Biden is hurting the Dems with his ill-conceived student loan forgiveness program

I am not opposed to potential programs to make education more accessible to children from low-income and average American households. However, the student loan forgiveness program is not it. In addition, it is going to make a lot of voters mad. They'll be mad because they feel they missed out on getting the money.

This ill-conceived program is the essence of government picking winners and losers. The winners are the ones who, by sheer luck of the draw, have federal student loan debt at the very moment the payback is pushed through. The losers are the ones who just, or recently paid off their student loans, or the ones who are starting college right now, or in the next few years. They'll ask: Why did I not get a piece of the pie? Why am I not getting help with MY student loans?

Those are very valid questions. In addition, a one time program like this is not going to address the general college un-affordability crisis in the US. A much better way would be to give future students tuition grants, prorated to household income. This would help ALL future students of households with limited means, not just a select few.

Finally, there is the botched rollout of the program, with students not knowing who is eligible and who is not, and the unanticipated legal challenges. Way to go, Biden, to put a sinker around the neck of Dems running for Congress in Nov.

 

The biggest problem with the Dems in general is a messaging problem on culture wars and the economy. The Student Loan debt forgiveness initiative of canceling $10k for most and $20k if you received any pell grants. With the inundation by RW media to blame Biden and the Dems for everything including conservatives crapping in their own pants to the conservative perception of what they believe that everything wrong in America, the Dems are trying to be nice about it by explaining their policies. That is not what the fickle voting populace wants to hear. They are like the ordinary French commoners during the French Revolution, out for blood, figuratively speaking, especially with the economy.

For the Dems to really win this November, we need to lift those damn protectionist tariffs that Trump set in place. We need to show that police reform is necessary with more community based policing and that bail reform is for lower-level crimes, not major ones. And when it comes to cultural wars, they need to do what this state senator did.

 

i've heard that speech before, it is totally righteous

@Quantum Nerd is correct, that a long term project to make higher education available to everyone is necessary. i'd prefer a focus on vital skills and repayable in service , either military or in underserved communities.

 

All high school students in America are now required to "serve" in the community as a part of the High School Diploma if I am not mistaken. But the student loan program, in and of itself is broken and broken badly. I understand what Biden is trying to do. But the GOP is not interested in that. The GOP's argument is that Biden is giving handouts to "freeloaders" to it is helping to cause inflation because of spending, which is what i argued before, the lack of messaging on the economy.

 

That's an excellent speech. I agree with everything she is saying. I also agree that the Dems have a messaging problem. However, it was clear that the GOP would exploit the student loan forgiveness issue. And the Dems shouldn't give them an easy time to exploit it for negative campaigning. The way the program is designed, however, it makes it easy for the GOP to exploit it. As I said, focus on long-term structural issues, rather than a short-term band aid, just so Biden can say he kept a ill-conceived campaign promise.

 

I'm not sure I can see the correlation between forgiving student debt and making education more accessible. But you could save students far more than 10K just by getting a handle on how they charge interest on student debt.
Wouldn't that make more sense?
Between origination fees, interest and penalties coupled with the expediential growth of tuition, once you graduate a 4 year term, you can expect about 20K has accrued in interest before you make your first payment.

Instead of these colleges raping the system because you can qualify for a student loan, for a college to qualify for student loans, they would have to cap their tuition fees. Stop requiring purchases of new course materials for every class so used books can be purchased, stop the professors from double dipping the system by requiring new course materials every year, and get a handle on these runaway interest rates.

Colleges and professors milking the system is what drives up student cost which in turn makes it more difficult for individuals to attend.

 

I don't know the American system as well as the Australian system but this sounds sensible. I thought some of the textbook prices were pretty ridiculous in my day and I would hate to see the cost of them now.

 

Show me professors milking the system? Professors have no influence over tuition charges etc. Most of them make less than they could in the private sector, given their education level.

No, what is driving education costs is the "college experience". Students want good education, but they also want shiny dorms, state of the art dining facilities, new gyms, sport fields, landscaping, student services, and the list goes on. Colleges not providing those items have trouble with student enrollment, so this is a free market issue. Now, all of these things cost lots of money. Someone has to pay for them -- tuition is going up.

As to textbook prices, nobody is preventing students from buying used books. In our department, we evaluate textbooks in intro classes every three years, and low cost is one of the criteria.

 

Its been a historical event since I went to college in the late 70s and still used today with my kids.
Professors get paid a percentage of sales on their course outlines, books, and materials THEY provide sold in the school stores.
So they update their former curriculum data requiring a different book that has to be purchased.

I had two kids at University of North Charlotte 1 year behind each other and it was a rare event when a former year class materials could be used when they were just getting their AA degrees.

Sorry, I find it hard to believe that colleges are building new dining facilities, gyms, sports fields, every year.
You will have to provide something that supports that. Never seen that ever.

I'm sure you do, but when a professor outdates their own former material, used books don't qualify for their classes.

 

Unfortunately, its a rare occurrence when US Government does something sensible. Why too many people on those pay for play lines.
I think the average cost of a US degree is around 100K. Of course thats not an ivy league school, just average.
When you multiply that number by attendees per campus you start to see the gravy train they have instituted.

 

You are accusing the professors of getting kickbacks from the textbook publisher? If that's the case, it would be corruption and grounds for firing. I have no doubt is happens, but I haven't personally heard of this, and I doubt it is widespread. We actually have to disclose our salaries, and I doubt most professors will risk their tenured position by trying to make a couple of thousands more through corruption. BTW: I have been involved in textbook decisions several times when I taught Intro Chem, a class with more than a thousand students. Yes, you get hounded by the textbook sales people, but I have never seen a hint of being offered bribes to pick their textbook. So, I would like you to provide evidence for this, or take back the accusation.

 

Hold on a second. I'm not saying they are doing anything illegal, wrong, or fraudulent. I'm just stating how it is. I am surprised this is new news.

Professors publish, make profit on required texts
https://www.dailyuw.com/news/profes...cle_e4ef71d4-8e19-5511-a08e-fce95bda03e5.html

Professors can either recommend published curriculum for their class or they can publish their own curriculum. That isn't getting a kickback. They get paid for their own content.

If they were suggesting materials they didn't publish and getting money from the publisher, that would be a kick back.

 

The Biden administration can't "message" on the economy because he turned a strong recovery into a total mess with inflation as we have not seen in decades, a technical recession at the least and worse times ahead due to HIS policies including this one. All they can do is as he did this week in his speech and as your are doing and that is rale against the GOP and try to blame them.

 

There's not a lot self-serving Biden does that isn't ill-conceived and yes, you are correct to say forgiving student loan fits that criteria. It's nothing but a trick, a political gesture to buy votes for the upcoming election. When he said he was going to be the president for the whole country, he lied. Pushing up deficits during a period of high inflation is dumb.

Deficit figures set up competing visions from Biden and GOP (wbrc.com)

 

You know what we really need to do in the middle of a recession with high inflation?

This stupid policy right here....

The sad thing is probably 80% of you here that voted for him would vote for him again if he runs again

 

My college experience was that if a professor had either a textbook or any book in print, it was required in the syllabus, even if we never really used it for the class. So yes, it is a kickback of sorts.

 

As I've been told many times on this forum, the Democrats are the party of the educated, and the GOP are the uneducated, so it makes a certain sense that the Democrats would give a big FU to the uneducated by forcing them to pay for the educated folks school loans. Nothing says hating the proles like that!

 

Fake News:

"our problem is messaging" = "we don't have change our policies"

Your policies are being rejected by those you are supposedly trying to represent. Dems think they are entitled to rule, when they are asking to be trusted to represent, and unfortunately, they haven't proven to be trustworthy representatives. Instead of representing the Electorate they are engaging is self-indulgent boondoggles to the tune of $Trillions and Trump Witch hunts. You all should have used your time better, and now you are out of it.

Left's Failed Policies Have U.S. Headed for Deep Recession

'When Joe Biden was inaugurated, the economy was growing at 6.5%, the inflation rate was barely above 1%, and in the course of the next 15 to 18 months, he took that economic boom and essentially turned it into a recession because of all the inflationary federal spending and regulating, and the war against fossil fuels, which has caused 10% inflation.'

'The soft underbelly of the Biden economy, almost from day one, has been a continuous decline in the working folks' wages. Real wages have fallen for 18 straight months, on a year-on-year basis. The inflation tax is killing the economy, we're on the front end of a recession, and all these businesses titans -- bankers, Jeff Bezos, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, people like that -- are predicting a recession next year.'

'It is just part of the fraudulent, almost like white is black, black is white, he will not tell the truth about the economy, he inherited a boom, he turned it into a bust, we're in a lot of trouble now.'

'The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates, the stock market is falling, we are heading for a very deep recession and these progressive policies have utterly failed.'

'This radical war against fossil fuels, it just doesn't make any sense trying to watch him turn the truth around and I think it has really hurt him. There is no confidence in him or his policy or in the economy and that is why the cavalry is coming, and why we'll see tremendous turnover in Congress in the next couple of weeks in the midterm elections.'

 

The GOP will exploit anything and everything the Democratic Party will propose. There is no questioni. What the GOP is doing is a form of political total warfare. Look at the VA health bill from not too long ago that was dealing with burn pits in the military. Not a single GOP voted initially for that bill. They only changed their minds AFTER all the Veteran Groups pretty much said "we will no longer support you if you continue down this path." So they acquessed. But many still believe that the bill should not have been passed and is part of the problem with the Democratic Party. And Senators like Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson, who want to make the funding from mandatory to discretionary know full well that they are doing so in order to make future cuts when they take control. And that's it.

The Democratic party should worry less about what the GOP would say and focus more on the messaging. Thus, the only way to fight an idea is with another idea with equal varacity. And the Democratic Party is not willing to do that.

 

When you go to college, textbooks are generally not required to take the class, but students do it anyway because the University says it is recommended. Of all the classes I took in College, very few had textbooks. I had five books in my first economics class ranging from Karl Marx to Adam Smith and everywhere in between. And the title of the class of History of Economic Thought, a requirement for a BBA degree at my alma mater. Even my government, English, and history classes did not have any textbooks. Books yes, but not textbooks. Only my marketing class required a textbook which was partly written by the professionals who taught the class. And care to guess where we focused? Yep, the two chapters he wrote. BTW, this was in the Mid-80s that I am speaking, and yes, it is still true today.

Textbooks is a business and they are constantly updated. The professors at the university do two things: teach and research. And to get noticed in the research, they write books, articles, and papers to be presented in a peer-review format. And the more the university professorx succeeds in their research and publishing, the higher the prestige of the university, the department, the school, or the degree program, is. But that prestige is with a caveat. The caveat is in graduate school, not undergraduate in most cases.

 

No, it's called not constantly beating our heads against the wall because you will never get it no matter how hard you try.

 

And I would bet you've actually even managed to convince yourself to believe that codswallop.

 

For starters, the Federal Reserve does not take orders from any administration, not even when Trump was President. Second, the raising of the interest rates to curb inflation is a monetary policy objective, fomented and developed by Milton Friedman, and utilized in 1982 by then Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

Second, we have a market-based economy. Our economy is monopolistic competition, which means few large firms who set the price and control of the market with numerous small firms following suit. Inflation is based on supply chain disruption, Covid, and other factors that are outside the purview of the executive branch.

The rest of your post is political nonsense with no foundation in fact or evidence on who to blame here.

 

You're right. Your response makes no sense (to me) based on my comment. So I just don't get how this related to my comment, and likely never will.

 

Well, you want to talk about inflation here and how you perceive that the Executive Branch can dictate to private MNCs on what they can produce, how they produce, and how much they can produce. Blaming Biden for inflation is the lazy and unredacted way despite that all the real economic experts have explained what is actually causing inflation. And none of it is based on political policies in any way, shape, or form.