student debt forgiveness is back

[Jimmy Dean]

Careful, a lot of employers will try to do just that...Every industry I've worked in both public and private always tries to fill positions with younger, cheaper workers. The "do more with less" attitude is pervasive, in spite of never working out in reality.

I am perfectly fine if they attempt to replace me with 5 burger flippers. Or even 2-3 new engineers. They still won't be able to do my job. ;) I'll gladly walk down the street to a better paying job and watch this place fumble and falter unable to cover my specialty.

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[FreePenguin]

You know that actually illustrates the biggest issue with minimum wage on a federal level. $7.25 in Long Island/NYC would be unsustainable given the cost of living. You would have to work yourself to death to live in a shithole and eat ramen. Current state minimum is already $12.5, with yearly increases scheduled out to hit $15.

That’s why this is ridiculous. It can’t be a set number across the country. 15 min wage would ruin my local job market. I’m in Ohio where rents relatively cheap and cost of living is affordable

This would really cause rent to double. I mean if I’m a landlord and min wage doubled, better believe I’d be 1.5 to 2x my rent cost to compensate

I have 2600 sq foot home, mortgage is 900 a month or so. 200 utilities.

My home in Florida or cali or anywhere else would be triple or quadruple

 

[FreePenguin]

I read an article that you can buy a house around Dayton for under $100k.

Prices are skyrocketing (kinda)

I read an article that you can buy a house around Dayton for under $100k.

I paid 150k 4 years ago and it’s something like 192k in value now. Some places I’m sure went from 150k to like 500k plus, hot areas like cali etc. but this isn’t that

Key word is “around” id never tell someone to live in Dayton. Good chance to be murdered or robbed daily. It’s not a good place. I hope it cleans up.

Avoid Dayton, trotwood, Drexel, etc.. real bad areas. I don’t see them ever improving. I read Cincinnati recently murders have been spiking too.

Drugs galore. Not good, not good at all. Sad really. Lol drive down Dayton Main Street and you see hookers wearing swimsuits in middle of winter walking up down the streets, people with needles passed out in parks and on corners. Awful.

But I hope the areas do improve. But there’s no incentives, they used to be nice and druggies took over and ran the businesses out, they was being robbed everyday. Cops wouldn’t even respond anymore to the stores being looted.


Just recently I was at Walmart buying a couple things and I was at self checkout and a girl next to me had a massive cart load of stuff, she scanned like 5 items, then clicked pay. Her bill was like 10 dollars.

I said hey Walmart cashier lady, the person next to me may want to check on her, the lady next to me went off saying mind my own business, she can steal if she wants it ain’t my business to call her out.

The Walmart lady. Older gal, said sir, it’s not your concern what others do. Mind my own purchase and move along.

Lady literally was stealing. And the Walmart lady didn’t want any part of it.

It’s acceptable here

 

[jtmat]

Just recently I was at Walmart buying a couple things and I was at self checkout and a girl next to me had a massive cart load of stuff, she scanned like 5 items, then clicked pay. Her bill was like 10 dollars.

Maybe she was paying with two credit cards... I do that for business and personal accounts.

Or where you watching her so hard you know exactly (110%) she was stealing? Like the lady who accused the kid of stealing her iphone...

 

[FreePenguin]

Because the chic was stealing. She didn’t ring up any of it, trust me. The lady cashier afterwards said sir it’s best to not confront situations like this.

I spoke to my grandma later. She worked at that Walmart for 27 years and she told me it’s dangerous to confront customers over theft unless it’s large value items like electronics/TVs etc

She says their policy is to just let them for low value items.

Pisses me off. Because it has to raise values on other items.

Imo. Theft $1 or $100000 should be tried the same. Arrested, jailed, punished and rehabbed.

Dayton- is truly a crap area. If it wasn’t for supporting family here, I’d be gone yesterday.

 

[FreePenguin]

Ok, I'll stick to middle of nowhere South Jersey.

Ok, I'll stick to middle of nowhere South Jersey.

Ok, I'll stick to middle of nowhere South Jersey.

Atleast you won’t be held at gunpoint going for a nice walk through a park at night in Dayton or walking down a alley.

When I was in college these issues was brought to light about poverty, drug use etc economic differences.

People say if you give bad areas money it will improve all around it, but we have rich areas. And then straight up crime outside of it so I don’t think any amount of $$ will improve the bad areas surrounding because they used to be nice and went bad. Don’t see how that can be reversed.

Maybe $15 min wage would make all those bad areas better. But I don’t think it would make a difference.


My whole concern is the usd value, if we forgive student debt, keep giving stimulus, unemployment benefits etc... bread will be 15 dollars a loaf soon.

 

[ice445]

Dayton is horrible. Every time I used to drive through there you could feel the depression.

 

[FreePenguin]

Dayton is horrible. Every time I used to drive through there you could feel the depression.

People think I’m exaggerating. It’s all real talk. Hell i was held at gunpoint few years back. All I had was like 30 bucks in cash

Better believe I gave him the whole wallet. He took the cash and dropped the wallet.

I havnt honestly walked in Dayton past sundown ever since. Turn local news on everyday it’s robberies, murders etc... had state trooper awhile back gun down 2 car theifs few months ago, prob 1 mile away. Heard the gunshots at like 1am from it. Then saw the news next day.

I was a first responder next road over. A truck hit 3 cars and flipped, I pulled him out etc. no cops there yet. I was checking on everyone, waiting on cops a black suv rolled up and the kid jumped into it and took off. I got the plate I ran after it and snagged it

Him and his friend stole the truck and had to lost control while taking off with it.

Anyway the cops know me from gym and I went and id’d the guys.

Suckers! I hate criminals so I will always go out of my way to help them get caught.

 

[sk47]

You are about 30-40 years away from understanding what it takes to get a loan and how much school costs overall. You haven't had to deal with these modern costs, and as you said, you had a lot of luck in your own career. What about kids who don't have that luck. You can get a federal loan without a cosigner, but they rarely pay for all the costs involved. And you have to prove financial need to get the best rates, which won't work out in your benefit if you have parents who aren't completely broke. I had federal loans to attend WVU school of engineering. However, it only paid tuition and part of my apartment costs. Much of my rent, books, and other various costs had to be covered using private loans. That requires a cosigner if you have no credit history. This gets back to the reason loans, even if they have reasonable interest, are not the solution.

Comparing education to nice cars is a bit silly. You can get from A to B with a car costing $3k, just like you can with a car costing $30k. Education isn't even remotely similar. Many career paths require accredited universities, so you don't have any cheap community college opportunities. You are stuck spending a minimum of $40-50k for a state university, which is debt you must start paying 6 months after graduation. Again, this gets back to my point about creating a cheap or free option for students who want to put in the work.

In regards to "lemon" degrees, you are really exaggerating the issue there. Only 2 out of 5 graduates report not using their degree. That doesn't mean they didn't use any of their education though. I would blame that on piss poor capabilities of high schools and guidance counselors when it comes to directing students. Students should be well informed on what careers are in high demand. They should know their own strengths and weaknesses. And they should get that nice push, no matter what direction they want to go. Parents aren't always there to do their job.

Hello; First let me say you wrote a fine post. Well structured and easy to follow. I have made bold the main points I will respond to.
Starting with the modern cost of things and my "luck". I will not try to pretend todays inflated college costs are exactly equal to the costs of my era. I do think there is some greater inflated percentage now than back then. The reasons have been outlined by myself and others already in this thread so I will just say the institutions involved have learned to take advantage in the last decades.
I will skip to the car-education analogy since it was intended to partly address the inflated costs of college. Fair enough that the analogy was silly, I get that. I may try again later to come up with something better. My thinking is it may be something along the lines of how even the institutions such as higher education and health care which use to be more about public service are now very profit driven.

About my "luck". I had planed to be a marine biologist so took the tough courses needed for that. Never planned to become a teacher. I had a wife and debt. I did not have the where with all to go on the graduate school. My first wife was from Harlan County KY. At one of the county high schools in Evarts KY a science teacher was not working out. He had showed up drunk is the story I later heard.
I had worked for that school system during one summer break painting buildings and processing what seemed like a million new text books. When I had some down time I was reading and working problems from a Physics text for a course I was to take the next semester in college. I guess the folks who supervised me thought enough to offer the position if I qualified to get certified. So I managed to finish up my courses in December of 1969 and was teaching in January of 1970. I needed a job and put my other plans on hold. Guess they are still on hold.
This also covers two of your points. No my loans did not cover my expenses, only a part. I worked at something along the way. I did goof off some my freshman year but was married by the second year. That second year I worked for a mechanic who had a small shop in the afternoon/evenings, weekends and holidays while also taking a full load of classes. I worked for the Davy Tree Expert Company one summer. I had part time jobs, often work/study government programs, during the semesters while a junior and senior. My parents could not help me.
I do not figure I will ever convince you, but for me the federal backed loans made the difference. I will make the point again. No bank was going to give me a loan even at high interest rates. I still think of the federal backed loans at fair rates as sweetheart deals.

Last two items. Sure in some sense my "lemon degree" bit is an exaggeration. I do get that a broad education has some value to an individual. Let me exaggerate some more. I can see how a young person can benefit from hiking thru Europe for a year or two. Soaking up the culture and all. I would have loved to maybe taken a bicycle tour. Sure I could have gained from the experience. That said I was being much more narrow when I wrote of "lemon degrees". Just as I could not afford to tour Europe, I also could not afford to have a degree that did not wind up with a job. A degree with little or no prospects of decent employment is, to me , a lemon.
I almost get you points in that, as a young man, had someone been willing to foot the bill for a tour of Europe. Also if they fixed it so I did not have to pay anything back for the experience, then I would have jumped at the chance. Unfortunately I am too old school. If I want to tour Europe I will do it on my own dime

 

[ice445]

People think I’m exaggerating. It’s all real talk. Hell i was held at gunpoint few years back. All I had was like 30 bucks in cash

Better believe I gave him the whole wallet. He took the cash and dropped the wallet.

I havnt honestly walked in Dayton past sundown ever since. Turn local news on everyday it’s robberies, murders etc... had state trooper awhile back gun down 2 car theifs few months ago, prob 1 mile away. Heard the gunshots at like 1am from it. Then saw the news next day.

I was a first responder next road over. A truck hit 3 cars and flipped, I pulled him out etc. no cops there yet. I was checking on everyone, waiting on cops a black suv rolled up and the kid jumped into it and took off. I got the plate I ran after it and snagged it

Him and his friend stole the truck and had to lost control while taking off with it.

Anyway the cops know me from gym and I went and id’d the guys.

Suckers! I hate criminals so I will always go out of my way to help them get caught.

Stuff like that is why I left Ohio. Lol.

 

[jtmat]

People think I’m exaggerating. It’s all real talk. Hell i was held at gunpoint few years back. All I had was like 30 bucks in cash

I've been to Dayton maybe 6 or 7 times since 2013.... always had a great time. "Downtown" was great... nice live bands.

I have family who moved there, purchased a house and seem to love it. He moved there to work for an airline. His house is not so great but he picked it up for $30,000 or so he claimed. Aim is to fix it up.

I have a friend who owns a couple of businesses there. Raised his family there and owns a number of businesses in and around Dayton. No issues to speak of from him. He has a nice house.

No trouble for me there, but then I'm not looking for it either... tend to mind my own business.

Sometimes it is all about perspective and outlook.

 

[bootlegger]

Hello; First let me say you wrote a fine post. Well structured and easy to follow. I have made bold the main points I will respond to.
Starting with the modern cost of things and my "luck". I will not try to pretend todays inflated college costs are exactly equal to the costs of my era. I do think there is some greater inflated percentage now than back then. The reasons have been outlined by myself and others already in this thread so I will just say the institutions involved have learned to take advantage in the last decades.
I will skip to the car-education analogy since it was intended to partly address the inflated costs of college. Fair enough that the analogy was silly, I get that. I may try again later to come up with something better. My thinking is it may be something along the lines of how even the institutions such as higher education and health care which use to be more about public service are now very profit driven.

About my "luck". I had planed to be a marine biologist so took the tough courses needed for that. Never planned to become a teacher. I had a wife and debt. I did not have the where with all to go on the graduate school. My first wife was from Harlan County KY. At one of the county high schools in Evarts KY a science teacher was not working out. He had showed up drunk is the story I later heard.
I had worked for that school system during one summer break painting buildings and processing what seemed like a million new text books. When I had some down time I was reading and working problems from a Physics text for a course I was to take the next semester in college. I guess the folks who supervised me thought enough to offer the position if I qualified to get certified. So I managed to finish up my courses in December of 1969 and was teaching in January of 1970. I needed a job and put my other plans on hold. Guess they are still on hold.
This also covers two of your points. No my loans did not cover my expenses, only a part. I worked at something along the way. I did goof off some my freshman year but was married by the second year. That second year I worked for a mechanic who had a small shop in the afternoon/evenings, weekends and holidays while also taking a full load of classes. I worked for the Davy Tree Expert Company one summer. I had part time jobs, often work/study government programs, during the semesters while a junior and senior. My parents could not help me.
I do not figure I will ever convince you, but for me the federal backed loans made the difference. I will make the point again. No bank was going to give me a loan even at high interest rates. I still think of the federal backed loans at fair rates as sweetheart deals.

Last two items. Sure in some sense my "lemon degree" bit is an exaggeration. I do get that a broad education has some value to an individual. Let me exaggerate some more. I can see how a young person can benefit from hiking thru Europe for a year or two. Soaking up the culture and all. I would have loved to maybe taken a bicycle tour. Sure I could have gained from the experience. That said I was being much more narrow when I wrote of "lemon degrees". Just as I could not afford to tour Europe, I also could not afford to have a degree that did not wind up with a job. A degree with little or no prospects of decent employment is, to me , a lemon.
I almost get you points in that, as a young man, had someone been willing to foot the bill for a tour of Europe. Also if they fixed it so I did not have to pay anything back for the experience, then I would have jumped at the chance. Unfortunately I am too old school. If I want to tour Europe I will do it on my own dime

I don't believe all institutions are taking advantage of students. Private universities likely do quite a bit, but many state universities have increased in cost as well. Part of that can be traced right back to reduced government assistance to the schools. I am lucky, as I graduated before a lot of these cuts happened.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state...on-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students

While I don't think it is absolutely necessary that we jump straight to free college and trade school, I do think state and federal funding needs to be increased to state universities, just to lower the cost to students. Additionally, I am cool with increasing things like the Promise Scholarship to allow free tuition to high school students who perform well in class and on standard tests.

However, in the long run, free/cheap state university and trade school should be the goal. There is a lot of research showing the benefits of this to society.

It is good that you were able to work to make ends meet. I can tell you that before I dropped part of my dual degree, there was no time for me to work a part-time job. If I wasn't in class, I was studying, doing homework, or working on projects. I don't believe that a student should have to work to stay in school, especially if you are in engineering, med school, or other in depth STEM programs. Once I dropped my aerospace program, I was able to do research work as a part-time job. I was lucky to even get that opportunity, as they usually reserve it for grad students. Federal loans should cover everything, but even that wouldn't resolve the issue of college costing too much.

Backpacking across Europe, while an opportunity to learn and grow, is not a structured or standardized means of education. Every class in state university is.

 

[SpeedLu]

Hold on cowboy. Exactly where do you read this was actually going to happen. Don't you think assumptions have gotten us into enough trouble over the past four years.


#1 Again Communism and Socialism are two different things.
#2 Gulags are Russian prisons. Concentration camp are where the Nazi's killed over 8 million people. Do you really want to going there?

By the way I do not in any way agree with student loan debt forgiveness but let me ask you this. Where is your anger and indignation for the way the Federal deficit has gone up in the three years preceding COVID. It's OK for the Fed to go into huge debt for major corporations but not for people who do not have as much as some of us do?

The communist Soviet Union killed more of its own citizens after the war than Germany killed in all of WWII.

 

[TexasMetallic5.0]

I pay school taxes and kids coming out of school still can't spell or use punctuation. That doesn't help make the "free college for all" so that they can get those gender studies and theatre arts degrees any more appealing.

 

[RPDBlueMoon]

You are about 30-40 years away from understanding what it takes to get a loan and how much school costs overall. You haven't had to deal with these modern costs, and as you said, you had a lot of luck in your own career. What about kids who don't have that luck. You can get a federal loan without a cosigner, but they rarely pay for all the costs involved. And you have to prove financial need to get the best rates, which won't work out in your benefit if you have parents who aren't completely broke. I had federal loans to attend WVU school of engineering. However, it only paid tuition and part of my apartment costs. Much of my rent, books, and other various costs had to be covered using private loans. That requires a cosigner if you have no credit history. This gets back to the reason loans, even if they have reasonable interest, are not the solution.

Comparing education to nice cars is a bit silly. You can get from A to B with a car costing $3k, just like you can with a car costing $30k. Education isn't even remotely similar. Many career paths require accredited universities, so you don't have any cheap community college opportunities. You are stuck spending a minimum of $40-50k for a state university, which is debt you must start paying 6 months after graduation. Again, this gets back to my point about creating a cheap or free option for students who want to put in the work.

In regards to "lemon" degrees, you are really exaggerating the issue there. Only 2 out of 5 graduates report not using their degree. That doesn't mean they didn't use any of their education though. I would blame that on piss poor capabilities of high schools and guidance counselors when it comes to directing students. Students should be well informed on what careers are in high demand. They should know their own strengths and weaknesses. And they should get that nice push, no matter what direction they want to go. Parents aren't always there to do their job.

Also another factor that I see that hasn't been mentioned is that the cost of living and inflation has been increasing steadily while wages have remained stagnant long over the past two decades.

This is probably the biggest reason why there is the push for free education and student debt forgiveness. If the wages kept up with the inflation and if there was a real middle class it wouldn't be such a big deal. Forgiving student debt would help eliminate the inequality gap which has only been getting bigger. If more people had the money to afford college, nobody would be bitching about it.

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