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House of Representatives Votes to Take Over All Student Loans

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  September 17th, 2009 at 10:19 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

If you want an indication of just how radical the Democrats in Congress have become, consider the vote on H.R. 3221. The legislation, which I wrote about yesterday, shuts down all private lenders for higher education student loans, requires that colleges and universities adhere to a new federal bureaucracy, creates a new Green Schools Czar, and hints that any school not complying will see its students denied federal student loans.

Last year, Congress passed the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA). The bill passed in the House 388-21, including 221-0 among Democrats. The Senate passed it by unanimous consent. President Bush signed it. The legislation was a bi-partisan piece of legislation that allowed private sector involvement in student loans without a new federal bureaucracy.

This year, the Republican substitute to HR 3221 would extend ECASLA programs through 2014 and create a commission to develop a new private sector model for student lending. The amendment failed 165-265. 257 Democrats unanimously voted no.

Final passage of HR 3221 was 253-171. 4 Democrats voted no, 6 Republicans vote aye.

The Democrats have now rejected the same legislation they unanimously supported last year in favor of a new, expansive federal bureaucracy.

Moderate Democrats in the Senate need to consider this. The legislation is opposed by many major colleges and universities. Senators Johnson, Nelson, Casey, and Gillibrand are on notice. And hopefully Charlie Crist’s errand boy, George LeMieux, is paying attention.

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COMMENTS

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  • archer52

    I may be wrong, but I don’t see the cash in the system unless they think the students, living in a socialist nation, can actually pay the loans back. This sounds more like “if you don’t vote for us, or join the union, your kids don’t get into college.”

    Fits the methods of the Chicago Machine liberals.

  • IJB

    Buchanan (FL)
    Cao (LA)
    Johnson (IL)
    Petri (WI)
    Platts (PA)
    Ros-Lehtinen (FL)

    Sorry, but I now won’t miss Cao when he goes.

    The others have some serious explaining to do.

  • deano64

    bank participation in student loans started with last years bill that you mentioned. It dictated maximum interest rate limits that banks could charge for student loans. I work for a mid sized bank that had a decent sized student loan department. After last years bill was signed it became apparent that originating and funding student loans would no longer be profitable and we got out of the student loan business. Many banks followed our lead. With this most recent bill it seems congress simply decided to speed up the process of their ultimate goal of total control over all student loans. I’m sure many politicians would tell you they had to do something as there just aren’t enough banks providing student loans. Gee I wonder why…??

  • DONTREADONME

    that is just the way it goes in the world. Just look at a high school education (not private education, and lets exclude you parents that make your childs public education serve them well) it is not much worth the paper it is written on these days. My father was an example of a high school education being all you need to succeed.

    IMO, the whole reason to take over this, was to make college now High High School for kids which means another 4 years more for kids to grow up. That being the case I move to change the voting age to 22 from 18, the drinking age from 21 to 25, and the service age to 21.

    We all know here whats happen to college educations over the last 10 years. I am 33 years old and the kids coming out these days know 1/2 of what I did graduating, IMO even MIT graduates are disappointing.

    Well, once again, we know what happens when everyone is special no one will be. End of Story

  • DONTREADONME
  • clement

    that plan Obama put out slashing the amount you have to pay if you are on the government student loan would it? It sure seems like something really fishy is going on. I suspect college tuition is going to be their next entitlement they are going to make a shot at.

    Are we going to be forced into a situation where if you want to attain a higher education that you will be forced into doing a certain amount of community service? I really don’t like what I’m seeing here.

  • http://charlemagne-the-hammer.blogspot.com/ DerKrieger

    …up to send my kids to Hillsdale College.

  • itsallverbatim

    but the ranks of DoD, DHS and the military branches would be bolstered if you were required to “give back” upon graduation.

    This former admin/ops guy says this is a refined draft. Whereas the draft you think of is meant to build a large expeditionary fighting force, this is supposed to create a large cadre back home.

    It’s fool-proof from an administrative standpoint and completely feasible.

    I use the GI Bill because I “served”; this is the reverse of that.

    You go to school on the government’s dime. Afterwards, you do your two years in ICE/Customs & Border Patrol/Marines/Army/Air Force Intelligence, etc etc and you’re done. Free to do other things.

  • reason60

    Does the bill actually prevent private banks from making loans to students? or just take away their taxpayer guarantee unless they comply with certain restrictions.

  • DONTREADONME
  • DONTREADONME

    be made to enroll with incentives to equate to their female counterparts? I am just saying….

    Of course not, it does not work that way to the Leftist Government bureacracy.

  • nessa

    …of government regulations. Deano64 said above “It dictated maximum interest rate limits that banks could charge for student loans. I work for a mid sized bank that had a decent sized student loan department. After last years bill was signed it became apparent that originating and funding student loans would no longer be profitable and we got out of the student loan business. Many banks followed our lead.”

    Of course intended or unintended is debatable.

  • reason60

    Which is why there really isn’t any money to be made off of them in the private marketplace. Far too many of them will default, or drop out, which demands that the interest rate be very high.
    Having said that, there is a benefit to the public in providing low cost or subsidized education.
    I have a personal stake in this- I got through school on government loans and grants, and have seen that the taxpayer’s original investment is paid back now by one single year’s taxes that I pay.

    Washington does a lot of outrageous things- this doesn’t strike me as one of them.

  • DONTREADONME

    I paid for my own college and my wife had loans federal loan I think. I graduated she did not, but she ended up paying her own school loan off, of course it helped that she is director now at her company. My God, someone can still make director without a college degree, oh my. If far to many kids are defaulting on school loans then the Federal Government should not be subsidizing them at all.

    BTW, the Government in the end will have for more liability then you can imagine and your taxes are not going to cover it. Just wait, the bureacracy created will stretch and grow and the Govenrment will move beyond that which you think it is capable of doing right now. In the end, these student loans will be more costly then shifting the loan subsidies to private industry. If you think otherwise, you were not paying attention in college, or you have never been in the military or Government.

  • drmonroe

    Government is already far too involved in the process as it is, and has taken away basic rights regarding student loans. You may default on them, but if you do they aren’t going anywhere no matter what you do, short of dying. If you’re bad enough off where bankruptcy is your only recourse, which does happen, then the student loans stay. If you can’t pay they seize your wages, if you’re on disability they seize that, if you’re on social security then that gets taken. The student loan situation has become, to many, a sort of indentured servitude where interest rates and fees keep people paying and paying and paying.

    http://www.indenvertimes.com/when-debt-ruins-lives-the-dark-side-to-student-loans/
    “If living with student loan payments was hard in good years, the recent economic downturn has made it even harder. The crisis has led some to simply break down financially and become unable to make any payments, making the default rates skyrocket.

    Though lenders write off loan defaults, the money is still owed by the debtor, and the total amount of the debt increases dramatically because of the penalties. Default also ruins credit, making it even more difficult to obtain employment as companies will not hire people with bad credit histories, even for menial jobs.

    But defaults are good business for the lenders, author Alan Collinge said in a recent Democracy Now! interview. Once in default, the cost of a loan often triples. Collinge is one of those whose life has been complicated by a debt that can?t be reconciled. Unlike many who remain silent, Collinge, the founder of Student Loan Justice in Washington, is one of a handful of people who have decided to organize other borrowers in trouble in order to push for reform. Collinge, who wrote ?The Student Loan Scam,? has become an expert on the realities of the dark side of student debt.”

    And the idea of lending thousands of dollars (I believe the average college kid leaves with $20,000 in debt) to 18 year olds who often have no idea what they want to do with their lives or if the degree will even pay off, is a really smart idea anyway. Ready for the next big economic headache?

    http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2009/09/04/student-loans-the-next-mortgage-meltdown/

    “Take easy credit terms, anxious and unsophisticated borrowers, and a commodity pitched as the ticket to wealth and security. Result: financial meltdown.

    If that sounds like the housing market, it?s because the student loan industry has similar characteristics. Like mortgages during the housing boom, student loans are easily available and eagerly embraced by borrowers, lenders, and society. Like homeownership, a college education is promoted as the key to middle-class prosperity, a solid investment worth borrowing to the hilt for. Like mortgages, some private education loans were securitized and sold in bundled packages that mixed high-risk and low-risk borrowers.

    And like homeowners facing foreclosure, students face loan burdens so onerous that default seems inevitable.”

    Both articles are worth a read.

  • Jonah Shumate

    To me, it seems as though this is now a nationalized education system. See, if banks cant compete with low interest loans from the government, then you have a single lender of sorts.

    Then, they can put more conditions on their loans. Look at the SBA when it first stared and now how it is.

    This will also make private education even more difficult to fund because of the disparity now in federal and private loans.

    Then, there is the slippery slope of, “if we loan you this money, you need to serve in civil service/domestic security force” type stuff.

    This is not good, at all. Its a beginning and an open door for government control and intrusion, again…

  • DONTREADONME

    those articles are well and good, but you missed my point by a long shot.

  • DONTREADONME

    if you want people to take you seriously do not use Democracy Now! as a link or source, people will laugh you into oblivion. And, mortgages and loans are not the responsibility of the federal/state government unless a violation of law has occurred in say breach of contract or default w/o bankruptcy.

  • drmonroe

    Are you saying that government will make things worse? Well, that’s usually a given. With default rates skyrocketing and the fees that are added on when students default (from the above article: ?Over the years, each little period of ?economic hardship forbearance? and ?interest only payments? has ballooned my debt to nearly 120K,? Steve said.”) I’m saying things are bad enough. I’d hate to see what worse will look like.

    I don’t even understand how the current situation is legal: “Unique legal status

    Student loans enjoy a unique legal status unlike most other consumer loans. ?You can?t discharge them in bankruptcy. They don?t have to comply with federal truth-in-lending laws, state usury laws, statutes of limitations on debt collection, or much of anything else,? said Collinge. ?If it?s a federally guaranteed loan, the lenders can garnish your paychecks, your Social Security and disability checks, and your tax refunds.?

  • drmonroe

    I think the current situation is horrible and something needs to be done. I’m not sure what yet but I’ve known far too many people struggling to barely make it by because they were told that going to college right after high school would pay for itself.

    As for moby or troll, I’m a registered Republican and have never voted Democrat., nor do I ever plan to. As far as I’m concerned the Democrats have been on the wrong side of history since at least slavery. Besides, if you can check my post history it should be clear that I’m not. I don’t post often. I’d rather “listen”.

  • DONTREADONME

    that I may have pulled the trigger a little quick on you drmonroe, sorry, please disregard my inflammatory comment. Didn’t check out enough of your posting history.

  • DONTREADONME

    I didn’t pull the trigger quick enough on the retraction.

  • drmonroe

    I come here a lot and enjoy reading everyone’s comments. The student loan thing is something I feel strongly about. I have no doubt that more government is not the solution, but like I said something needs to be done.

  • DONTREADONME

    1) the truth in lending, state usury laws, statutes of limitations on debt collection etc is equal to added cost
    2) to garnish the wages on a 20k debt you will soon find yourself spending on the Government side funds in excess of the loan itself. Not much sense there in doing that. You can not assume that the use of the FICA, Tax Refunds and the IRS will be easy and less costly in the long run. The assumption that government will not immediately exceed costs of the default is very optimistic to say the least.

    3) Again, a bank will spend time to get the money owed by the borrower; however, at least the bank can stop trying to get the money when it deems the costs of regaining the loss exceeds the loss itself then the bank stops. The Government has a tendency to not stop the expenditure of funds as well as the expansion of the funding. Not to mention the paperwork.

    I just can not buy off on the idea that somehow this is cost savings in the future. As I said above the wife had what I just looked up in my records is a federal loan at a low interest rate that was recently paid off by me and my wife. So, from what that document says it appears the Government already has a public option for student loans. That further galvanizes my belief that this bill is bad news.

  • DONTREADONME

    I am sorry,

    If this bill works to reduce costs and increase competition (e.g. private still has a hand in the game) thats good, but I am just very apprehensive, especially when working with civilian bureacrats in the Gov trying to spend money on a daily basis.

    Anyway, we will get a chance to see how this works because I believe this bill will make it through the Senate.

  • drmonroe

    Isn’t the special status afforded to student loans bad in general? I agree that a bank may decide the cost is too high but right now there’s no time limit on when they can no longer attempt to regain the lost money, not to mention there’s no bankruptcy option. For the majority of debt there is a statute of limitations that varies from between 4-7 years or so from state to state. I know this has been a long going process with laws passed, I believe in 98 and then again in 2005. The first to make federal student loans untouchable, the second to affect private student loans. Right now if you lose everything you still have to pay your student loans, they will always be there. You could lose your house, car, job and whatever else and they’ll still be waiting for you.

    I definitely agree with “The Government has a tendency to not stop the expenditure of funds as well as the expansion of the funding. Not to mention the paperwork.” fully, but, correct me if I’m wrong, can’t private student loans that are backed by the federal government use the Department of Education to reclaim debt owed to it? By seizing wages, ss and disability?

    And to be clear I was never saying that the bill will be good in any way. I don’t want anyone to get that impression. The whole student loan situation, as it stands now, baffles me. That’ what prompted my initial reaction. I look at it and think “how can any of this be legal?”

  • drmonroe

    http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2009/01/05/student-loans-sucker-kids-into-oppressive-debt/

    Loaning thousands of dollars at high interests to kids who have no income and may never have much of one is not smart.

    “Torres said she didn?t learn the rate on her loan until after graduation, when she got the bill. The variable rate rose as high as 18.5%, which requires a monthly payment of $650 ? more than twice what she makes in her part-time job.”

    And then there were investigations:
    “An investigation last year by New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo found an ?unholy alliance? between lenders and hundreds of schools across the country. Charging more than a dozen lenders with wrongdoing, Cuomo cited a pattern of bribes to financial aid officers making decisions about which lenders would appear on school-preferred lender lists and ?revenue-sharing? kickbacks ? in cash or products ? to schools that led their students to specific companies. Hundreds of colleges agreed to abide by new ethics rules and not to accept gifts, and half a dozen even refunded money to students.

    The U.S. Department of Education tightened its guidelines to discourage quid pro quo arrangements. More than a dozen student lenders, including Sallie Mae, Bank of America, Citibank and JPMorganChase, paid a combined $13.7 million to settle Cuomo?s charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.”

    Well, at least they didn’t admit to anything.

    Also let’s try to squeeze every last penny out of the students.

    “Andrew Meyer, the Tampa, Fla., attorney handling the case, said his law firm gained insight into Sallie Mae?s practices from people who formerly worked there as loan officers.

    A key strategy was to make students believe the loan officers worked directly for the college, he said. Meyer said Sallie Mae purposely sent disclosure forms a month or more after classes had begun so that students would be less likely to protest onerous terms.”

  • ejsohio

    Liberals will decry charges that this is yet another absorption of power by a run-a-way federal government, but its fits the trend of centralizing control of key elements of our society within Washington. It opens the door to applying even more pressure on colleges to “measure up” to standards applied by people with agendas. This is yet another nail in the coffin of independent thought on campus – if such a thing even exists anymore – but particularly for those very few colleges that strive for independence from an overbearing government, this will turn the screws tighter on them.

  • kellymch

    Can you imagine the squeeze that the federal government could put on these universities?

  • wayneepalmer

    Evangelical universities are toast. Parochial education is toast. Homeschooling is toast.

    ANYTHING that gets in the way of the double whammy of Der ObamanFuhrer’s Indoctrination Corps (how long until Bill Ayers is running the Education Department?) having total monopoly over pulping the minds of the young folks NOT TO MENTION the massive boost that this will give to the NEA due to all of the teachers they will be able to hire to teach all their new victims – which means MORE money back to the Commiecrats.

  • bk

    Now it seems Obama will set salararies for many bank workers.

  • Scope

    added to the Student loan bill? It would be just like Pelosi to get what she wants, government run student loans, in order to defund ACORN, which most want. If that’s the case, was defunding ACORN more important than passing government run student loans?

  • Scope

    added to the Student loan bill? It would be just like Pelosi to get what she wants, government run student loans, in order to defund ACORN, which most want. If that’s the case, was defunding ACORN more important than passing government run student loans?

  • bk

     

  • Scope

    http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/17/final-vote-results-for-roll-call/

    Big Government has an article about defunding ACORN, and they show the vote results for the Bill Title: Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.

  • Scope

    http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/17/final-vote-results-for-roll-call/

    Big Government has an article about defunding ACORN, and they show the vote results for the Bill Title: Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.

  • archer52

    Good points. By forcing service, at a reduced rate (per hour rate less the amount to “pay back the loan”) you get a whole bunch of young people and young minds to influence to do whatever new program some politician wants done. I forget, how long was one of the proposals, two years, or was it longer?

    This would create three levels of government controlled students:

    1.High school and no higher because you won’t take the loans and can’t afford college.

    2. College kids forced to take government loans and then slave time in the government assigned programs

    3. Rich kids, like Obama’s, Clinton’s, Gates’, and Kennedy’s who pay for an elite college and go right into making money, often using the labor of the other two to do it. I remember HRC saying something like this back in the nineties. She said not all students were destined to go to college like her daughter. Some should go to tech. school and learn a trade. (Like a mechanic so they could work on her daughter’s BMW.) This very well could be an example of both camps of the liberal forces (NY/LA ideologues and the more pragmatic and money hungry Chicago Machine) working together. Mark my words, eventually somewhere in this will be a demand by the unions to give a break to the kid of anyone who is a member of a union.

    Of course, if you are in a program, you will be forced to read and learn the ways of the leader, much like we saw with the handouts and work sheets done by the WH on his speech, but much more direct.

    I still think what they don’t understand about our nation is the fundamental hatred for being told what to do that still exists in all of us. We aren’t Russia, or Britain, or France. A hundred years ago we were still settling disputes with six guns in dusty streets. Telling a voting public they can’t send their kid to college so they can have a better life, without the government’s approval will really upset a ton of parents.

  • Curt409

    If we live in a world where the government gives ‘permission’ to private banks to make loans–with terms dictated–then we live in a world where the same government can shut out the private banks with the same unintellectual members of congress voting for both.

    The answer is for republicans to start introducing bills that backs government out of its involvement in all things private; be it banking, education, healthcare, agriculture, business, labor, et al. I’m sick of republicans sitting on their hands while we become Cuba.

  • Andy W.

    Anyone who’s held a position of authority in the military lately will tell you that the ability of most of the kids coming into adulthood to follow instructions/orders is negligible.

    When I was at the Navy recruit training center, we called them “Nintendo Babies.” Kids that came in, having grown up with everything handed to them and no ingrained sense of personal responsibility.

    I’m worried that what we would end up with re a “Obama Corps” type service system would be a cadre of, even at a “reduced” pay rate, overpaid young people with no direction except from the thugocracy which would use them to both subtly and blatantly batter down opposition to the government a la the brownshirts of the 1930s. They would be an undisciplined and unwieldy mob but would more than make up in numbers for their lack of direction. Shot gun fired at the target usually gets one pellet on the circle. This aside from the career leaders this group would require. I see lots of displaced ACORN leadership stepping right in to hold the reigns on this one. The bloated system would have little real oversight from on high and be full of graft and gang style criminal activity from the career leadership.

    Scary.

    disclaimer. I have hope based on some of the kids I know that actually do care and are personally responsible. Hope that they are not drowned out and overwhelmed by the mass of mediocrity with which they will have to compete.

  • DontBanMeBro

    Great discussion, guys. Lotsa meat here. Thanks for the reading.

    For my part, I’d love to see federal government remove itself entirely from the student loan business. Right now federal guarantees keep student loan rates artificially low which encourage people to buy more education than they can afford or need.

    Just like the housing crisis.

    And just like the housing crisis, this debt is being bundled and sold. I consolidated my loans twice. According to my current statement, my debt is owned by Deutsche Bank.

    But unlike the housing crisis, students can’t get out of their debt obligations if that Womens’ Studies degree doesn’t pay off. The government doesn’t need to encourage people who shouldn’t be bothering with a college education to go ahead with it anyway.

    A whole cottage industry has sprung up to take advantage of your tax dollars “educating” people who would be better served by just taking an honest blue collar wage, or, better yet, thinking creatively and innovating their way to success (Bill Gates college drop-out anyone?). Colleges are getting fat on federal largess this too. Why bother trying to keep costs down if the students will inevitably just take out bigger and bigger loans to pay for it? A real education doesn’t depend on how smart your digital white board is or how green is the grass on the commons. What are these schools spending all that money on that is so essential to a real education? It ain’t books.

    No federal loan guarantees will mean there will be fewer students able to afford college. Student enrollment will go down. Colleges will feel a pinch and look for ways to save. Tuition will inevitably fall. The really bright kids will manage. The ones who pick their college according to the “Biggest Party School” annual rankings will hopefully not. End result: greater competition among the colleges for the students who really want to learn, beer bong campus culture shrinks, quality of education improves, costs go down. Everyone wins! Behold the power of the free market.

  • Vegas_Rick

    If your sole source of income is SS, you are considered “judgement proof”. No one can take your SS.

  • mom2oneson

    SL don’t need a judgement to take it. I’m in much of the same boat.. I have a ton of student loans and I’m 100% they will leave me homeless one day when I run out of deferments. I don’t get social security but I would ask you to double check on that. I think SL and the IRS can take anything from your account without a judgement, it’s not like a cc. An issue with the Ford program is after so many years of 0 payments on the income based contingent pay plan they are forgiven and then you owe tax on the forgiven amount and the IRS can take from your account just like SL can..it’s scary.

    What I think needs to happen is the circuit courts need to change to not make it soooo difficult to bankrupt student loans. There is one circuit where it’s a little easier and I wish I could move to one of those states. Attorneys here have told me it would just be throwing good money after bad due to my age and race and how much they are fought and I only found one that actually had experience doing it.

  • mom2oneson

    that is the problem. Bankruptcy chapter 7 is suppose to give relief to people and student loans should not be nearly impossible to discharge.
    I think having a hearing is fine but it’s nearly impossible to do dischage them.
    When the laws were changed some years ago to make it so hard to discharge them I think that was wrong..

  • mom2oneson
  • archer52

    There is a saying that goes, “Ten percent of the world runs the world while ninety percent wonder what happened and who did it.”

    I hung that saying on half wall next to my desk in the PD. I had two signs side by side, one with a 10% and an arrow pointing down and the one next to it with a 90% and another arrow pointing down. In between them I had third with a simple statement, “You pick.”

    You would be surprised how many people unconsciously stood in the ninety percent line. It was a joke, but also a statement to those who would come up looking for someone else to do their work for them. Simply put, don’t bother.

    We experienced the same problems you did in recruiting. We actually had one recruit in field training who had been involved in a physical disturbance with some punches thrown. The next day he didn’t come into work. His phone message was, “I need a day of personal reflection.” ????? !!!!

    It is so bad in our department they actually sent a veteran, hardnosed sergeant out to counsel him and try to persuade him to come back. When he came back, he had the kid’s gear. Apparently, and I wasn’t privy to the conversation, he convinced the young man that panty waists weren’t what we really needed in police work. (Obviously they sent the wrong guy.)

    Twenty years ago, we would have not even tried that, we would have gathered the gear the same day and told the kid good luck with the Peace Corp. But PC rules the day and times have changed. Only lately, after years of pushing for college educated men and women and being disappointed in their real world experiences and total lack of common sense, our department, as have many, realized the real pot of god was in the military veterans. They may go into the military Nintendo kids, but you do some fine work knocking it out of them. By far the best cops.

    The only downside, if you can call it that, was I had to remind them that stomping on the throats of whoever is causing them a problem may work in Afghanistan, but here.. not so much. I’d say, remember, we are the police, servants of the public, we can’t call in air strikes or artillery because someone pissed us off.

    Once past that issue, every one I met were great men and women and are making great police officers.

  • reason60

    As a traditional conservative, I tend to look back on earlier eras and wonder why their solutions are no longer applicable.
    Specifically, in the 1950′s, here in California, state colleges were heavily subsidized, to the point of being nearly free; this combined with the GI Bill, again heavily subsidiized, made an entire generation of people into college graduates who otherwise would have taken the “blue collar jobs” that you mention.
    Today those millions of college graduates are the titans of industry, the CEOs and small business owners who built the postwar prosperity.

    Of all the tings that government spends money on, education is the smartest- we are not going to compete with China and India by reducing the number of college educated people and increasing the number of uneducated workers.

  • Achance

    Unfortunately, you have to go to college to get what would have been a decent high school education in the ’50s and early ’60s. The only way we’re able to compete now is by importing much of our expertise in anything that is hard or boring like math and science.

    The only thing that is keeping the whole “education” scam afloat now is the fact that so many of the people ripped off by their degree are in postions to make hiring decisions that they are requiring people to demonstrate that they too were ripped off by a college in order to get hired.

    In the last decade of my career I saw an endless stream of recent college graduates with a fancy piece of paper, huge debt, high self-esteem, and horrible work habits, bad attitudes, and no useful skills.

  • mom2oneson

    most community college tuitions are far far far below but the max pell grant is.

  • DontBanMeBro

    Where some obscene percentage of college grads can’t find Iraq on a map? Those are the college graduates I wouldn’t miss. The ones who go to college simply because it’s the done thing or they’re looking forward to raising hell somewhere other than from under their parents’ roof. They’re the ones who would peel away first if it became more expensive to attend school because the government wasn’t putting them up to it. Yes, let them find a blue collar job. Let them learn a little something of life, and then when they’re ready, let them attend college if they desire it enough to be able to afford it. Government handouts encourage sloth not just in business but surely also in education.

    Again, the bright kids would find a way to make it work because they’re bright. They’re resourceful. They respect education. They understand what a privilege it is to be able to devote your day to learning while most of the the world gets their bread by the sweat of their brow. These are the ones that will keep us ahead of China and India.

    I respect your traditional conservative wonder at why we can’t have things work like they did some years ago. I’m just looking a few years further back than you, back when a college education was something you worked for, when it meant something, and a college graduate could find Iraq on a map (or perhaps the British Mandate of Palestine as it may have been known).

  • mom2oneson

    Go to any math or hard science department (with the exception of biology) and I’d say at least 50% of the professors came here on a work visa initially. We don’t have enough native kids to get paid to study in hard science graduate school here. So many of the GA/TA positions are filled with foreign students.

  • DONTREADONME

    I have now heard huge stretches to defend these subsidies, there is nothing I see conservative about supporting federal loan guarantees to pay for college.

    Let me see here, less college kids going to college because of the cost which will result in less funds from tuition. Well folks there is a solution, its called 1) the college will have to lower tuition to meet recruitment and funding and 2) Hasn’t anyone heard of Community College, I went to one before I went to the University and I paid for it all. All of you here defending this are disappointing me. I guess the subsidy of corn, dairy, mortgages and everything else subsidized by the Federal Government are good things too. Come on people, stop it.

  • DONTREADONME

    am a math and science graduate that could have been a professor; however, I am better paid for my skills in the R&D, military and private industry. That is where all of the native american math and science graduates go.

  • DONTREADONME

    I am sorry, community college’s are not always subsidized and if they are it comes from the state not the federal Government. Community colleges have much lower overhead and teaching costs then the 4 year colleges and universities. I hope I understood you correctly here.

  • mom2oneson
  • DONTREADONME

    I do not know why I am even arguing with y’all about this. This is not even one of those topics I should be passionate about.

    Mom, you and the others probably have bettter ideas on what to do regarding the topic of education, than I and especially better than what the D’s came up with. My real beef is with this bill not the notion of finding a solution to this issue.

  • Richard Mullins

    well that’s the way it is here in Texas. We pay for it in our taxes. We don’t do that for state universities just community colleges. So we should at least get inexpensive tuition’s. With this, we can expect that getting a college education is going to cost 100 to 200% more because of more government red tape and extra crap.

  • mom2oneson

    All of the community colleges and state colleges I’ve seen are subsidized. I don’t see how a com college could operate if it was not.
    State school or community college my point was tuition is still very little and for a student that recieves a pell grant it may be free, they may get money back or it may be a small out of pocket expense for them. My point was it’s still cheap just like the poster wrote about in the 50s.

  • mom2oneson

    The state schools in TX don’t get money from the state?

  • mom2oneson

    I meant what I sad, good point like you are right. :) big hug :)
    Back to the bill.. :)

  • Achance

    I think Baylor may be “private,” but even the private schools get all sorts of grants and contracts from local, state, and federal government sources.

    The colleges and universities are a major piece of the “shadow government” I’m talking about in my diary. Here in Alaska practically every failed and former Democrat officeholder is either an adjunct prof or an administrator in the University system. From what I’ve seen most states are the same. The fed and all sorts of foundations have grant programs that even the whackiest profs can get and then insulate themselves from the budgetary process. So, even if you have a Republican controlled Board of Regents that tries to control the U a bit, they escape scrutiny because their funding is from the grant or contract.

  • Richard Mullins

    that have to rely on the Taxes payed by those that have property(same way with School districts[they get money from the Federal government, but the tax payers pick the rest]). We really need to tell the Federal government to “Screw you and the horse rod on”. Its the nicest thing I could think of. All the government has done right now is make it more expensive to educate(mandates). If we just got rid of the crap and focus on the core education, we would be much better. But that seems that to be happening.

  • izoneguy

    More government interference – cloked as another Trojan Donkey to help the “people”.

  • Richard Mullins

    has billboards on I-45 saying that the cost of a semester is $600. That not that bad at all. Just go and see what your tax dollars get you. Nice good education. Now its still much less expensive than a semester at a state school like UT,A&M, or Texas Tech.

  • Richard Mullins

    for education. There are plenty of private schools here in Texas(yeah like school down the road in Houston, starts with an R and ends with an E, yeah Rice). Plenty of students go to private universities like ACU ,LCU,Baylor,Rice,WBU,Trinity,St. Mary, University of the Incarnate Word and many others. Lots of get federal money(with the big string attached). It certainly not helped, just make more monuments to me on college campuses. As for UT, they sold off some prime real estate(aka Real estate with oil). Lots of money to educate with.

  • Richard Mullins

    kind of like, you have too many men enrolled and you need to balance that. That not good at all.

  • Vannek

    When the Feds have control of student loan funding, they will be able to use it as a tool to force colleges to follow their agenda.

    Will the Feds and the ACLU then be able to use “separation of church and state” to justify not providing loans to students at religion-based colleges?

    Will the Feds then be able to dictate the racial mix of the student body? I work in a university research program. Students can’t advance based on
    “life stories” and other subjective criteria. They have to have superior math and science skills. Most of our students are Asian or White–for whatever debatable reasons. When the Feds control the loan program, will they tell us that all of our students’ loans will be denied if we don’t have more Blacks, Latinos, or Purple Betelguesians in the program? Will we be forced to accept less qualified students to meet some racial quotas?

    Frightening….

  • Richard Mullins

    stand in his way to remake this nation. Either killed off from the outside or from within.

  • Achance

    There are considerably more females than males in college these days. So, the men are the “underutilized” class and thus are the victims of discrimination. Actually I think young males are discriminated against in the public schools. They want them to be castrati and they don’t take it very well, so they hound them out of school as discipline problems or drug them into submission with ritilin.

  • Finrod

    My alma mater, Wabash College, is all-male. I’m worried that the feds are going to use this to force them to go co-ed, despite the fact that there are more all-women colleges in Indiana than there are all-male colleges in the entire country.

  • redpens

    out there that the Democrats don’t want control over. And the Republicans who voted for this travesty? Why? Just another tool of indoctrination for dear leader

  • Richard Mullins

    I haven’t been on any college campuses since I stopped working as a courier( a good 3+ years).

  • realskinny

    One of the largest sources of funding for the Democrats is the Socialist education bureaucracy. The Dems fund college for students to give more taxpayer money to their supporters. A percentage of this money then comes back to their campaigns. This can be shown both in State funding for Socialist secondary schools and Federal student aid.

    Over the years it can be traced. If Federal student aid rises $500 Million, Tuition will be raised $500 Million, salaries will be increased and millions will flow to the Democrats. The exact same thing occurs on the State level. Republicans continue to vote to increase “Education” funding because they are too stupid to see they are cutting their own throats. They also have a pathetic faith in “public schools”, and think socialism works. Possibly this is because few Republican office holders are bright enough to see that “public schools” ARE socialist.

    While an educated populace is an advantage for a society one might give some thought to the morality of taxing the high-school educated laborer for the benefit of the college educated. One last thought; Someone who comes out of high-school, goes to work, invests the money that would have gone to college expenses, (books, Etc) Invests the money after 4 years that is not owed on student loans that do not have to be repaid will have lifetime earnings exceeding all but a small percentage of college graduates.

  • Leopard1996

    Take away the subsidization of the loans, so colleges don’t start with a baseline from which they will add and add more to their costs. Just as a simple business, if I know that I can automatically get 20,000 per person on average selling my goods per person. I will charge 40,000. It will average out that I will make a nice profit.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But elections have consequences, sadly.

  • Leopard1996

    I just know on this, I went to a small liberal arts college in PA, that was considered pretty elite, for me, I got a partial football ride, and I still have loans to pay, I pay a Sallie Mae loan, and another one my parents got for me.

    I know the Sallie Mae, was like an 8,000 Dollar a year subsidized, which I know the college started as a starting point for charging, and if some paid the whole freight on their own. More for them.

  • Scope

    There are now 75 comments concerning the Student Loan Federal Government takeover. Every in and out has been covered, every good and bad points have been covered. It has been discussed to death. I guess I must be the only one who sees the passage of HR 3221, which includes defunding ACORN, as being passed by every Republican in the House, and the majority of Democrats, as a statement against ACORN, rather than a support for the Government Loan program. Will someone please talk to the issue that it most likesly passed because of the ACORN amendment? Please, I understand that it is critical to stop the growth of the Federal Government. Will other ACORN affiliates take ACORNS place, for sure. Is it a start, especially when the Senate bill stops funding for ACORN “and it’s affiliates.” Is it just a distrust that ACORN will ever be defunded? Maybe it’s just my wondering, maybe because it was posted by Scope, but, someone somewhere has to have an opinion on weather it was more important to pass the Student Bill as opposed to the ACORN Amendment. Boehner talked to this issue today- He asked that Pelosi seperate the ACORN defunding Amendment from the Student Loan Funding Bill.

  • Scope

    http://gopleader.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=145686

  • Richard Mullins

    but sliping in a Defund ACORN part is just there as a ploy. Most Republicans saw the ploy and knew the crap that they wanted. This was a ploy to attempt to get some Republicans in on a Nationalize Student loans bill. Cheap trick. I didn’t say much because I thick this should be handled on another Diary.

  • GregInFla

    right on, right on, right on (as Rush says)

  • surveyor

    At least there’s some one here that sees thruogh the OBAMA PLAN.This is just what he has been trying to push down our throuts from the get go.He has a golden toung,but you have to watch you back.Like he has said from the beggining”It’s who i surround myself with”.Well look at that?An’t that something to talk to talk about.As of al the yesterdays since he took office he has been bring this natin down.We are no longer as strong as we used to be.We have become an embaresment,our money is becoming less and less a valued commodity on any exchange as it used to be.Why we have some idiot just keeps printing it.And best of all as of late were just dropping our defences for the hell of it,nothing in return,no bargaining,no ,we wont do that because there might be some big bussiness that has us in there back pocket that can make some money.This is discusting!