EPTThe more normal one people use is trade schools, but if everyone enrolled in trade schools instead of college we'd have a thousand times too many plumbers. Additionally, a lot of those are apprenticeships which amount to a longer period of schooling than the average job and more required teachers.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3096
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
The more normal one people use is trade schools, but if everyone enrolled in trade schools instead of college we'd have a thousand times too many plumbers. Additionally, a lot of those are apprenticeships which amount to a longer period of schooling than the average job and more required teachers. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
On February 21 2021 11:42 dp wrote: Can you get an associates degree at your local community college at $0 cost through pell grants for those that are eligible, yes or no? I checked myself, and it easily covered both books and tuition with additional left over. Checked the partnerships with in state colleges and it does seem that they have increased overall since 12 years ago. But still well within a 15-17k cost with pell grants. If that is crippling debt for the education in your view, I don't know what to say. This whole "strive to improve" has nothing to do with the actual conversation of the cost of college. It's deflection because a case cannot be made on the merits. Most of the issues you continue to bring up have absolutely nothing to do with student loan forgiveness. There has never been a moment in time where basing a policy covering millions of people can be appropriately based on people who do everything right. It is a terrible idea to just say “well so long as everyone is informed and does a good job, we’re fine”, because it’s based on fantasy. This is a common conservative pitfall. The entire idea of saying “if people just did a better job we’d have no problem” is fundamentally moronic because it has no basis in reality. Look at how many millions of people haven’t done what you’ve described and find a way to make the situation better. Everything you’re saying is easy. It’s well understood and isn’t remotely novel. You’re not contributing anything, just regurgitating the same tried arguments we’ve all heard before. You haven’t substantiated why I’m deflecting. Back up what you’re saying. You can’t just say it’s true and leave it at that. I’m saying the system can be improved. You’re pointing to your wife and saying “why can’t people just be my wife and everything is fine?” I’m trying to explain that public policy needs to be based on reality rather than assuming everyone can be ideal so long as it’s advantageous and preferable. The system you are defending has existed for many years and yet here we are. Proper policy is based on reality. I’m trying to help you understand why “so long as college is worth it, let’s just leave it at that” is lacking in ambition. I’m not worried about you understanding. I’ve done my best and I’ll just hope you are able to let it simmer for a bit. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25496 Posts
On February 21 2021 13:37 dp wrote: I understand the sentiment, but that is the argument that keeps being put forward. "We were conditioned to believe this was the route to economic enhancement." I haven't seen anyone argue from the angle you are adding now, so I didn't feel inclined to talk about it. I completely agree. And it is not in the slightest touched on by SLF. It is the same reason that making college free doesn't change anything except the age people enter the workforce. Make associate degrees free and jobs will try to differentiate applicants by requiring a bachelors. Bachelors is free? They'll require a masters. There is no funding increase that will change that. Love her, but her decision wasn't one based on long research and pro/con boards.. Making a responsible decision about your future at that age was required. I made a similar decision for completely different reasons. Again, the idea 18 year olds can't weigh the options, obtain the knowledge to make an educated decision like this is complete and utter nonsense. I don’t think people at 18 are incapable of making such decisions, merely it’s a curious juxtaposition when they can’t drink legally. A bachelors was free in my country for many moons, and it was simultaneously far easier to get into a professional level without one. If it necessarily follows that expanding access has the job market raising barriers further, then there’s probably a problem with the relationship between job opportunities and degrees. As Nevuk says, there are so many really basic clerical jobs gatewayed behind a degree requirement in an absolutely needless fashion. Indeed I’d wager quite a few prospective college students actually are quite well-informed about the ways of the world and are going to college largely for that reason. Presumably quite a few of them then enter the bracket where the debt accrued isn’t compensated for by a sufficient earning increase and years of not working. As you say re your wife ‘She was poor. Options were limited, debt accumulation of the kinds that people talk about here would be unthinkable.’ Surely that’s not a desirable state of affairs, and it’s not a hypothetical or a pipedream to expand the options available to people. Many countries have outright free college, mine did in the past, increasing people’s options is something that has been done successfully. Tertiary education is really quite fundamentally broken, IMO and there are way too many conflicting desires in the sphere that need splitting up, because they clash horribly. Without fixing some of the collapsing build first, all making it free is doing is applying a lick of paint. I don’t see how it works having institutions for people who want to learn and academics who want to research, while giving out professionally recognised qualifications for the career-driven, and the competition for school prestige and increasingly commercial clout, all under the same roof. My alma mater pushes really hard to attract international students (who pay 5x the yearly fees) and basically pumps the vast majority of its resources into a few schools and into research. As university tables are generally ranked on research it’s been doing quite well in pushing up the prestige ranks, which attracts more international students etc. The downside to this is fuck you if you want to study the humanities, the languages department got slashed to the extent they got rid of their German program entirely since I’ve left, etc. People who study physics or computer science get to fuck around with some incredibly cool equipment where in other schools it’s 10 hours a week of teaching and they have to buy their own books (oh and fees are uniform across programs). Bit of a ramble but what is university/college meant to be? If it’s merely a means to get professional advancement and some knowledge, that process could be hugely streamlined. If it’s meant to be a place where people can learn things and expand their horizons, and marks the transition from youth to adulthood via fun experiences, then I’d say it’s not optimally set up to do that either. | ||
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Slydie
1922 Posts
A bachelors was free in my country for many moons, and it was simultaneously far easier to get into a professional level without one. If it necessarily follows that expanding access has the job market raising barriers further, then there’s probably a problem with the relationship between job opportunities and degrees. It has been a very common solution to youth unemployment to send them to university instead, and it certainly works if it is not too expensive. However, you would usually make more money spending those years working. While it is true that many jobs should not require degrees, finishing a degree in the same field certainly says something about the dedication of the candidate. Even in med school, almost everything you need to learn DOING the job, you learn during your intern period and your first years working. The socialisations are so many and different even 6 years of intense studies barely scratch the surface of each one. The school gives a base, sure, but it says a lot more that you managed to get in and finish all your exams. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
Some don't understand that people, from their own disposition have various amounts of rocks laying in their way. And that one additional rock you don't want to move out of the way for them is gonna cost them their education. Congratulations to having the cards shuffled right for you. Now go on and don't care about others, but don't actively fight the improvement of other lifes. What you imagine overcoming hard hurdles might just be the first round of many for others. Have some empathy. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13957 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
Aside from addressing a massive economic burden that could also end up bursting and having consequences for everyone, a big piece of pushing for the $50,000 in forgiveness is racial justice. Advocates point to studies that show that the $50k number is the best number to address the wealth gap between minorities and white people (some are even arguing for $75k). https://www.npr.org/2021/02/18/968324101/debate-over-student-loan-forgiveness-hinges-on-2-numbers-10-000-vs-50-000 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/opinion/student-debt-cancellation-biden.html https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2020/10/29/student-debt-is-a-racial-equity-issue-heres-how-mass-debt-relief-can-address-it/ | ||
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mierin
United States4943 Posts
On February 21 2021 23:01 Sermokala wrote: You don't decide to go to college in America when you're 18 even. You're fed propaganda that the only way to be happy and successful is to get a college degree and by 16 really its about which college to go to instead of which. Signing for those loans is such a formality its sickening. It really is. People who actually 'worked their way' through school 40 years ago drone on and on about how they / their parents did it and got high paying jobs, and just refuse to see that there are far more mcdonald's level jobs in the country than 100k+. If everyone went to college, who would do the low paying jobs? The problem is the pay level of jobs, and not people getting an education. We desperately need total unionization--the minimum wage debate wouldn't even be a thing if that were the case. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On February 21 2021 23:50 JimmiC wrote: That you think this was completely missed confirms that you didn't read my posts since the inequity was a huge reason for suggesting other solutions. Your articles use statistics in interesting ways to come to their conclusions partly because they are only considering forgiveness or nothing. If you were to look at giving 50 k to all poor people, for example, you would see that would help more since Hispanics and blacks make up a greater % of the poor then they do the % of the student loan pool. The Wharton article gets much deeper into how and why this would actually increase the wealth gap, goes into the math and discusses different ways to forgive student debt that would best address the weath gap issues. But the biggest problem with the articles you have posted is they don't get into the "why" and because of this they don't address the cause and only the symptom. Two of the major reasons why are the weathgap to begin with (which this would barley effect, and do the.opposite according to some) and also that blacks go to the most predatory for profit universities at almost double the rates. The sad truth is that any measure you institute to help people is struggling is going to help black, Hispanic and native American's at a higher rate because there is a much higher rate of them that are poor. But this is not the best way because they make up a higher percentage of the poor, then do of the student loan holding poor. Another thing that would be far more helpful for the wage gap is improving the k-12 education for the poorest community the funding model currently used creates much worse schooling in those areas and that is before even getting into all the disadvantages they have at the home. It is horrible that a rich county has way more funding for public elementary schools then a poor one that could be just miles apart. As a Canadian I can't belive that this is acceptable in a developed society. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-student-loan-forgiveness-could-increase-inequality/ https://talkpoverty.org/basics/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/wesleywhistle/2019/10/07/millennial-student-debt-across-demographics/amp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200476/us-poverty-rate-by-ethnic-group/ I dropped these articles because I thought it was interesting (and arguments that I hadn't heard before) and no, you did not address this point in any meaningful way. Stop pretending that you did. Both you and DP disingenuously framed this as a handout to a bunch of well-off individuals with barely any mention of the fact that an explicit argument for forgiving $50k instead of just $10k is that it helps address the racial wealth gap in a more meaningful way. Furthermore, stop with equivocating loan forgiveness to just handing poor people cash. Forgiving debt and actually handing out money aren't the same monetary measures and I shouldn't have to explain to you why this is. And so much of your argument seems predicated on the idea that the people pushing for this policy aren't trying to take any other measures to address other facets of the various economic problems that we have in this country. Who are the people advocating for loan forgiveness? Progressives. Who's pushing for a minimum wage increase? Progressives. Who's pushing for significantly reduced or free childcare, healthcare, and other societal/family needs? Progressives. They're attempting to get these policies passed right now. Hell, they were actively trying to get a minimum wage increase into the stimulus bill. Progressives are pushing for multiple economic policies at once. The reality is that you have some emotional bias against the idea of loan forgiveness and you are repeatedly trying to frame this discussion as "loan forgiveness vs. other measures" in order to make an ethical justification for being against that loan forgiveness. It's disingenuous and it's a bad look. Let's also take a quick look at that Wharton paper that you love so much: 1) It begins the paper by assuming the premise that helping out upper income individuals in any meaningful way is bad. The entire article is framed this way and its proposed solutions are aimed purely at helping the poor more so than the rich while not addressing if helping the rich more than the poor (while still helping the poor) would still actually help the poor more than their IDR policy proposals. 2) If you're really, really against higher earners getting any forgiveness, it never entertains the idea that you could just do an income-based cap on who gets loans forgiven. For instance, if you just didn't forgive any student debt for people making over [insert number here] (let's say $80k for discussion's sake), you would avoid giving any debt relief to that massive swathe that you don't want to and this would also save the government a significant amount of money. 3) It's measurement of value of loan forgiveness is entirely in the amount of dollars forgiven. This is dubious because $5,000 forgiven to a low income individual (that may very well not have a degree at all, just the debt from not finishing college) is worth far more in real-world living than forgiving $10,000 for a high income individual. 4) The study highly, highly, highly overstates the efficacy of Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) and long-term debt forgiveness (forgiveness for public workers after 10 years, others after 20-25). Not only are those forgiveness programs extremely onerous and difficult to actually obtain, but even IDR payments are incredibly burdensome. You wanted to cite real-life experience and knowledge? Before I joined the military I was on these repayment plans. They don't take into account the fact that, in the real world, housing, healthcare. and childcare costs are far larger than in an idealized budget, and therefore you almost never have anywhere near as much discretionary income as the government thinks you should. Not only this, but the paperwork and proof required for these repayment plans is, again, exceptionally tedious (meaning that less educated communities and/or communities with less resources, like many minority communities, don't have easy access to these tools). Finally, the actual proof and numbers that the government looks at very frequently over-estimates your income and also doesn't account for any fluctuations in your income. Oh, and one other thing; if you do try to return to school, you need to be taking a certain course load to qualify for deferring your student loan payments. Can't go to school over half-time because you still also need to work to pay your bills, take care of your family, etc.? Sorry, you don't qualify and also need to pay back your student debt while probably accruing more student debt! 5) The remainder of your links just list some statistical evidence that everyone already agrees on. Your Forbes article also explicitly analyzes degree holders while excluding the debt-burdened population that doesn't have a degree (nearly 40% of 4-year students don't graduate in 6 years). I'd also like to point out that you seem to repeatedly trivialize the fact that student debt is a legitimate economic problem in this country not just because of how it adversely impacts the individuals with the debt, but how it can seriously affect the economy as a whole. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On February 22 2021 01:23 JimmiC wrote: No I did not, it simply did not happen. Read the article at least, better the pod cast since it goes into more detail. Otherwise it pointless to talk to you since you are only interested in your own point. The TLDR of me compared to DP sicne it extremely different and you can't seem to figure it out is. Dp thinks there is not a problem and this is a waste for money to people already ahead. I think the system is very broken and that we should work on fixing it instead of just dealing with the symptom. Then I also believe that we should help as many disadvantaged people as possible with that money and that debt forgiveness is not the best way because it only helps a very small fraction of the people who need it. I also provided a bunch of sources and data to support my point. You are arguing against not me, which is why I continue to point out your strawman. It is clear you have not read the sources, but I think you might not have read even my posts. I've read your sources and just gave you a long list of reasons why your sources were questionable. You've been complaining that we aren't reading your sources or addressing them, and then when I explicitly do, you just pretend that it didn't happen. That's not even remotely intellectually honest. Yes, I understand the philosophy behind your arguments vs. DP's, but at the end of the day you two were proposing very similar things for similar (on a superficial level) reasons, so the fact that you're lumped in with DP is on your stance on this issue, not our interpretation of it. I get if you don't want to continue this discussion (I'm getting tired of it as well), but don't pretend that I'm not reading your posts at this point. I just gave you a long, detailed rebuttal to the precise points you made. We agree that there is a problem here. My disagreement is that your view seems to trivialize the problem and provides solutions that aren't as drastic for... reasons. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On February 22 2021 03:18 JimmiC wrote: I believe your not reading it because you keep stating my point wrong. I responded to each of your "reasons". More than that I've jumped through each of your hoops and you have yet to answer the basic question of: Why do people with college debt(poor and mostly not) deserve this payment more then all poor people? Why is this better than using the same money to help the same number of all people in desperate need? Because you can't just "give all money" (despite the fact that debt forgiveness isn't the same as giving money away) to only the poor and pretend that it solves everything. Just like trickle-down economics doesn't work, just handing the poorest individuals in society all of the money won't suddenly make trickle-up economics work. Thr student debt crisis would still exist and be a massive economic threat. You haven't provided a reason to not address this crisis aside from a 1) questionable debate on efficacy and 2) a false dichotomy between helping the poor and addressing the student debt crisis. You can do both. It is literally what progressives are trying to do right now. As I've said time and time again, there are numerous policy proposals being pushed that exclusively help the poorest in society. Also by your logic why don't we exclude all of the people that aren't poor (i.e. the entire middle class) from economic reforms that aim to make things more affordable, e.g. improved healthcare/education/childcare costs? They can theoretically afford it and it would give us more money to give to the poor. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 22 2021 03:18 JimmiC wrote: I believe your not reading it because you keep stating my point wrong. I responded to each of your "reasons". More than that I've jumped through each of your hoops and you have yet to answer the basic question of: Why do people with college debt(poor and mostly not) deserve this payment more then all poor people? Why is this better than using the same money to help the same number of all people in desperate need? People with college debt don't deserve it more, however we can't Executive Order those problems like we can student debt. Thats the crux of the student debt debate, we can just Executive Order literally all student debt away. It doesn't require Congress and Joe Fucking Manchin and his ilk, it doesn't have to be watered down, it can just be done literally immediately by Joe Biden. One of the reasons we can't necessarily just use the student debt forgiveness money to pay poor people is that its forgiving debt, that money is already gone, theres no money to give there, theres just money not to collect. The other reason is that Democrat and Republican Senators don't want to do give money to the poor, they're perfectly satisfied having 50 billionaires be as wealthy as the bottom 50% of America. Student debt is literally only something people are pushing for because its ridiculously easy to do, and it doesn't look like anything else is really going to get accomplished. In a better world where America doesnt have two conservative parties we would be doing what you say, but until we do a better job of parking in front of Joe Manchin and friend's houses and blowing an air horn at night to make sure he cant sleep soundly while America's lower classes suffer we're just latching on the the one thing Democrats truly have exactly zero excuse not to do. They can't claim, "Manchin doesnt want us to do it and we need his vote!" they can't claim, "McConnell won't let us bring it to the floor!" they can't claim, "but McCarthy!" the fact that Joe Biden can do this entirely on his own whenever he wants is why we're making such a big deal over something that isn't really as high a priority as other things. Again though, I do want to make clear that I agree with you in principle, student debts not really as important as myriad other things, its just that America has committed to feigned powerlessness about fixing myriad other things. Feigning powerlessness on student debt doesn't work as well. | ||
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dp
United States234 Posts
On February 21 2021 14:35 Mohdoo wrote: + Show Spoiler + There has never been a moment in time where basing a policy covering millions of people can be appropriately based on people who do everything right. It is a terrible idea to just say “well so long as everyone is informed and does a good job, we’re fine”, because it’s based on fantasy. The problem is you want to base policy covering millions on the people that did everything wrong. Or worse case scenarios where everything went wrong for them. + Show Spoiler + You haven’t substantiated why I’m deflecting. Back up what you’re saying. You can’t just say it’s true and leave it at that. I’m saying the system can be improved. You’re pointing to your wife and saying “why can’t people just be my wife and everything is fine?” You are deflecting because I ask very straight forward, basic questions, and you don't answer them. "WE CAN DO BETTER!!!@!!@@" Ya. That is obvious. Now let's talk about the merits of this specific thing. + Show Spoiler + I’m trying to explain that public policy needs to be based on reality rather than assuming everyone can be ideal so long as it’s advantageous and preferable. The system you are defending has existed for many years and yet here we are. Proper policy is based on reality. I’m trying to help you understand why “so long as college is worth it, let’s just leave it at that” is lacking in ambition. I’m not worried about you understanding. I’ve done my best and I’ll just hope you are able to let it simmer for a bit. Again, SLF is not a policy change. It is not an attempt at one. I like the numbers on things. I hate moralistic arguments when it comes to policy. It is generally used to cover bad policy. If the whole of your argument is that paying back debt is hard and we can help alleviate that for millions of people, fine. State that and leave out the economic boom, wealth gap closing, poor people prioritized, inability to pay etc. It won't change my mind but at least it's an honest interpretation. I ask specific questions because the answers should matter. Every time I go over the numbers I don't see justification. When I see posts saying that the youth are pushed towards college because it will help them financially in life, and that is why they took out debt, I want to know if that push was correct. Is it? Like the supposed onerous task of paying back the loans, what do the numbers look like? Median debt to receive a bachelors - 30k. Median interest rate - 4.66%. Monthly cost - $313 for a 10 year payoff. That is around $2 an hour for a fulltime worker. Does a bachelors degree demand a wage over $2 an hour more than for someone without one? That completely ignores every other advantage in just the financial side of this. And on this basis alone it is already obvious. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
You are welcome to not like moral arguments and prefer the world be run as some kinda math machine. I'm not super concerned about you having your mind changed. You're just some random dude on the internet, same as me. Nothing you or I think will change anything in either of our lives. Forgiving student debt being an economic boom isn't up for debate, its a fact that is well supported in a variety of literature. What is your background/profession? What is your qualification for reviewing the numbers on national policy? Perhaps I am outclassed and ignorant here, but everything you have said to this point indicates otherwise. Again, no one is arguing a bachelors degree isn't worth it. I am not sure who you are arguing with, but it doesn't appear to be anyone on this board. I'd say this conversation has run its course and I wish you the best. | ||
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dp
United States234 Posts
On February 21 2021 15:56 WombaT wrote: Bit of a ramble but what is university/college meant to be? If it’s merely a means to get professional advancement and some knowledge, that process could be hugely streamlined. If it’s meant to be a place where people can learn things and expand their horizons, and marks the transition from youth to adulthood via fun experiences, then I’d say it’s not optimally set up to do that either. I get a lot of what you are saying in the rest of your post but I wanted to hone in on this as well. There is no reason, at all, that traditional college education should not be completely changed by technology by now. Costs should be dropping in every aspect. Besides specific studies that require hands on application such as lab work, there is no reason besides the fact that incoming students want "the college experience". Or it is being pushed on them. I don't cast the blame on either side individually, but much to your view of dual expectations I wonder which side is fueling increases. I lean towards one but haven't looked at the numbers to support my intuition. | ||
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dp
United States234 Posts
On February 22 2021 09:33 Mohdoo wrote: dp, covering people who do things wrong is standard and not a bad thing. The world is a better place when we provide for people regardless of if they made good decisions or not. It is why we also have social security and a variety of other policies. You are welcome to object to helping people who made bad decisions, but fortunately you aren't in charge. You are welcome to not like moral arguments and prefer the world be run as some kinda math machine. I'm not super concerned about you having your mind changed. You're just some random dude on the internet, same as me. Nothing you or I think will change anything in either of our lives. Forgiving student debt being an economic boom isn't up for debate, its a fact that is well supported in a variety of literature. What is your background/profession? What is your qualification for reviewing the numbers on national policy? Perhaps I am outclassed and ignorant here, but everything you have said to this point indicates otherwise. Again, no one is arguing a bachelors degree isn't worth it. I am not sure who you are arguing with, but it doesn't appear to be anyone on this board. I'd say this conversation has run its course and I wish you the best. Just want to say I am not taking any of this personally, and hopefully I haven't personalized it too much with my responses. The thing is, we do cover the people that make bad decisions, as well as those that land in unfortunate times. I was pointing out that blanket forgiveness, regardless of anything else, disproportionately target help to high income, wealthier professionals. When I look for targeted relief, it is not because I am an immoral robot. It's because resources actually are limited, political capital is finite, and for policy to thrive it requires the time and public support to do so. As I said earlier, I am not totally against loan forgiveness, but 50k or total forgiveness are insane to me. Targeting it to be most meaningful to those that receive it makes more sense to me. | ||
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On February 22 2021 09:37 dp wrote: I get a lot of what you are saying in the rest of your post but I wanted to hone in on this as well. There is no reason, at all, that traditional college education should not be completely changed by technology by now. Costs should be dropping in every aspect. Besides specific studies that require hands on application such as lab work, there is no reason besides the fact that incoming students want "the college experience". Or it is being pushed on them. I don't cast the blame on either side individually, but much to your view of dual expectations I wonder which side is fueling increases. I lean towards one but haven't looked at the numbers to support my intuition. Just gonna point out (completely unrelated to the student debt discussion) that the pandemic has proven that theories about how technology and online learning *should* change education are wildly overstated. People, as a group, do much worse at learning and obtaining/retaining an education via online/self-paced learning. | ||
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