Looks like this would be a top item in a Biden admin (relevant quotes for those that don't login to the ET):
Biden also said "free education for anyone making under $125K". Which I guess he would have to do via legislation, vs pen, so it will count on what happens with the Senate seats.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-calls-for-immediate-congressional-action-on-student-loan-forgiveness_3583933.html?utm_source=share-btn-copylink
This pisses me off to no end. I put off my education for nearly ten years while I worked in the oil fields and the county dump from 18 to 27, saving money for college, and then paying my way through undergrad and grad school with no loans (I did receive one small academic scholarship, and had my grad tuition reduced 75% because I TA'd and taught lab sections ). But hey, let's start kids off in life with the ideas that anything they want is free, and if it's not free, they can just blow off their debt with no consequences.
If they want to work on the student loan problem, as we have discussed here before, first investigate universities that charge $200 for a *expletive deleted*ing text book, well overpay their professors, and toss millions of dollars into ridiculous non-academic SJW bullshit. Then quit making "blue collar" and "trade school" dirty words. Also stop insisting people need a PhD for lower level tech positions. Trump has now taken care of the latter problem in the Civil Service. I expect 46 to reverse it if he gets in. Not paying kids to take "SJW studies" classes goes without saying.
I agree that blue color/trade school shouldn't be a dirty term. It should be embraced because most of those jobs will pay more than most jobs requiring a 4 year degree. We also shouldn't make trade unions a dirty word either, bring back the apprentice programs but police the crap put of union leadership to reduce the corruption. Make it illegal for a union to endorse a political candidate or party.
If you are college bound, how about 2-5 years of federal service before school and you get free college, military, peace corp, ameri-corp, forest service, etc. Each year of service gets you one year free at a public university, or each year gets you 2 years at a community college.
In regards to student loan forgiveness, don't make it a blank check. Set up stipulations where it is paid off in a 5 or 10 year period if you meet the criteria, such as working public sector or working in rural area that is in need of people with you education. Set up tax advantages for businesses to pay down student loan debt in a 5-10 year period in with annual installments. Freeing up what people are paying on student loans would be a huge infiltration of money into the economy.
I don't think you can do anything about a $200 text book, that is set by the publisher and laws of supply and demand kick in, it's not cheap to make a book that isn't going to mass produced, like a NY Times Bestseller. Authors of text books need to get paid for their time.
I'm not to concerned about faculty getting paid too much, at least in the Midwest. Where they need to clean house is the administration, many admin jobs don't require a PhD but PhDs seem to surround themselves with PhDs.
I think the SJW classes varies form school to school, I did the university thing twice, both degrees were 16 years apart. In the 90s everyone at the University of Northern Iowa had to take an ethics class related to their major and environmental science class to graduate. In the 2010s, at Iowa State University, everyone had to take 6 credits from a menu of classes of 3 credit of non western civ and 3 credits of ethics/diversity class. I didn't find the ethics/diversity class that bad, there was no whitey male sucks/white privilege, just an awareness that in your career you are going to have to work with people that are different that you (ethic, sex, religion, personalities, etc.) and don't be an ahole to them.
You had an unique situation where you could get a job that you could make enough money to pay for school. I remember when I graduated from HS and my plan was to join the Navy and use that to pay for college. Went for my physical and I was rejected due to a heart murmur. I ended up working in a factory as a MIG monkey making $6 an hour in 1992, driving 45 minutes one way to work. I was happy to have a full time job (no benefits) and folks let me live at home, the Midwest was really hit by that recession and unemployment was really high in my part of the tri-state area (IA-MO-IL). The chip and grind crew paid minimum wage of $4.25/hr, so I felt fortunate. Most of the factories/shops in my home area paid min to $5/hr to start at the time, labor market was saturated so they could pay what they wanted. I don't think I could of saved up enough money for a year at a University on that and still commute to work. I did manage to save up enough to pay in cash for a 2 year degree at the local community college, luckily my parents let me live at home rent free. I did go to the University after that on student loans, because I had no money and my parents weren't shitting out gold coins either. When I graduated the mid 90s boom was just ending and jobs were scarce, then the .com bust happened. My first couple years of employment were pretty rough and I had a hard time just paying bills each month on $20k/year (no health insurance), I ended up working at a gas station 2 nights a week and every weekend for a year just to get ahead a bit. If I got sick I would of been screwed. Things got a lot better for me in Dec 2002 when I got hired by Iowa State University.
Now lets look at the millennial, they started going to college/starting careers during the great recession also they were going to school at the time tuition increases were double digits due to reduced funding from states and feds, not a great start, some are still trying to dig themselves out, now we have 9 months of Covid, another hit on that generation. They don't need a blank check, but a plan to forgiveness/payoff would be a good thing for the future economy.
I also agree that the degree inflation needs to stop, not sure how to do that without some serious governmental action on private and public employment.
