WhatFinger


Student Debt, Students as wards of the state

Government pandering in time of elections



In Hollywood, there’s no business like show business. In politics, there’s no pandering like pandering to young adults.
What a time it is for young adults with increasing student loan debt and unemployment near 16 percent as a weak economy lingers and older Americans work longer to save more money in an effort to recoup the losses of stock market 2007-2008. It’s almost bewildering that these young people haven’t led a recall election for Hope and Change President Barack Obama given they’ve been hit as hard as anyone in the last three-plus years. Nevertheless, pandering season is upon us when politicians promise, if elected, to disburse goodies to society’s entitled interest groups, in this case the young and the feckless. Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government retiree health care and pensions are the monstrous 900-pound gorilla devouring city, state and federal budgets while essential services such as police and fire protection, and roads and bridges, go wanting.

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So forgive student loan debt? Should something be done to rescue these poor souls from their bad decisions? How could they have been so naïve to acquire so much debt without any reasonable chance of paying it back in full? With student loan debt, the borrowing of money to pay for college and even graduate school, it really did, “seem like a good idea at the time.” The average amount of student loan debt continues to rise each year and with it calls for student loan debt relief. Proposed legislation in Congress seeks a freeze on interest rates and even forgiveness of student loan debt entirely, at least the private loans, the small percentage not backed by big bucks benefactor, the U.S. government. Uncle Sam, on the other hand, needs its money; don’t even ask for a break. One trillion dollars – that’s the outstanding student loan debt in the United States. That’s a real number. The sob stories are filling the newspaper pages. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Panderer in Chief, Barack Obama, is still trying to recapture the 2008 “Rock the Vote” magic by conjuring up student loan repayment forgiveness. The stories always include people now adults who actually are shocked that they would have to repay the money they borrowed to earn a degree in something without much income upside, such as in sociology rather than engineering, for example. The stories are truly sad, and one wonders if the individuals sought advice or evenly deeply considered the consequences of their borrowing actions. A 50-year-old woman in Alaska accumulated $152,000 in student loan debt while unsuccessfully pursuing a medical degree. Unbelievably, she was recently widowed and had two children when she embarked on this endeavor, and later became surprised that it did not turn out well for her. Not everyone is fit for medical school, especially at age 50 and under stressed circumstances. Another woman, 34, has college and law school debt of $200,000. She apparently did not realize that she would need major earning capacity to repay such a significant amount of money. “It’s a noose around my neck and I can see no way out,” she is quoted to having said. I feel for her really I do. However, I know personally two young attorneys, who married each other, bought and sold a house and then bought another, and had a baby, and still managed to power into their six-figure loan debt because they worked like the dickens and both became partners in their firms with her earning significant dollars in corporate securities law. They didn’t seek special favors, either; they had character and persevered. They apparently understood the risks before signing on the dotted line asking for the money. Did the woman who could not repay the debt consider working her way through law school or going at night? How about going to a less expensive law school? What about the type of law that she chose to practice? Was it lucrative or public service in nature? This all matters, but we will never know because these types of questions don’t fit the template of the sad woes of student loan debt, and how we the taxpayers literally owe these individuals amelioration of their burden that they chose for themselves. Perhaps when these loans are signed by the student borrowers, there should be a disclaimer at the bottom which reads, “You will be expected to repay these loans, no really, you will be expected to repay these loans.” There are people among us who apparently want a risk-free society, one without consequences. What they really want is equality of outcomes rather than equal opportunity. It’s un-American. There are consequences to living in a free society and that’s the way it should be. Gaining a college degree, much less a graduate degree, will likely give a person a leg up in acquiring employment, but it is no guarantee of success. I have known plenty of people without college degrees who have started businesses or been self-employed and who have done quite well for themselves. I had a truck driver friend who had a swimming pool in his living room. Doesn’t that sound like a better world in which to live? Doesn’t that sound fairer and even more like common sense? The quickest and best way out of the student loan debt crisis is typical of most of the problems in the United States: Get the Federal government out of the student loan business. Stop foisting cheap credit and sheepskin snake oil on students entering worthless degree programs or at the very least let them earn the money themselves and then they probably will spend it on education a lot more carefully. But no, we can’t have that. It’s pandering season, and there are elections to be won and that requires another interest group, in this case young people, blindly floating down the rapids of life and eventually over the waterfall. Metaphorically, with their debt, these students and college graduates are becoming wards of the state, harnessed forever more to the government gravy train.


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Daniel Wiseman -- Bio and Archives

Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings.  He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.


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