# The Student Loan Crisis...An opinion piece

US News & Politics
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I read this and it is clearly represents the past and the present.
by Mark Rosneck Mark Rosneck April 24, 2019, 10:00 AM

I used the word “crisis” in the title simply because that’s been the fashionable thing to do for the longest time. I thought I’d pay a bit of attention to the crisis only because it’s got to be better than discussing Mueller which is way beyond boring.

Back about 1972, I was about to graduate high school primarily because the Cincinnati Reds offered free baseball tickets if you maintained an A average. I saw an awful lot of baseball games courtesy of the Reds. However, I foresaw a problem looming in my future which was that I somehow needed my own money to buy baseball tickets.

Since I was infatuated with electronics at the time, it seemed that my best course of action was to become an Electrical Engineer. Neither of my parents went to college so they weren’t much help in sorting all of this out. I wound up asking a bunch of people, went to the library, contacted some schools, and decided, yep, things that Electrical Engineers did were likely to earn me money for baseball tickets.

There was one wrinkle which was that my parents had no money to send me anywhere. That meant that I wasn’t going to school out of state. Forget it, not happening. It never occurred to me that anyone “owed” me the best education. In fact, no one owed me anything at all. If I couldn’t find a way to become an Electrical Engineer, there are plenty of other things I could do that represented honorable work in the field of electronics.

What I found, fortunately, was that the University of Cincinnati had a “co-op” program. It would take me five years instead of four because I would be working in the industry and making money which, if there was anything left after tuition and 4-ways (a little inside Cincinnati humor), I could go to baseball games!

During my senior year, a friend and I were taking a shortcut from some stupid humanities class to the engineering building through the financial aid office. It’s quite possible that we commented that a certain ethnic group seemed to be over represented. Coincidentally, the engineering bulletin announced that a limited number of fellowships were available to seniors. These were just student loans sponsored by a rich person (whose company I ironically wound up working for.) The loan was $3,000 and I used it to take flying lessons.

When I graduated in 1977, the $3,000 was the complete sum total of my student debt.

I went through all of this because I thought this was NORMAL. Boy was I wrong.

It now seems that the argument is being made that colleges “defrauded” students by getting them to major in studies that produced no income. They were mean people who took advantage of young, naive, youngsters. There are people suggesting that colleges should use their endowment funds to forgive these people their debts.

Sorry. I’m not buying it. If you want to try a class action suit, knock yourselves out but I think you darn well knew what you were buying for your money.

Another common Democrat thread is that the government should provide free college for all and forgive all the debt. The people this directly and immediately hurts are the tradespeople. Are you listening AFL/CIO? The Democrats want your members to partially subsidize the education of people who may well earn more than your members or at the least become “management.”

What is the solution for the crisis? Here we go:

There isn’t a crisis and you were duped by a bunch of liberals who’ve now taken all your money now and into the future. Grow up, suck it up, and learn from it. Too bad your real education has cost you so much money!

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I attended college when I was in my 30s. Paid my own way. Case closed.

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Too many brain dead parents labor under the impression, that college will make their children intelligent. If you can read & comprehend, you can challenge any college course. Many people are unaware of that fact. In my 30s, and most of the other students were in their teens or very early 20s. I had life lessons behind me. My logic - philosopphy professor told me it was refresing to have a student he could have intelligent conversations with. Not that some of the other student were not intelligent; but they were too young to be considered well rounded. Always best to have some serious living behind you. You will be able to focus better, & usually you have much thicker skin, and can handle criticism better. I must say, I only attended college for my own head; since I was already a well paid pipe fitter. I did it because, even at my age, I wanted to be even more well rounded. One thing I learned is, I could always learn more. You know, life is a path, not a destination.

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I did the same and it took 8 years to finish my BSEE.

But that’s not really what the opinion piece is about.

This is also what it’s about.

This is what it’s about.

This is what the article is about.

It’s about entitlement and the lack of personal responsibility.

Everyone focuses on free college for all. Is there an age limit? Can a person 72 years old decide to go to college and get a degree although it would likely be useless and not put to good use? Can a person then demand graduate degrees, PHD’s be also free? Should people that really shouldn’t attend college be allowed free college? Should we also demand free housing and food while in college? Transportation is a must? Should the taxpayers also subsidize off campus housing and utilities?

But we return to the core principal, the voices we make and personal responsibility.

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And what a path it has been. It’s about choices we make. Good choices are generally rewarded.
As the kiddies today have found, bad choices end up with demands for someone else to take responsibility for the bad choices. Blame is everything today.

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Tens of millions of people that had no business being in college were duped into going by the left who devalued everyone that didn’t have a college degree.

Now they are telling us we need to import people to fill jobs that won’t even exist in ten years as a direct result of it and millions of kids were fooled into taking on debt they can’t pay back for two decades.

In six years of college and grad school I accumulated a total debt of 12,500.00 at 10% interest and paid it off in 7 years.

Of course I earned my way through college for the most part with a GI bill, driving a School Bus ans working security at a nuke plant to avoid running up a debt I could never pay.

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In all truth much of that was due to how they were raised. Mommy and Daddy IF they stayed together were too busy buying cool stuff they would throw away in two years and houses/cars they couldn’t afford instead of putting anything away for their kids futures.

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I put many away for my daughters education. Her college is paid for as well as hr grad school.

We have friends and their kids have student loans to dal with. They have a large RV, a time share, the eve popular jet ski and claim, we cannot spend money on things we want as we have kids at home. Where did it go wrong for some but not for others? How the parents were raised?

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I can tell you for certain that in the post WWII era a lot of parents felt like after the war with so many having missed so much of their kids lives they wanted to simply spoil them. The next generation was even worse.

My dad was the most spoiled only child that ever lived. He gave my brother and sister absolutely anything they asked for but I spent more time being raised by my grandparents who taught me to work for everything I got.

My brothers kids were all absolute parasites until he finally cut them off and told them to sink or swim on their own. He gave each of them a set amount of money to help them get through school and a decent used car finally and said, “That’s it”.

Suddenly three of the four developed a work ethic. The oldest took about an extra decade to get his shit together.

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Free college!!

I don’t want do pay my student loans (that happen to be backed by the government). So when the IRS finds that I have a tax refund coming (much of it padded by Earned Income Credit), they confiscated my refund as payment toward what I owe the government. The NERVE of them!!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/feds-take-single-moms-dollar3000-tax-refund-to-cover-her-student-loans/ar-BBWd2H7?li=BBnbfcN

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So here comes Elizabeth Warren promising to pay off $600billion of student loans.

What is the guy who already worked hard to pay off his loans supposed to think about that? Now he’s going to be paying off someone else’s too, with his taxes.

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I figured out how to solve the student loan crisis. Simply, bail out all the people in debt, like the Berniecucks and the 3 people following Liz Warren want. However, there’s a catch.

You’re probably wondering “how are we going to pay for this?” Simple! We increase the interest rates on the student loan debt for everyone whose major is circled red, as well as everyone who graduated with a GPA lower than 2.5, regardless of major. Then, we use those funds to fully pay off everyone else’s student loan debt. If you think this sounds like I’m proposing selling all of the red people into slavery, then you’re absolutely right.

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To all brain dead parents, who believe their kid is special; and who are willing to drown in debt, while spoon feeding them to that degree in basket weaving; remember this while you struggle to survive: THE WORLD ALSO NEEDS DITCH DIGGERS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ps: My younger brother has a PhD in Physics; and it didn’t cost him one cent to get his degree ( degrees ). He actually turned down a fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

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I see where you’re going with that, although I wouldn’t include “Health Professions” in that.

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There is no crisis because they took on debt.

There is a crisis because they chose “educations” that are unmarketable and also because universities have heaped on socially progressive requirements that serve no useful function … unless you consider indoctrination useful.

The crisis is that they cannot repay … and also that they think they shouldn’t have to.

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Actually, they CAN repay. If they wanted to.

It’s the “shouldn’t have to” paradigm that’s the problem.

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Honorable and decent people can get by with very few laws regulating their lives.

No amount of laws will restrain the dishonorable and the blaggards … and yet they’re the ones who seem to demand more and more laws to cover every nuance of life.

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And the more laws you make, the more nuances need to be addressed.

Now we legislate by exception.

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These kids need to realize that failing to pay isn’t an option. They need to pay whatever they can afford if they can’t meet the minimums. Student loan defaults can turn into garnishments of up to 50% of your take home pay- and they rank above most other garnishments. Not a good idea for anyone.

Colleges and universities come in a large range of price tags- from elite private college to local community college. Students need to pick institutions that not only fit their educational needs, but also their budget. To go to a private college and then complain about the cost is absurd. It’s like going to a 5 star steak house and complaining that you could have had dinner at McD’s for much less and you can’t afford the bill.

I know many people who worked their way through school at either a state university or a community college, then transferred to another university to keep the cost down. It’s possible to go to college with a fairly low cost. Many people just choose not to. I resent people who chose not to and then refuse to pay for their own loans- because that money comes from other customers at the banks or from taxpayers.

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I have a retired friend who surprised me by telling me that neither she nor her ex-husband had paid off their student loans.

The govt takes the money out of their Social Security checks. She has $750 to live on each month; the rest of the check goes to repaying the student loan…which is enormous now because of the accrual of interest.

I’ve been hearing that some student loans are being “forgiven” because of the “bad faith” of some “for profit” universities whose name I’ve forgotten. However, I don’t think the federal student loans are, not even for that series of universities.

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