dialect for the un-initiated so they can understand and adopt that sub-dialect going forward in their studies. I have yet to pick up a book on material that spoke exactly my sub-dialect, causing me to miss-understand or do extensive work tracking down the problem. So having an Educator there is the most efficient, I would estimate about 500% more efficient than the material alone. Then there are the aspects of focus and the synergy of the group of questions fielded answering questions you did not even know you had.
Having a $20/hr temporary worker cheapens that whole idea of an Educator and comes from a missunderstanding of what is really going on, what its value is and what its long term effects are.
What