These universities are really at the heart of all our problems-- or a good many of them-- because (and I know this as a university professor, retired), they are not allowing a free exchange of ideas (see Margaret Atwood and JK Rowling letter to the Atlantic) -- they are indeed hoarding cash, causing the student loan crisis, and more. They are publicly funded but just like PBS and NPR, they espouse one point of view. These liberals actually believe they and only THEY should be allowed to run the world and they have no interest in "democracy" let alone our republic. Anyone who disagrees with them should be silenced.
Spot on. Our universities are hedge funds with red guard indoctrination camps attached to them. Pull federal funding, use the endowments to pay off the student loans, and salt the earth.
Always look forward to your comments Yuri. The campus building arms-race funded by this nonsense has done nothing to improve the ROI on a college degree, but has certainly bloated the carrying costs/overhead and therefore tuition. So if I were king for a day endowments would be taxed for 5 years and then whatever remains would be applied to student loan debt so as to give administrators a fixed time to figure out how to run more efficiently.
Colleges and Universities that are dependent upon government funding to cover operating costs are by definition 'public universities'. The 'private' label is a myth in my opinion.
Universities are not "causing the student loan crisis". The crisis is caused by the government backing loans for everyone to go to college, including those who seek degrees whose only purpose is activism and those who should be considered unqualified for college and instead practice a trade.
The solution is simple in concept, reform of the government-backed student loan programs. If there were "consumer loan programs" from the government offering $500 to anyone wanting to buy a new TV, new TVs would cost about $400 more on average. All the universities do is take the money when offered, and maximize their attractiveness to the vectors for achieving more money, the students. That's the second outcome of the student loan programs we have - the lack of risk of repayment means they maximize for the number of bodies they can attract rather than proper education of the attached souls.
Two simple reforms would go a long way. One, do not support student loans for majors that largely end up in jobs that contribute more to analysis of the society than to GDP growth. Kill off majors that produce the supplies for leftist foundations' staffing and stop subsidizing excessive societal criticism.
Second, provide success paths to the trades by supporting programs and policies that help people get to those. Germany trains auto workers in certain skills, and has the equivalent of an NIH for manufacturing skill investments. Its auto industry and the country benefit from that.
Agreed but a simpler add on would be for the government to freeze loan guarantee limits for ten years, no more increases. See what happens. The most "prestigious" name brand schools would still increase tuition each year but not by much. Most schools would not. Over time tuition becomes more affordable. But schools would massively push back on this as they know this would prove out that government guarantees are the biggest issue
So, if I am your 18 yr old kid and I genuinely want to major in history or archaeology or women's studies, what do you tell me about your financial support of my education relative to me choosing engineering or accounting?
It mostly has to do with what you can get a job doing in my judgment. If you have the potential to be a professor in those things, sure. If you are going to a top school you are going to be employable whatever your major so fine.
If you are a kid on the bubble of being suitable for college at all I am going to push you to something more practical.
These people don't get into the Ivy League schools, Ryan. Yes, it's a problem but this about the Ivy league grift. Most of those students you lament who shouldn't be there or get loans would never be accepted into a prestigious school. There's a time when aid, done right, helps the student who desires to go to college. Why should those students you would deny have to pay for the Ivy grift?
it's not a matter of "deserving" or not a university education, some people can't learn the material presented in a properly rigorous course of study at the university level. Intelligence varies, as we know, and so does motivation, discipline, ability to learn, and many other factors. People who don't belong in university can pursue some other career, such as vocational training. If at a later date they change their mind and want an academic education, they can go back to school in America. That option is not available in many other countries, but it is here.
Why not simply eliminate government-backed student loan programs? It seems most of the higher education institutions can afford to make the loans themselves.
The students defaulting on their loans and the number of university "graduates" with useless degrees (two sets with significant overlap, I think) could both be dealt with by requiring the universities to back the loans. That would give them a huge incentive to actually educate the students in majors that lead to meaningful work, or flunk them out early if it's clear they can't cut it. With fewer students and less money, they also won't be able to afford huge bloated administrations full of DEI staff. Another problem solved!
Let the bankruptcy courts take care of the student debt. The schools eagerly pushed the loans as they had no risk.
This would be a good time to reform the bankruptcy laws to remove the extra conditions added in the early aughts (viz., legislation pushed by Joe Biden - the "Senator from MBNA") and remove any exceptions regarding student loans.
Try to make sure the schools are on the hook as much or more than the taxpayer.
The statement, "The Student Borrower Bankruptcy Relief Act of 2024 would update outdated bankruptcy eligibility and improve access to justice for student borrowers", is a bit of double-talk.
Yes, the bankruptcy restriction for student loans is arguably outdated but "access to justice for student borrowers" is a load of waffle. No-one forced anyone to take student loans and if there is any "injustice" it's arguably due to the schools pushing the loans in which the schools receive the funds but aren't exposed any risk.
The administrative bloat at universities is very real. The ratio of administrative staff to faculty has been growing for decades.
A reduction in the number of fluffy degrees and an increase in focus on trade schools would benefit everyone.
For my own part, I'll say that college was truly transformational for me as I wound up focusing on mathematics, a subject that had been my worst through high school. I feel genuinely indebted for the experience I had and the education I received at the University of Chicago. Tuition now is more than 10x what I paid, which is sad. I was able to get by with a minimal student loan burden. My point being that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater as the college "experience" can be tremendous -- if one goes to college to learn and grow. But it isn't for everyone and making a college diploma a prerequisite -- and a largely meaningless one -- has cheapened the process and resulted in grade inflation and the proliferation of fluffy degrees. I taught adult continuing education on the side for a number of years and it was wonderful: again, for people who wanted to learn.
Any reform must be accompanied by radical overhaul of K-12. Warehousing kids and teens away from the real world for 13 years is great for the oligarchs but bad for everyone else, and it’s no wonder college applicants are suckers for financial and academic scams. Self-absorbed incompetents are running both systems, and taxpayers are taking it on the chin in both cases.
I don,t see why taxpayers should be on the hook at all except as support for public universities.
And it,s a double whammy - full freight liberal arts students are subsidizing scholarships for these absurd hyphenated majors.
I ended up a full-tuition in interdisciplinary American Studies because it was the most efficient way to pull together my credits after a marriage and transfer - and I've got to say I loved it. It gave me tools and insights I've used well and broadly for many years.
It is a shame that so few students can afford the joy of learning for its own sake.
I agree on the self-absorbed incompetents running the systems, but what is the advantage to the oligarchs? i can,t see that it's advantageous to anyone. These wasted years are doing far more harm to society than good.
It's a great way to externalize the cost of job training to the individual employee. It is also a filter: non-elites cannot afford the prestigious schools.
The endless funding needs to be cut. Not everyone who wants to go to college deserves to go to college. Given the current endless loan system, some people need to be protected from themselves. Degrees with less than zero economic ROI for the students (unless they become professors or administrators) are a drain on society, and contribute to the woke navel gazing that has almost destroyed us.
I've said it before, student loans should be bankruptable, that would be both fair (too many 18 olds don't really know what their degree will be worth) and cut down on unlimited funding for degrees in DEI and transgender studies.
The removal of bankruptcy rights lies at the core of this whole scam. The Founders were smart when they called for them ahead of the power to raise an army and declare war. It's not just for relief. It's to keep the lending side honest and prices rational.
We can thank Joe Biden for his bankruptcy bill to aid his corporate donors in Delaware. Genocide Joe was surely one of the most blatantly corrupt and disastrous presidents in our history. Vietnam draft dodger and cheerleader for the racist War on Drugs, architect of mass incarceration with his 1994 Crime Bill, primary Democratic cheerleader for the war in Iraq, Obama’s point man in using Ukraine to provoke Russia—while enriching himself at their expense, and his final, world historical crime: supporting and funding the Israeli genocide of Palestinians
Agreed, I quickly clicked the "like" icon on the comment -- and I won't unlike it, but I agree with your qualification. (and clicked on the "like" icon for your comment too :-)
Harvard--alone--could pay the full tuition and fees for every undergraduate and graduate student at all the Ivy League schools--in perpetuity--and miss it less than Columbia would miss the $300 million they're too cheap to pay.
Those in control have no true interest in the welfare of society. As in all large organizations, including governments and corporations, intelligent sociopaths are nearly always the ones who eventually rise to the top. It is what underpins the perpetual but arguably unnecessary antisocial consequences of iron law of oligarchy. It is thus can be seen as, really, our biggest political problem, if we were only sufficiently aware. If so, then capitalism, socialism, left, right, etc. are all lesser questions, because all can be, and are, corrupted by sociopathy.
I guarantee you that if universities had to back their own student loans, loans for ‘midwit intersectionality degrees’ would be almost non existent because there’s almost no ability to pay it back.
Also, I’ve often wondered why different degree programs don’t have a different pricing structure based on ROI of said degree. As in... we need social workers or speech pathologists, but they don’t make as much, so why aren’t their degree less expensive? At least for classes in their major, to prevent kids from starting out in a less expensive major just because it’s cheaper then switching to a more expensive one.
And one more... why can’t companies sponsor a student’s tuition with an agreement of X years at the company after graduation? It’s essentially what the military does at the academies and ROTC. I’ve always thought that would be a huge boon to kids who are smart with no resources. I know it’s against the rules, but does it have to be?
Excuse my rant, but the way we fund higher education has always bothered me, and I’m a massage therapist with way too much time to think about these things, lol.
Thank you. I have a degree in finance and international business, this is my pretirement job. But I honestly wish I’d done it 20 years ago, best job ever.
I was a smart kid with no resources. So I joined my college’s ROTC program to help pay for my degree. It covered ~60% of costs so I still had to take out loans to cover the rest. After graduating I had a “guaranteed” job in the military making a whopping $29k/yr and went straight into the GWOT meatgrinder.
If a private company had instead offered to pay for my degree in exchange for several yrs of working for them at a decent salary without having to risk my life, hell yeah I would’ve taken them up on it!
That’s what I’m saying! Especially if it’s something rather nichey where the new grad is going to have to be trained on the job anyway after graduating. They can work at the company in the summers and get some of that taken care of. I think it would be great.
Those "useless underwater basketweaving majors" get hired by engineering firms to deal with the public because engineers are too specialized in their education.
Love your idea. Think "Buy Here - Pay Here" model of financing, as happens at a used car lot. This would be a self-regulating lending plan, but even better than Honest John's Used Autos, since the student does not hold collateral that the University could repossess, Universities would be way more cautious in giving loans in exchange for worthless degrees.
100% agree with the 'midwit intersectionality degrees'! 😄
I think state colleges should charge what degrees cost, no more, no less. Or less, if the public agrees to subsidize them, in which case the baseline would be to subsidize all degrees equally, on a percentage basis.
Also agree it seems like enterprising companies would sponsor people for degrees they need; perhaps they don't because they already have all the graduates they need, and they compete for the best based on salary. Which puts the risk back on the student - so why would companies take the risk, if students are willing to do it for them?
You method works if there are plenty of qualified candidates in a particular career field. But if not, my method may be a way to make sure we have people doing the lower paying jobs without being stuck with a lifetime of debt for it.
Only student loans get 18yo kids in debt for 100k for something they can't even begin to pay off. No one is lending them 100k to buy a sports car when they don't have a job, and won't for at least 4 years.
In most cases they're not even allowed to buy alcohol, but colleges can talk them into taking these loans without a parent being present?
My grandson went to state university and I helped him with the process. They were excellent at spelling out the consequences of taking out student loans, comparing them to a 20 year car payment for example.
My kids haven't done loans, but when we put out feelers, I got the distinct impression the university people didn't want parents involved, at least when it came to actually asking questions.
No college put me up to getting pregnant at 17. My boyfriend and I got married and had to deal with our poor decisions. Being responsible for our actions grew us up and 46 years later, we're still married. Yes, it was difficult and not an ideal situation in which to start our adult lives, but I'm grateful for the life lessons. There are a lot of things you can do before 21 years of age that will impact your future life.
Colleges and Universities have the wherewithal to make and administer tuition loans, themselves, and without taxpayer guarantees. It would probably be another source of revenue, but they might feel compelled to be certain those receiving the loans understand what they are getting into, and are able to repay.
Navel-gazing is indeed stupid, but has almost destroyed us? I’m more inclined to blame 800 military bases around the world, multiple endless wars we have no real stake in, and our financing of universal healthcare in Israel while Americans have to launch Go Fund Me campaigns to pay for cancer treatment.
If people got degrees that actually lead to productive work, if teachers actually taught reading writing and arithmetic well (we might need to pay good teachers better), then we'd have a more dynamic economy that actually produced more goods and services and a stronger tax base to pay for all those pax Americana bases. Not sure what to do about healthcare, which is fundamentally broken. The American right doesn't seem to have an appetite for any system which would cut middlemen and inefficiency and provide protection for those with pre-existing conditions, or if we do, I haven't heard it.
The problem is that they're pushing reading and writing on kids whether or not they're ready for it. There's no evidence for the idea that kids won't learn to read or write without being pressured into doing it, and there's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that this practice teaches kids to hate those things, like it does with math. (Insofar as anyone can get funded to research the failure of this approach I would bet all of it speaks to it doing more harm than good.) It's past time to fundamentally overhaul public education away from coercion and one-size-fits-all milestones and toward giving kids agency over their own education. Not only would this prove infinitely less alienating, it would also be greatly more effective, though the education industry would not make the killing it does now, which tells you what road we're overwhelmingly likely to take.
I have read about people with a quarter-million in student debt for master's degrees in film studies and similar degrees that are very expensive and extremely unlikely to lead to an actual job. The schools themselves are pushing these master's programs on students, as the article said, because the tuition is so high and loans are available. No thought for the student at all.
I saw an interview with a teacher who went a quarter million in debt for a master's in education, probably worth about 2k a year in income body. Ridiculous. Mind you, I'm not sure how a grown adult could justify this. But still, if it were bankruptable, the lender wouldn't have approved it. (Unless perhaps that lender is the US govt!)
They get massive funding ( not just from student loans), make more money by keeping kids in school longer (6.2 years is the average time to get a 4-year degree the last I checked), and indoctrinating them more with increasingly nonsensical/politically motivated curriculum, all the risk is piled onto the students, who don't realize what a scam the loans are until years after leaving school (40% never even graduate), and because allegiance to their alma mater is often so deeply ingrained in their whole image/identity, they don't complain about it.
And because of the perverse incentives that run through the college industry, they "compete" with their peer institutions by RAISING their tuition ("Come to Duke, we're better than Seton Hall because our tuition is $10k Higher than theirs")...
On and on...
Of course the predatory federal student loan $$ spigot funds the entire thing, so they just cannot lose.
And we haven't even talked about their hospital revenue....
Yes, in addition to the useless degrees that cannot translate into well-paying jobs, there are the 40% of student loan borrowers who never even get the useless degree... But the loans are forever...
Having attended a Catholic college that is going out of business, do you know if the Catholic colleges sit on endowments too or do they have to turn in endowment money to the church? Do they have to manage with tuition being the majority of funding?
I'm sure they do. Better question, how much Federal money do they get? Catholic schools, especially those thought to comprise the Catholic Ivies, were an important addition to higher learning in America. The Ivies were largely WASP and in their early years denied Catholic entrance. Do a search on this and you get plenty of stores on Jewish prejudice, but we hear little about the Catholic prejudice in America, the first prejudice among the early settlers and formation of the colonies.
It depends on the college or university. Catholic institutions are just like any other private institutions of higher ed. Some have big endowments, while others are tuition-driven.
Capitalism is what is at heart of all our problems; that, and a dumbed-down populace who care more about the latest version of a phone than the homeless veteran on the street.
Matt’s point is valid; so is that of those who decry the Trump/Musk/Rufo assault on education. It’s the same old you suck/no you suck worse politics spin cycle we can’t escape.
The empire is crumbling. And, per design, those who are poor and/or struggling to make ends meet will get kicked in the teeth the hardest.
Musk isn't assaulting education. He's fighting waste and fraud. And I don't see how the poor are affected by requiring universities to intelligently marshal their assets. If Universities respond to federal cutbacks by firing janitors instead of bureaucrats, that's entirely performative.
You’re clueless. He has no more interest in waste and fraud than does Trump, or any other oligarch grifting rich filth. He’s all about greed/power, and feathering his nest. Your bullshit detector needs serious recalibration.
Capitalism provided you with everything that allows you to post your drivel here. If you think that communism or socialism would have led to all the abundance that we have, you are clueless.
You really think so? Then explain how China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, is quickly surpassing the US in technology, and doesn’t waste its resources on perpetual stupid wars.
Because the Chinese have adopted a capitalist economy while maintaining centralized totalitarian social control, and they're too busy torturing and overseeing the enslavement of their subjects to aggressively expand their global hegemony with the bullet, though they rattle the saber every once in a while. They are buying territory abroad from greedheads willing to sell their own mothers if the price is right, so they don't need to invade and occupy with armed force.
The Chinese model is the envy of every (or nearly every) captain of industry in the Western world. The ruling class in the UK is emulating the Chinese by importing something like slave labor, only the slaves they're taking in as supposed refugees don't do anything but collect state aid and run amok with machetes and knives every once in a while. They've got the social control part of the Chinese scheme pretty well nailed down, but so far they haven't found a way to make it pay, and I'll be damned if I can see how they ever can.
China has "lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty" because our corrupt elites have transferred our manufacturing and technology to China. The CCP didn't create anything. We gave it away, or had it stolen. China's GDP in 1970 (before the giveaway began) was approximately $100 per person.
There, "explained" it for you.
But you are right about the "wasting resources on perpetual stupid wars." But there again, that's thanks to the corrupt American elites of recent decades.
On some things, yes. His critique of what ails us domestically (oligarchy, wealth disparity, corporate/monied interest influence on the legislative process) is mostly correct.
His foreign policy analysis is a mixed bag, and his tactical decisions, especially regarding his thinking that the Democrats are worthy of support, have been abysmal since the Dem convention in ‘16.
Because he focuses selectively on government spending that he derives no benefit from, and he also uses a meat cleaver approach when a scalpel would be more appropriate. He is clueless to what government employees actually do, hence mass firing critical employees, probationary (another term he doesn’t understand) or otherwise, only to have to hire them back because of their critical expertise.
I have worked in academia, business and government. While cutting expenditures and budgets are often considered essential, only government seemed adamantly resistant to cuts. While I agree that a scapel is generally preferable to a meat cleaver in theory, it also leads to other headaches. Being told to cut staff by 10% at one company ("scapel"), put stress on the firing manager to cut friends or the workers most in need of their job (often their kids in college), but it was done for years. Some elderly workers would willingly retire early, and sadly the best workers would often quickly take positions at other companies.
Then there was a spate of 'resistant' workers claiming they were being discriminated against in the firings, and the company's lawyers soon decided the best approach was to eliminate departments rather than individuals (the "meat cleaver" approach). This was probably worst case business-wise as it destroyed capabilities and institutional memory, but was legally easily able to defend. The rationale was that the departments could eventually be rebuilt with "new and better" employees. Much essential work was offshored to India and other countries "short-term".
Management stressed that "no one is irreplaceable", "no one is essential" and everyone should always be looking for their next job. That did nothing for morale and was poisonous for culture, but that is today's reality. Government employees have been shielded from that reality far too long.
Your disagreement with the commenters below is based on a misunderstanding. Most people think of waste or fraud as things that cause a product to cost more than the product is worth. From the perspective of the public, profit is waste. It is unnecessary since public programs do not need to make a profit. However, from a capitalist perspective, public programs themselves are waste and fraud unless they funnel money to private owners via profits. Musk and Trump are killing off anything they think they cannot divert to the profit of themselves and their friends.
No, those who are attacking the Trump/Musk/Rufo "assault" on education are not "valid," they are cynical defenders of a corrupt status quo. Sorry, no moral equivalence here.
I agree whole completely. I thought the proliferation of legalized gambling was the biggest way of taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich. Massive government funding of extremely rich universities with tax payers money may be even worse.
I always wondered why universities with huge endowments, some o them designated for scholarships' never were used to pay student tuitions. Instead they were hoarded and invested for profits. Or used to build Stupid walls, as happened with me with Old Dominion.
“They compete on status, handing out degrees in self-obsession and intersectional horseshit that are useful for upper-class networking and not much else. Like military contractors their one important customer is the state, for whom they often perform services that are not just useless but outright antisocial.”
I found it appalling that the Biden administration didn't even consider asking the universities to dip into their endowments to fund student loan forgiveness.
I would argue the social costs of over-indebted and unemployable graduates is as least as bad as anything the tobacco companies or asbestos companies ever did.
There was a really good, bipartisan bankruptcy bill in the Senate in 2022 which would have returned limited bankruptcy rights to student loans and required the colleges to pay a nominal amount to the government for discharges. At the very last minute, the colleges pressured Dick Durbin and the Democrats to kill the bill. It was a gut-punch to student loan borrowers.
Most corrupt administration? Yes. I simply don't think Biden knew half of what his cabinet got up to, not that I have had any respect or love for him over the years. But this is were I think Trump is going a la the auto pen comments. And if he is able to bring light on the pardons, he can look at auto signed bills.
The thing nobody wants to think about. But the VERY thing we all need to think about. This alone should disqualify the D party for eternity. But sadly the D party is needed, or at least someone to prevent the R party from doing the very same thing. ALL Politicians are grifters.
One funny sidenote: The Senator who thanked then-junior-Senator Biden by name in the 1977 bankruptcy legislation was Dennis DiConcini- who, by all rights, should have gone to prison for the S and L scandal of the 1980's. You can see the type of people Biden ingratiated himself to when he first joined the Senate and how he came up. Despicable. History will not judge him kindly.
Yep. Very true. That- even as a junior senator- Biden was thanked by name for the 1977 bankruptcy legislation speaks volumes. He deserves a HUGE amount of credit for the entire student loan scam since it's inception. His Presidency was his chance to make things right. It was a true character test for him, and I am so sorry to report that he failed miserably. SMH.
I told my children that if we have to go in debt for their tuition that they would be paying the toll afterwards. They are very very very aware that it is their responsibility to pay off whatever debt they incur and that taxpayers are NOT the payers of last resort. I'm all for colleges taking some of the burden of federal largesse, but adults who become indebted have to be held accountable for the bulk of federal loans. Besides getting out of the college financing business, the feds should mandate in person loan counseling services before students and parents sign loan contracts.
I wouldn't let my kids take out loans. Only one was really upset about it, because she got into Pratt with a partial scholarship. (She's a very talented artist.) But even with the partial scholarship, it would have cost us $40K a year -- which I couldn't do. She wanted to take out loans; I said no. She said she could do it without me, I told her she would regret it. She finally came to her senses and took the near-full scholarship to a state school and I paid her room and board. All told, I paid less than $8K a year and she got a degree and then a job. I'm sorry she couldn't go to Pratt -- but I don't regret her not being in debt. My other two kids who went to college went to schools that offered them academic scholarships and I paid room and board. They worked for their gas, entertainment, clothes, etc.
Good for you, on the wise counsel of no debt, and ensuring they worked through school. And let's hear it for state schools! I spent a career in HR, and every time I did college recruiting, I'd give way more attention to a kid who worked his way through school than a silver spoon type who might--might--work 20 hours a week at the country club during summer, except for the month-in-Spain.
And not because I don't like rich kids (though to be truthful, I don't like rich kids), it's because they don't learn important, business-related or business-adjacent skills like time management or budgeting.
My son went to Texas Tech graduated in 4 years with a math degree and minor in CS and got a job immediately making high 5 figures as a computer software engineer. No loans. I’m glad I could pay part but I made sacrifices too. Yet they’re my kids and I signed on for this. I shouldn’t have to pay for everyone else’s kids who didn’t make wise choices (through taxes)
You're not. The Department of Education has made a King's Ransom in PROFIT on this loan scam. They've gotten back pretty much every penny- if not EVERY penny they've lent out from the borrowers. That's a big lie that's been perpetuated by the financial/mainstream media.
Yep. Another huge mistake. Counting on predatory profits from an unconstitutional, government loan scam to pay for other programs is very unwise policy work.
If you want to give your kids good advice, you should tell them to absolutely NOT take out federal student loans, or private student loans, for that matter. They've been stripped of bankruptcy rights, and have been turned into licenses to steal. That is literally the only good advice to give.
Before the pandemic, 85% of all borrowers were never going to be able to repay their loans. That is probably well over 90% today. The loans are a massive scam, and should be avoided at all costs (or perceived benefit), as currently constructed.
You don't understand the predatory nature, and the massive profitability of these loans to the Department of Education. The Education Department has, on balance, gotten back all the money it lent out from the borrowers. The $1.8 Trillion in outstanding debt is largely INTEREST, over and above what the government paid. The biggest financial/mainstream media/swamp LIE out out there is that cancellation "costs" the Taxpayer. That's nonsense. This is not about bad borrowers. This is about an unconstitutional loan scam that has been foisted on this country, and now we are seeing it fail. Spectacularly.
Sad to see so many people have believed it, and been programmed by it.
All of that said, for folks who have no way whatsoever of paying their loans back, there has to be a mechanic in place to help them not become debt prisoners.
The Founders called for uniform bankruptcy rights ahead of every right listed in the Bill of Rights when they wrote the Constitution (which, itself, was compelled by a debtor's revolt, Shay's Rebellion). This is the mechanism and it's there as much to keep the lenders honest as anything.
Congress made a huge mistake by stripping these uniquely from student loans (actually it was really just a small mistake, but became huge over years of refusing to fix it).
Statutes of limitations, also (while not called for in the Constitution) were stripped uniquely from federal student loans.
So the loans were unconstitutionally weaponized, with obvious disregard for the wisdom of the Founders, and now we see the results.
I would say that if the taxpayer backstop were removed, student loan forgiveness would be much more popular. None of us who work for a living want to pay for someone else's gender studies degree. There are very few degrees we're willing to de risk for other people's kids. A lot of this problem is that the movement is marketed in a very left-coded way. Putting the universities on the hook would unite people against a common enemy (monopolist extorters and their statist cronies).
I've been inclined to believe for a few years now, that the push for DEI jobs and ever-expanding HR departments is a sort of "soft loan forgiveness" scheme whereby all the understandably naïve 18 year-old rubes who got a vastly overpriced college degree could at least find gainful employment, even though they provide their employers no value. It's essential for keeping the money making con going and not causing the Democrats own constituency to turn on them after realizing they went tens of thousands of dollars into debt and got nothing of value in return.
I think many people, perhaps including you guys, have determined that DEI in its entirety needs to be ditched. It's a classic case of over-correction, or in easy terms, throwing out the baby with the bath water.
For more than a quarter of a century, D for diversity and I for inclusion have been critical, business excellence cornerstones of myriad successful organizations. I worked in HR for a huge consumer products company and a huge health care company, and D&I were accepted, ingrained, and they worked. I certainly concede that Stasi agents with HR employee badges rolled a wave of terror over college campuses. But those fuckers weren't real HR people. So don't blame HR. In the private sector, D&I worked. Or we wouldn't have done it. It still works, except for the few chicken-shits who ditched it all.
At some point in the recent past, some asshole came along and decided that an E would look real good in there between the Diversity and the Inclusion. For a while, no one could say for sure what the E stood for--Equality or Equity? Most if not all would support equality of opportunity. Definitely not all would support equity of outcomes. It's too much against the American grain. None of us believe Zuckerberg worked his way to $200 billion, but he did maybe steal a good idea and at least worked on implementing it. Regardless of continuing facts that demonstrate that hard work and gumption don't get you shit anymore, we all hope for a fair opportunity.
If we all (or most) agree that the Equity idea is not the right answer at this time, let's just throw IT out, and leave the stuff that has worked and still does. And DeFund the Stasi.
In my retail career, I worked for 34 managers over 33 years. Only one of those 34 was incompetent (not to mention corrupt). It was a woman who was promoted up four rungs on the ladder all in one step. (At the time, the corporation was anxious to avoid a potential class-action lawsuit.)
Working for that woman was a nightmare and I finally had enough and quit. She was fired six months later. Over the subsequent years, the whole industry turned stupid with HR Diversity and Inclusion, and it has never recovered. Not in financial terms --it still turns profits. But it does that at the expense of the workers, whose pay is less than half of what it was when promotions were entirely based on competence.
Are you making the mistake of "my solitary experience is totality of all similar expereinces?" The two corrput VPs I worked for in 40 years of engineering were white males. (true). Hence, we should work harder to advance non-white females into executive roles. (bad conclusion)
Sorry you had that bad experience. The fault lay with the idiot who promoted someone too soon. If they had their heart set on a woman to fill a certain role, they certainly could have found several with the requisite skills and experience.
Properly done, diversity isn't promoting or hiring unqualified people. It's about expanding one's hiring pool to consider a wider group of applicants.
When bad talent decisions are made in organizations, everyone loses. You lose, because you get a bad boss. She loses, because she's in a set-up-to-fail situation. Company loses, because all that will cause disruption.
I never worked retail, so I defer to your experience in that sector. I always did manufacturing, sales, or later, HQ workforces.
DEI is just rebranded communism, yes it should be ditched in entirety. D & I = identity category quotas, which are also antithetical to justice and equal opportunity.
I'm afraid you don't understand. Affirmative Action has its own legal terminology. Few understand it. Most assume it means certain quotas of women or black people need to be hired. This is incorrect.
And it's REALLY incorrect to call corporate D&I programs "quotas."
Can you specifically describe the results and success of D and I! What did it look like and what did your organization do differently to achieve results? I would also be curious if you could describe what you looked like before you adopted D and I? Serious question. Thanks.
It would be a term paper. Bottom line (quite literally) is D&I resulted in more revenue and profit growth, driven by more innovation.
This concept is well-understood and supported across industries in this country. It was pretty settled until the asshole with the E came around.
Prior to the adoption of diversity across American industry, it looked like a bunch of white guys who went to the same type of schools, from the same types of backgrounds, and who all thought eerily similarly.
Even expanding diversity to include white guys from different parts of the country, or who had been in the military, led to different kinds of thinking, and therefore better innovation. Man, I love Junior Military Officers (JMOs). You get people who have organizational skills, know how to execute against objectives, and are often showing great leadership after only a 4-5 year stint. You only have to weed out the few who are of the "drop and gimme 50 maggot!" types.
"Properly done, diversity isn't promoting or hiring unqualified people. It's about expanding one's hiring pool to consider a wider group of applicants."
The problem is that in practice, DEI often did involve not just outreach to underrepresented groups, but discrimination in favor of such groups and consequently, against white (and sometimes Asian) people, along with "grading on a curve", eliminating standards (e.g., SATs), and censoring or "canceling" those who criticized DEI. I expect that I would support your version of "DI", but I oppose DEI as it was widely practiced.
The difference was nicely summarized by Coleman Hughes (1), and it's illustrated by by comparing MLK Jr.'s proposal for a "Bill or Rights for the Disadvantaged" to Ibram X. Kendi's approach (2, 3):
"The cause of a disparity or an inequity must be policies or practices that we see or don’t see"
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”
“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
Like I said, I'm not talking about universities and what they have done. Appears to be some dumbass stuff.
In corporations, it works, probably because all the extracurricular stuff that seems to accompany the E isn't present.
So I'm not even sure how widely DEI in its all its Capital E glory is even practiced outside universities. Corporations hire and employ far more people than academic institutions, by a huge margin. And it's primarily D&I in corporations. DEI just became an easy to use slander. Like when Reagan used to complain about welfare queens driving Cadillacs. It's simply not demonstrably true just because politicians and journalists with a burr under their saddle (like Bari Weiss) may say so.
I don't know about Coleman Hughes. He seems to be often quoted in media because he's the black guy who will say things that other black people won't say. He's like Herschel Walker.
I'll also say that white men from lower-middle-class and higher in socioeconomic terms continue to massively dominate the US economically. White men still run everything. As soon as they're asked to share a little bit, all we hear is "reverse discrimination!" We are a loooooooooooooooooooong way from that ever being a real problem.
Many years ago, after she had retired, a friend told me a story about an episode she experienced while working as a personal secretary to an officer high up in the managerial hierarchy of PacBell, a telephone company headquartered in San Francisco.
My friend was rather cynical and conspiratorial by nature, and since her boss had a personality similar to hers, they soon developed a rather close rapport. It wasn’t sexual at all, the first thing that many people think of when it comes to bosses and secretaries; she was older than he was and not physically attractive by any means.
The dynamic between the two was always fascinating for me because it seemed so unlikely. She always assertively identified herself as being Boston Irish. Her boss was a tall,slim, elegantly dressed black man who was born and raised in what had once been known as the British West Indies.
On a professional level, their deportment was formal and businesslike. On an informal level, they would talk to each other as equals with the understanding that nothing they said was ever divulged to others or even that they had discussed anything at all.
In the early 80s Affirmative Action was the social cause du jour. The company made a public show of signing up lots of minorities, mostly Chinese and Philippine. They all nominally could speak English but since it was a second language for many of them, their pronunciation at times was unintelligible, especially on the other end of a telephone line.
My friend and her boss were discussing this situation in the informal mode one day when the boss said “well, don’t worry about it. In six months when the Affirmative Action thing has died down we’ll just get rid of ‘em on the QT.”
A revealing insight into corporate governance 45 years ago. How much has it changed since then and how much has it not, I wonder.
In the Sea of Appalling, what I find most reprehensible is the DoE + Mackenzie Bezos seduction of "first generation college students" into the racket while waiting to sell them (mostly bullshit) master's degrees on the back-end...all the while siphoning those sweet, sweet rents.
Great point. You can't hire all your graduates, though, and it's worn through. The Dems revealed their true fealty to the colleges over the students in 2022 by killing their own bill that would have returned limited bankruptcy rights to the loans, and also had a modest clawback provision from the colleges. At the 11th hour, the colleges pressured the Dems to nix the bill and they did. So the borrowers definitely are turning on the Dems AND their colleges now. Big, Big mistake. The Limousine Liberals will probably never acknowledge it though....
regulatory govt jobs are essentially "make work." working hard, creating nothing of value and patting yourself on the back the whole time while you sit smug with your degree and feelings of pride and entitlement
This level of strategy from the same Dems inept at even weak counterpunches to the Trump admin? Are you giving them too much credit for a 'planned scheme'? I agree that this scenario evovled. My own unverified, unresearched opinion is this scenario grew more organically.
Universities, NGO’s with seemingly nefarious objectives, dead people receiving money, foreign scammers receiving payments from the US and Elon Von Hitler Musk is the villain! Makes me sick.
I retired from a management position at a public ivy. Whatever you hear, it is worse on the inside. The amount of grift accepted as normal boggles the mind of someone on the outside.
Matt... Please pull this and a couple other threads you are familiar with and bring them together. Remember Asset Backed Securities from the GFC? Dig into how student loans are bundled into ABSs and sold to investors. The pitch: An investment yielding 6% on an underlying asset class which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and is otherwise 100% backed by the tax payers - student loans.
When you look at this from the point of view of an investor, the first question is: Where do I sign? The second: How can get I get more?
This was bad enough when interest rates were "normal." But when they dropped well below 6%? And investment banks were rolled into holding companies with access to the Fed's discount window? There was a point where they could borrow basically for free and plow that money into student loan ABSs yielding 6% while taking no risk. The number of seats in the incoming freshmen class remained stable but had a bazooka of money shot at it.
This is the putatively "non profit" higher education sector... Now you see where all that money has ended up. Is there a major university that is not building a new building? The number of students and faculty have not grown, but look at the administrations and their upper echelon bloated salaries. And only then do you get to the cash reserves. And - as you see - we're not even talking about the endowments yet.
And multiple generations of their students are debt slaves. "Collusion?" How about the finance and higher education sectors?
Brilliantly stated. My only thought (making it even worse) is that faculty (at least tenure track) have actually shrunk, replaced by Visiting Lecturers and Adjunct Professors who are often part-time with no benefits. All the while the administration mushrooms.
The SLAB argument carried a ton of weight before 2010, when Obama federalized the program. Since then, though, all the loans have been made and are owned directly by the Dept. of Education. So the percentage of federal loans that are sitting tradeable SLABS today is really small. Not even 10% of all federal loans.
Still very valid for private student loans, btw, but those are around a tenth the size of the federal loan portfolio.
The heart of this problem is we have an essentially unlimited money supply chasing a static "inventory." Money for lending is normally restrained by risk. When the loan cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and is backed by the taxpayer, the risk restraint is gone. Back to high school econ: More money chasing the same amount of product equals higher prices.
Totally agree. The Founders called for uniform bankruptcy rights. The floor of good faith (IE skin in the game) that this compels from the lenders is exactly what is needed to restrain lending and keep prices rational.
Indeed! The whole story of lending and collecting as it was abused by the merchant class against Revolutionary War veterans who ended up leading the Daniel Shays Rebellion is why we have a Constitution which governs both legal tender (they can't just take your horses and livestock anymore like they used to) and bankruptcy laws.
During the post-2008 financial crisis, I read that the colleges/universities' building projects were the only thing keeping construction companies afloat.
Education is not the aim, credentials are the only currency understood.
The Left basically treats the modern college experience as a ritual cleansing process that rids the soul of racism, homophobia, and sexism, and which the proles are too inferior and/or poor to undergo.
State-run (funded) education is state-run media with a captive audience in their formative years.
Few things are more important to a healthy America than getting government out of the "education" business entirely. Subsidies shouldn't be cut for "supporting Hamas"; they should be cut because they should never exist for any reason.
That the amount of subsidy and its form is more than commonly understood is simply a natural consequence of its existence. This is what bureaucracy is.
That is one reason why that state will take a miracle to save. And another reason to avoid putting causes du jour into the constitution with 51% votes.
I wonder. It might even just become more of a blatant influence-purchasing mechanism with only wealthy Arabs, Chinese, and children of prominent black politicians being admitted. Think Harvard for example. The administration will not give up their perks and the power the environments but them.
Thank you for putting this all in writing. I’ve complained to friends for years about the relentless rise of tuitions, all backed up by taxpayers’ guarantees of loans, only to see those loans written off, while the universities pay royal salaries and complain continually that they need more funding.
I don’t have your way with words so I’m glad to see your views on the subject. Unfortunately this all has the smell of USAID, and all the other “NGO” grants that have bankrupted the country while leaving the club members ever more rich and entitled.
As an Ivy League interviewer, I have watched the last 20 years as one after another vastly superior white and Jewish kid got passed over for inferior DEI candidates that it became almost pointless to bother. So I just told kids to lie on their applications. Claim to identify as a minority and WALTZ into the best colleges in the land. And… POOOF! It worked, Of course, I am only kidding, NOBODY should EVER do such a horrid thing.
...in my daughter's private high school class, a girl with a Jewish father and a Hispanic mother got into Yale by changing her Jewish last name to the mother's Hispanic last name during her senior year in high school...it seemed to help her...
Funny that no one seemed to care about Hopkins employees during the Great Recession. For two years I did not receive a merit increase, and some of my older colleagues were forced to retire. It was made quite clear at the time — and clearly is still the case today — that the endowment was off-limits.
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
It’s also well to remember that the current fetishization of college degrees is suspiciously tied to a matrix of financial controls from which many students will never free themselves.
I’ve always interpreted Wilde’s aphorism on other levels. Wilde didn’t say that nothing worth knowing can be ‘learned’, he said ‘taught’. His message was that all real learning is self learning.
By coincidence, I’ve long owned a treasured copy of “The Ashley Book of Knots”. I briefly learned hundreds of them. But the ones I remember are the ones learned from necessity, and use often. That’s the advantage of the autodidact.
These universities are really at the heart of all our problems-- or a good many of them-- because (and I know this as a university professor, retired), they are not allowing a free exchange of ideas (see Margaret Atwood and JK Rowling letter to the Atlantic) -- they are indeed hoarding cash, causing the student loan crisis, and more. They are publicly funded but just like PBS and NPR, they espouse one point of view. These liberals actually believe they and only THEY should be allowed to run the world and they have no interest in "democracy" let alone our republic. Anyone who disagrees with them should be silenced.
Spot on. Our universities are hedge funds with red guard indoctrination camps attached to them. Pull federal funding, use the endowments to pay off the student loans, and salt the earth.
Live look at the campus struggle session against fascist Elon: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/elon-musk-trump-struggle-session-gfy
Always look forward to your comments Yuri. The campus building arms-race funded by this nonsense has done nothing to improve the ROI on a college degree, but has certainly bloated the carrying costs/overhead and therefore tuition. So if I were king for a day endowments would be taxed for 5 years and then whatever remains would be applied to student loan debt so as to give administrators a fixed time to figure out how to run more efficiently.
Colleges and Universities that are dependent upon government funding to cover operating costs are by definition 'public universities'. The 'private' label is a myth in my opinion.
Nicely put.
Universities are not "causing the student loan crisis". The crisis is caused by the government backing loans for everyone to go to college, including those who seek degrees whose only purpose is activism and those who should be considered unqualified for college and instead practice a trade.
The solution is simple in concept, reform of the government-backed student loan programs. If there were "consumer loan programs" from the government offering $500 to anyone wanting to buy a new TV, new TVs would cost about $400 more on average. All the universities do is take the money when offered, and maximize their attractiveness to the vectors for achieving more money, the students. That's the second outcome of the student loan programs we have - the lack of risk of repayment means they maximize for the number of bodies they can attract rather than proper education of the attached souls.
Two simple reforms would go a long way. One, do not support student loans for majors that largely end up in jobs that contribute more to analysis of the society than to GDP growth. Kill off majors that produce the supplies for leftist foundations' staffing and stop subsidizing excessive societal criticism.
Second, provide success paths to the trades by supporting programs and policies that help people get to those. Germany trains auto workers in certain skills, and has the equivalent of an NIH for manufacturing skill investments. Its auto industry and the country benefit from that.
Agreed but a simpler add on would be for the government to freeze loan guarantee limits for ten years, no more increases. See what happens. The most "prestigious" name brand schools would still increase tuition each year but not by much. Most schools would not. Over time tuition becomes more affordable. But schools would massively push back on this as they know this would prove out that government guarantees are the biggest issue
What do you mean, what happens at the ten year mark? The govt pays or the govt is no longer on the hook after that if not paid?
So, if I am your 18 yr old kid and I genuinely want to major in history or archaeology or women's studies, what do you tell me about your financial support of my education relative to me choosing engineering or accounting?
It mostly has to do with what you can get a job doing in my judgment. If you have the potential to be a professor in those things, sure. If you are going to a top school you are going to be employable whatever your major so fine.
If you are a kid on the bubble of being suitable for college at all I am going to push you to something more practical.
The crisis is caused by incentivizing people, with government backed debt, that have no business being in college to begin with.
Its the same as saying everyone should be a homeowner...which brought us the sub-prime crisis.
100%
These people don't get into the Ivy League schools, Ryan. Yes, it's a problem but this about the Ivy league grift. Most of those students you lament who shouldn't be there or get loans would never be accepted into a prestigious school. There's a time when aid, done right, helps the student who desires to go to college. Why should those students you would deny have to pay for the Ivy grift?
Why don't some people deserve to get a university education?
it's not a matter of "deserving" or not a university education, some people can't learn the material presented in a properly rigorous course of study at the university level. Intelligence varies, as we know, and so does motivation, discipline, ability to learn, and many other factors. People who don't belong in university can pursue some other career, such as vocational training. If at a later date they change their mind and want an academic education, they can go back to school in America. That option is not available in many other countries, but it is here.
Why not simply eliminate government-backed student loan programs? It seems most of the higher education institutions can afford to make the loans themselves.
I got my graduate degree in a field with actual jobs and my parents got normal bank loans and used saving from me and them for the balance.
The students defaulting on their loans and the number of university "graduates" with useless degrees (two sets with significant overlap, I think) could both be dealt with by requiring the universities to back the loans. That would give them a huge incentive to actually educate the students in majors that lead to meaningful work, or flunk them out early if it's clear they can't cut it. With fewer students and less money, they also won't be able to afford huge bloated administrations full of DEI staff. Another problem solved!
And maybe the value of a college degree might mean something again. There are so many “graduates” now that the value of education has been diluted.
Amen brother…salt the earth!
Let the bankruptcy courts take care of the student debt. The schools eagerly pushed the loans as they had no risk.
This would be a good time to reform the bankruptcy laws to remove the extra conditions added in the early aughts (viz., legislation pushed by Joe Biden - the "Senator from MBNA") and remove any exceptions regarding student loans.
Try to make sure the schools are on the hook as much or more than the taxpayer.
There are some potentially positive developments:
https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/bankruptcy
https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5394
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/138
The statement, "The Student Borrower Bankruptcy Relief Act of 2024 would update outdated bankruptcy eligibility and improve access to justice for student borrowers", is a bit of double-talk.
Yes, the bankruptcy restriction for student loans is arguably outdated but "access to justice for student borrowers" is a load of waffle. No-one forced anyone to take student loans and if there is any "injustice" it's arguably due to the schools pushing the loans in which the schools receive the funds but aren't exposed any risk.
The administrative bloat at universities is very real. The ratio of administrative staff to faculty has been growing for decades.
A reduction in the number of fluffy degrees and an increase in focus on trade schools would benefit everyone.
For my own part, I'll say that college was truly transformational for me as I wound up focusing on mathematics, a subject that had been my worst through high school. I feel genuinely indebted for the experience I had and the education I received at the University of Chicago. Tuition now is more than 10x what I paid, which is sad. I was able to get by with a minimal student loan burden. My point being that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater as the college "experience" can be tremendous -- if one goes to college to learn and grow. But it isn't for everyone and making a college diploma a prerequisite -- and a largely meaningless one -- has cheapened the process and resulted in grade inflation and the proliferation of fluffy degrees. I taught adult continuing education on the side for a number of years and it was wonderful: again, for people who wanted to learn.
Any reform must be accompanied by radical overhaul of K-12. Warehousing kids and teens away from the real world for 13 years is great for the oligarchs but bad for everyone else, and it’s no wonder college applicants are suckers for financial and academic scams. Self-absorbed incompetents are running both systems, and taxpayers are taking it on the chin in both cases.
I don,t see why taxpayers should be on the hook at all except as support for public universities.
And it,s a double whammy - full freight liberal arts students are subsidizing scholarships for these absurd hyphenated majors.
I ended up a full-tuition in interdisciplinary American Studies because it was the most efficient way to pull together my credits after a marriage and transfer - and I've got to say I loved it. It gave me tools and insights I've used well and broadly for many years.
It is a shame that so few students can afford the joy of learning for its own sake.
I agree on the self-absorbed incompetents running the systems, but what is the advantage to the oligarchs? i can,t see that it's advantageous to anyone. These wasted years are doing far more harm to society than good.
It's a great way to externalize the cost of job training to the individual employee. It is also a filter: non-elites cannot afford the prestigious schools.
HEAR! HEAR!
I loved this video nd subscribed to your channel. Thank you.
Nuke them from space. Just to be safe.
It's the only way to be sure.
The endless funding needs to be cut. Not everyone who wants to go to college deserves to go to college. Given the current endless loan system, some people need to be protected from themselves. Degrees with less than zero economic ROI for the students (unless they become professors or administrators) are a drain on society, and contribute to the woke navel gazing that has almost destroyed us.
I've said it before, student loans should be bankruptable, that would be both fair (too many 18 olds don't really know what their degree will be worth) and cut down on unlimited funding for degrees in DEI and transgender studies.
The removal of bankruptcy rights lies at the core of this whole scam. The Founders were smart when they called for them ahead of the power to raise an army and declare war. It's not just for relief. It's to keep the lending side honest and prices rational.
We can thank Joe Biden for his bankruptcy bill to aid his corporate donors in Delaware. Genocide Joe was surely one of the most blatantly corrupt and disastrous presidents in our history. Vietnam draft dodger and cheerleader for the racist War on Drugs, architect of mass incarceration with his 1994 Crime Bill, primary Democratic cheerleader for the war in Iraq, Obama’s point man in using Ukraine to provoke Russia—while enriching himself at their expense, and his final, world historical crime: supporting and funding the Israeli genocide of Palestinians
You had me right to the end where you plead the case of genocidal maniacs in Gaza.
So you see through the war on drugs but not an ultra-violent “Greater Israel” as funded by the American taxpayer? Okaaaay…
Agreed, I quickly clicked the "like" icon on the comment -- and I won't unlike it, but I agree with your qualification. (and clicked on the "like" icon for your comment too :-)
And there I was, having a pleasant week…until you brought Joe’s name into the convo.
Harvard--alone--could pay the full tuition and fees for every undergraduate and graduate student at all the Ivy League schools--in perpetuity--and miss it less than Columbia would miss the $300 million they're too cheap to pay.
Those in control have no true interest in the welfare of society. As in all large organizations, including governments and corporations, intelligent sociopaths are nearly always the ones who eventually rise to the top. It is what underpins the perpetual but arguably unnecessary antisocial consequences of iron law of oligarchy. It is thus can be seen as, really, our biggest political problem, if we were only sufficiently aware. If so, then capitalism, socialism, left, right, etc. are all lesser questions, because all can be, and are, corrupted by sociopathy.
I guarantee you that if universities had to back their own student loans, loans for ‘midwit intersectionality degrees’ would be almost non existent because there’s almost no ability to pay it back.
Also, I’ve often wondered why different degree programs don’t have a different pricing structure based on ROI of said degree. As in... we need social workers or speech pathologists, but they don’t make as much, so why aren’t their degree less expensive? At least for classes in their major, to prevent kids from starting out in a less expensive major just because it’s cheaper then switching to a more expensive one.
And one more... why can’t companies sponsor a student’s tuition with an agreement of X years at the company after graduation? It’s essentially what the military does at the academies and ROTC. I’ve always thought that would be a huge boon to kids who are smart with no resources. I know it’s against the rules, but does it have to be?
Excuse my rant, but the way we fund higher education has always bothered me, and I’m a massage therapist with way too much time to think about these things, lol.
Valerie, you may be a massage therapist, but you make way more sense than most university faculty.
Thank you. I have a degree in finance and international business, this is my pretirement job. But I honestly wish I’d done it 20 years ago, best job ever.
Interesting idea.
I was a smart kid with no resources. So I joined my college’s ROTC program to help pay for my degree. It covered ~60% of costs so I still had to take out loans to cover the rest. After graduating I had a “guaranteed” job in the military making a whopping $29k/yr and went straight into the GWOT meatgrinder.
If a private company had instead offered to pay for my degree in exchange for several yrs of working for them at a decent salary without having to risk my life, hell yeah I would’ve taken them up on it!
That’s what I’m saying! Especially if it’s something rather nichey where the new grad is going to have to be trained on the job anyway after graduating. They can work at the company in the summers and get some of that taken care of. I think it would be great.
Yep engineering programs do that with co-op programs. But not for useless underwater basketweaving majors etc.
Those "useless underwater basketweaving majors" get hired by engineering firms to deal with the public because engineers are too specialized in their education.
Don’t let anyone lie to you: Speech Pathologists make great money. Why do you think I married one? 😄
Love your idea. Think "Buy Here - Pay Here" model of financing, as happens at a used car lot. This would be a self-regulating lending plan, but even better than Honest John's Used Autos, since the student does not hold collateral that the University could repossess, Universities would be way more cautious in giving loans in exchange for worthless degrees.
Exactly
100% agree with the 'midwit intersectionality degrees'! 😄
I think state colleges should charge what degrees cost, no more, no less. Or less, if the public agrees to subsidize them, in which case the baseline would be to subsidize all degrees equally, on a percentage basis.
Also agree it seems like enterprising companies would sponsor people for degrees they need; perhaps they don't because they already have all the graduates they need, and they compete for the best based on salary. Which puts the risk back on the student - so why would companies take the risk, if students are willing to do it for them?
You method works if there are plenty of qualified candidates in a particular career field. But if not, my method may be a way to make sure we have people doing the lower paying jobs without being stuck with a lifetime of debt for it.
Bearing the brunt of your decisions is what grows you up.
Only student loans get 18yo kids in debt for 100k for something they can't even begin to pay off. No one is lending them 100k to buy a sports car when they don't have a job, and won't for at least 4 years.
In most cases they're not even allowed to buy alcohol, but colleges can talk them into taking these loans without a parent being present?
My grandson went to state university and I helped him with the process. They were excellent at spelling out the consequences of taking out student loans, comparing them to a 20 year car payment for example.
My kids haven't done loans, but when we put out feelers, I got the distinct impression the university people didn't want parents involved, at least when it came to actually asking questions.
No college put me up to getting pregnant at 17. My boyfriend and I got married and had to deal with our poor decisions. Being responsible for our actions grew us up and 46 years later, we're still married. Yes, it was difficult and not an ideal situation in which to start our adult lives, but I'm grateful for the life lessons. There are a lot of things you can do before 21 years of age that will impact your future life.
Exactly, and it's about time they grow up.
Colleges and Universities have the wherewithal to make and administer tuition loans, themselves, and without taxpayer guarantees. It would probably be another source of revenue, but they might feel compelled to be certain those receiving the loans understand what they are getting into, and are able to repay.
Navel-gazing is indeed stupid, but has almost destroyed us? I’m more inclined to blame 800 military bases around the world, multiple endless wars we have no real stake in, and our financing of universal healthcare in Israel while Americans have to launch Go Fund Me campaigns to pay for cancer treatment.
If people got degrees that actually lead to productive work, if teachers actually taught reading writing and arithmetic well (we might need to pay good teachers better), then we'd have a more dynamic economy that actually produced more goods and services and a stronger tax base to pay for all those pax Americana bases. Not sure what to do about healthcare, which is fundamentally broken. The American right doesn't seem to have an appetite for any system which would cut middlemen and inefficiency and provide protection for those with pre-existing conditions, or if we do, I haven't heard it.
The problem is that they're pushing reading and writing on kids whether or not they're ready for it. There's no evidence for the idea that kids won't learn to read or write without being pressured into doing it, and there's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that this practice teaches kids to hate those things, like it does with math. (Insofar as anyone can get funded to research the failure of this approach I would bet all of it speaks to it doing more harm than good.) It's past time to fundamentally overhaul public education away from coercion and one-size-fits-all milestones and toward giving kids agency over their own education. Not only would this prove infinitely less alienating, it would also be greatly more effective, though the education industry would not make the killing it does now, which tells you what road we're overwhelmingly likely to take.
I have read about people with a quarter-million in student debt for master's degrees in film studies and similar degrees that are very expensive and extremely unlikely to lead to an actual job. The schools themselves are pushing these master's programs on students, as the article said, because the tuition is so high and loans are available. No thought for the student at all.
Yep. Risk free and high profit for colleges.
I saw an interview with a teacher who went a quarter million in debt for a master's in education, probably worth about 2k a year in income body. Ridiculous. Mind you, I'm not sure how a grown adult could justify this. But still, if it were bankruptable, the lender wouldn't have approved it. (Unless perhaps that lender is the US govt!)
If they "want-to" enough, they will find a way.
The colleges are in the catbird's seat.
They get massive funding ( not just from student loans), make more money by keeping kids in school longer (6.2 years is the average time to get a 4-year degree the last I checked), and indoctrinating them more with increasingly nonsensical/politically motivated curriculum, all the risk is piled onto the students, who don't realize what a scam the loans are until years after leaving school (40% never even graduate), and because allegiance to their alma mater is often so deeply ingrained in their whole image/identity, they don't complain about it.
And because of the perverse incentives that run through the college industry, they "compete" with their peer institutions by RAISING their tuition ("Come to Duke, we're better than Seton Hall because our tuition is $10k Higher than theirs")...
On and on...
Of course the predatory federal student loan $$ spigot funds the entire thing, so they just cannot lose.
And we haven't even talked about their hospital revenue....
Damn Alan. I suddenly feel ridiculous (and rightfully so) for supporting my alma mater that has an 8 billion dollar endowment. 🤣
Yes, in addition to the useless degrees that cannot translate into well-paying jobs, there are the 40% of student loan borrowers who never even get the useless degree... But the loans are forever...
Having attended a Catholic college that is going out of business, do you know if the Catholic colleges sit on endowments too or do they have to turn in endowment money to the church? Do they have to manage with tuition being the majority of funding?
I'm sure they do. Better question, how much Federal money do they get? Catholic schools, especially those thought to comprise the Catholic Ivies, were an important addition to higher learning in America. The Ivies were largely WASP and in their early years denied Catholic entrance. Do a search on this and you get plenty of stores on Jewish prejudice, but we hear little about the Catholic prejudice in America, the first prejudice among the early settlers and formation of the colonies.
It depends on the college or university. Catholic institutions are just like any other private institutions of higher ed. Some have big endowments, while others are tuition-driven.
"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to
the majority of people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is
conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many."
-Smedley Butler
Cannot wait to read the Margaret Atwood and JK Rowling letter to the Atlantic. Thanks!
Capitalism is what is at heart of all our problems; that, and a dumbed-down populace who care more about the latest version of a phone than the homeless veteran on the street.
Matt’s point is valid; so is that of those who decry the Trump/Musk/Rufo assault on education. It’s the same old you suck/no you suck worse politics spin cycle we can’t escape.
The empire is crumbling. And, per design, those who are poor and/or struggling to make ends meet will get kicked in the teeth the hardest.
Musk isn't assaulting education. He's fighting waste and fraud. And I don't see how the poor are affected by requiring universities to intelligently marshal their assets. If Universities respond to federal cutbacks by firing janitors instead of bureaucrats, that's entirely performative.
You’re clueless. He has no more interest in waste and fraud than does Trump, or any other oligarch grifting rich filth. He’s all about greed/power, and feathering his nest. Your bullshit detector needs serious recalibration.
Capitalism provided you with everything that allows you to post your drivel here. If you think that communism or socialism would have led to all the abundance that we have, you are clueless.
My iPad was largely a socialist product, you twit.
Abundance? Homeless in the streets, poverty exploding, food deserts, health care suckage, housing suckage, addiction everywhere you look….
Every trope thrown at socialism/communism since 1917 is just another look in the mirror moment in time for present day ‘Murica.
Thanks for the easy block decision.
You really think so? Then explain how China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, is quickly surpassing the US in technology, and doesn’t waste its resources on perpetual stupid wars.
China has gotten rich because they allowed capitalism into the country. And yes they stole our IP to get there as well
After murdering 65 million of their own citizens during the Mao years, there were far fewer to lift out of poverty.
Because the Chinese have adopted a capitalist economy while maintaining centralized totalitarian social control, and they're too busy torturing and overseeing the enslavement of their subjects to aggressively expand their global hegemony with the bullet, though they rattle the saber every once in a while. They are buying territory abroad from greedheads willing to sell their own mothers if the price is right, so they don't need to invade and occupy with armed force.
The Chinese model is the envy of every (or nearly every) captain of industry in the Western world. The ruling class in the UK is emulating the Chinese by importing something like slave labor, only the slaves they're taking in as supposed refugees don't do anything but collect state aid and run amok with machetes and knives every once in a while. They've got the social control part of the Chinese scheme pretty well nailed down, but so far they haven't found a way to make it pay, and I'll be damned if I can see how they ever can.
China has "lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty" because our corrupt elites have transferred our manufacturing and technology to China. The CCP didn't create anything. We gave it away, or had it stolen. China's GDP in 1970 (before the giveaway began) was approximately $100 per person.
There, "explained" it for you.
But you are right about the "wasting resources on perpetual stupid wars." But there again, that's thanks to the corrupt American elites of recent decades.
My bullshit detector is well-calibrated, and it's going off loud and clear on you, Tom High. I smell academic.
lol! Your sense of smell is worse than your bullshit detector.
Tom have you ever met Karen? You guys make a fabulous couple.
Name-calling and innuendo are such a high form of argumentation. I know I'm persuaded by Tom's sharp and insightful rhetoric.
That’s great. You should meet Karen too. I wasn’t being critical just observing you guys have a lot in common.
bet you think highly of Bernie though right?
On some things, yes. His critique of what ails us domestically (oligarchy, wealth disparity, corporate/monied interest influence on the legislative process) is mostly correct.
His foreign policy analysis is a mixed bag, and his tactical decisions, especially regarding his thinking that the Democrats are worthy of support, have been abysmal since the Dem convention in ‘16.
How is Musk exhibiting greed by uncovering wasteful spending?
Because he focuses selectively on government spending that he derives no benefit from, and he also uses a meat cleaver approach when a scalpel would be more appropriate. He is clueless to what government employees actually do, hence mass firing critical employees, probationary (another term he doesn’t understand) or otherwise, only to have to hire them back because of their critical expertise.
His greed is both monetary and ideological.
I have worked in academia, business and government. While cutting expenditures and budgets are often considered essential, only government seemed adamantly resistant to cuts. While I agree that a scapel is generally preferable to a meat cleaver in theory, it also leads to other headaches. Being told to cut staff by 10% at one company ("scapel"), put stress on the firing manager to cut friends or the workers most in need of their job (often their kids in college), but it was done for years. Some elderly workers would willingly retire early, and sadly the best workers would often quickly take positions at other companies.
Then there was a spate of 'resistant' workers claiming they were being discriminated against in the firings, and the company's lawyers soon decided the best approach was to eliminate departments rather than individuals (the "meat cleaver" approach). This was probably worst case business-wise as it destroyed capabilities and institutional memory, but was legally easily able to defend. The rationale was that the departments could eventually be rebuilt with "new and better" employees. Much essential work was offshored to India and other countries "short-term".
Management stressed that "no one is irreplaceable", "no one is essential" and everyone should always be looking for their next job. That did nothing for morale and was poisonous for culture, but that is today's reality. Government employees have been shielded from that reality far too long.
I think we all know who the clueless one here is...
We all know? You know shit.
https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/19/americas-constitutional-crisis-w-katherine-franke-the-chris-hedges-report/
Name says it all!!
Your cynicism is damaging your bullshit detection.
Your disagreement with the commenters below is based on a misunderstanding. Most people think of waste or fraud as things that cause a product to cost more than the product is worth. From the perspective of the public, profit is waste. It is unnecessary since public programs do not need to make a profit. However, from a capitalist perspective, public programs themselves are waste and fraud unless they funnel money to private owners via profits. Musk and Trump are killing off anything they think they cannot divert to the profit of themselves and their friends.
No, those who are attacking the Trump/Musk/Rufo "assault" on education are not "valid," they are cynical defenders of a corrupt status quo. Sorry, no moral equivalence here.
Some are, some aren’t. But nice try with the fallacious declarative pronouncement.
Oh there he is. Our resident comrade. LOL
Cute comment, perfesser.
Bless your heart.
If by “capitalism” you mean the higher education/government nexus is a great example of what not to do.
You mean the higher education/monied interest corporate-controlled government nexus.
Fify.
Oh, so you are against Chinese-style “communism”? 😂
No, I’m against the sophomoric use of emojis by people who think their sarcasm is worthy of the return key.
Impossible to contain the laughter at your buffoonery. 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
There's a word for such people: Progressives. Started over a hundred years ago. They know it all, and you don't.
I agree whole completely. I thought the proliferation of legalized gambling was the biggest way of taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich. Massive government funding of extremely rich universities with tax payers money may be even worse.
I always wondered why universities with huge endowments, some o them designated for scholarships' never were used to pay student tuitions. Instead they were hoarded and invested for profits. Or used to build Stupid walls, as happened with me with Old Dominion.
"(see Margaret Atwood and JK Rowling letter to the Atlantic)" ...
Thanks for the heads-up on this! Friendly note that it was from Harper's. Link here for those interested: https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
Oh, thanks. It must have just been reported about in the Atlantic. I see it's been references lots of places. Thanks for posting it!
Look to the Atwood/Rowling letter?
Or where to read it?
“They compete on status, handing out degrees in self-obsession and intersectional horseshit that are useful for upper-class networking and not much else. Like military contractors their one important customer is the state, for whom they often perform services that are not just useless but outright antisocial.”
Matt feeling particularly ruthless tonight 🤣
And particularly on point!
HULK SMASH!!!
Upper class neurotics! Perfect.
“Intersectional horseshit” that’s a zinger
I found it appalling that the Biden administration didn't even consider asking the universities to dip into their endowments to fund student loan forgiveness.
I would argue the social costs of over-indebted and unemployable graduates is as least as bad as anything the tobacco companies or asbestos companies ever did.
There was a really good, bipartisan bankruptcy bill in the Senate in 2022 which would have returned limited bankruptcy rights to student loans and required the colleges to pay a nominal amount to the government for discharges. At the very last minute, the colleges pressured Dick Durbin and the Democrats to kill the bill. It was a gut-punch to student loan borrowers.
Please comment on this, Alan--In 1978, Biden supported the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, which
eliminated income restrictions on federal loans to expand eligibility to all
students. Biden helped write a separate bill that year blocking students from
seeking bankruptcy protections on those loans after graduation. https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/111100/documents/HHRG-116-JU08-20201202-SD007.pdf
Biden is destined to go down in history as the most corrupt president in modern history.
Most corrupt administration? Yes. I simply don't think Biden knew half of what his cabinet got up to, not that I have had any respect or love for him over the years. But this is were I think Trump is going a la the auto pen comments. And if he is able to bring light on the pardons, he can look at auto signed bills.
And if Biden didn't actually sign them...
The thing nobody wants to think about. But the VERY thing we all need to think about. This alone should disqualify the D party for eternity. But sadly the D party is needed, or at least someone to prevent the R party from doing the very same thing. ALL Politicians are grifters.
I think you may very well be right.
One funny sidenote: The Senator who thanked then-junior-Senator Biden by name in the 1977 bankruptcy legislation was Dennis DiConcini- who, by all rights, should have gone to prison for the S and L scandal of the 1980's. You can see the type of people Biden ingratiated himself to when he first joined the Senate and how he came up. Despicable. History will not judge him kindly.
"History will not judge him kindly." It will if the very same academics we are decrying write it.
"History" never judges anyone. Historians do.
Good point. LOL
Yep. Very true. That- even as a junior senator- Biden was thanked by name for the 1977 bankruptcy legislation speaks volumes. He deserves a HUGE amount of credit for the entire student loan scam since it's inception. His Presidency was his chance to make things right. It was a true character test for him, and I am so sorry to report that he failed miserably. SMH.
I told my children that if we have to go in debt for their tuition that they would be paying the toll afterwards. They are very very very aware that it is their responsibility to pay off whatever debt they incur and that taxpayers are NOT the payers of last resort. I'm all for colleges taking some of the burden of federal largesse, but adults who become indebted have to be held accountable for the bulk of federal loans. Besides getting out of the college financing business, the feds should mandate in person loan counseling services before students and parents sign loan contracts.
I wouldn't let my kids take out loans. Only one was really upset about it, because she got into Pratt with a partial scholarship. (She's a very talented artist.) But even with the partial scholarship, it would have cost us $40K a year -- which I couldn't do. She wanted to take out loans; I said no. She said she could do it without me, I told her she would regret it. She finally came to her senses and took the near-full scholarship to a state school and I paid her room and board. All told, I paid less than $8K a year and she got a degree and then a job. I'm sorry she couldn't go to Pratt -- but I don't regret her not being in debt. My other two kids who went to college went to schools that offered them academic scholarships and I paid room and board. They worked for their gas, entertainment, clothes, etc.
Good for you, on the wise counsel of no debt, and ensuring they worked through school. And let's hear it for state schools! I spent a career in HR, and every time I did college recruiting, I'd give way more attention to a kid who worked his way through school than a silver spoon type who might--might--work 20 hours a week at the country club during summer, except for the month-in-Spain.
And not because I don't like rich kids (though to be truthful, I don't like rich kids), it's because they don't learn important, business-related or business-adjacent skills like time management or budgeting.
My son went to Texas Tech graduated in 4 years with a math degree and minor in CS and got a job immediately making high 5 figures as a computer software engineer. No loans. I’m glad I could pay part but I made sacrifices too. Yet they’re my kids and I signed on for this. I shouldn’t have to pay for everyone else’s kids who didn’t make wise choices (through taxes)
You're not. The Department of Education has made a King's Ransom in PROFIT on this loan scam. They've gotten back pretty much every penny- if not EVERY penny they've lent out from the borrowers. That's a big lie that's been perpetuated by the financial/mainstream media.
Let us not forget, Obama said that student loan financing would cover the cost of Obamacare. What a travesty.
Didn't you mean to say that Obama said that student loan financing would cover the profits of the health insurance industry in perpetuity?
Yep. Another huge mistake. Counting on predatory profits from an unconstitutional, government loan scam to pay for other programs is very unwise policy work.
If you want to give your kids good advice, you should tell them to absolutely NOT take out federal student loans, or private student loans, for that matter. They've been stripped of bankruptcy rights, and have been turned into licenses to steal. That is literally the only good advice to give.
Before the pandemic, 85% of all borrowers were never going to be able to repay their loans. That is probably well over 90% today. The loans are a massive scam, and should be avoided at all costs (or perceived benefit), as currently constructed.
You don't understand the predatory nature, and the massive profitability of these loans to the Department of Education. The Education Department has, on balance, gotten back all the money it lent out from the borrowers. The $1.8 Trillion in outstanding debt is largely INTEREST, over and above what the government paid. The biggest financial/mainstream media/swamp LIE out out there is that cancellation "costs" the Taxpayer. That's nonsense. This is not about bad borrowers. This is about an unconstitutional loan scam that has been foisted on this country, and now we are seeing it fail. Spectacularly.
Sad to see so many people have believed it, and been programmed by it.
See the facts here: https://studentloanjustice.medium.com/why-bidens-student-loan-cancellation-will-cost-taxpayers-nothing-259ea5dc44f7
All of that said, for folks who have no way whatsoever of paying their loans back, there has to be a mechanic in place to help them not become debt prisoners.
The Founders called for uniform bankruptcy rights ahead of every right listed in the Bill of Rights when they wrote the Constitution (which, itself, was compelled by a debtor's revolt, Shay's Rebellion). This is the mechanism and it's there as much to keep the lenders honest as anything.
Congress made a huge mistake by stripping these uniquely from student loans (actually it was really just a small mistake, but became huge over years of refusing to fix it).
Statutes of limitations, also (while not called for in the Constitution) were stripped uniquely from federal student loans.
So the loans were unconstitutionally weaponized, with obvious disregard for the wisdom of the Founders, and now we see the results.
I would say that if the taxpayer backstop were removed, student loan forgiveness would be much more popular. None of us who work for a living want to pay for someone else's gender studies degree. There are very few degrees we're willing to de risk for other people's kids. A lot of this problem is that the movement is marketed in a very left-coded way. Putting the universities on the hook would unite people against a common enemy (monopolist extorters and their statist cronies).
What a great point. I never even saw it discussed anywhere.
Of course, Trump administration #1 didn't do anything like that either, nor did Half-Black Jesus. Contemptible on all counts.
Half-Black Jesus. Even as a believer (in Jesus, not that ridiculous America-hating cryptosexual) I find that hilarious.
Appreciate your understanding. I don't say it to offend people of faith, more to make fun of the people who act like the dude was the Second Coming.
Biden was checked out months before he got any democratic party candidate ever.
I've been inclined to believe for a few years now, that the push for DEI jobs and ever-expanding HR departments is a sort of "soft loan forgiveness" scheme whereby all the understandably naïve 18 year-old rubes who got a vastly overpriced college degree could at least find gainful employment, even though they provide their employers no value. It's essential for keeping the money making con going and not causing the Democrats own constituency to turn on them after realizing they went tens of thousands of dollars into debt and got nothing of value in return.
Very sound theory and I have thought the same thing.
I think many people, perhaps including you guys, have determined that DEI in its entirety needs to be ditched. It's a classic case of over-correction, or in easy terms, throwing out the baby with the bath water.
For more than a quarter of a century, D for diversity and I for inclusion have been critical, business excellence cornerstones of myriad successful organizations. I worked in HR for a huge consumer products company and a huge health care company, and D&I were accepted, ingrained, and they worked. I certainly concede that Stasi agents with HR employee badges rolled a wave of terror over college campuses. But those fuckers weren't real HR people. So don't blame HR. In the private sector, D&I worked. Or we wouldn't have done it. It still works, except for the few chicken-shits who ditched it all.
At some point in the recent past, some asshole came along and decided that an E would look real good in there between the Diversity and the Inclusion. For a while, no one could say for sure what the E stood for--Equality or Equity? Most if not all would support equality of opportunity. Definitely not all would support equity of outcomes. It's too much against the American grain. None of us believe Zuckerberg worked his way to $200 billion, but he did maybe steal a good idea and at least worked on implementing it. Regardless of continuing facts that demonstrate that hard work and gumption don't get you shit anymore, we all hope for a fair opportunity.
If we all (or most) agree that the Equity idea is not the right answer at this time, let's just throw IT out, and leave the stuff that has worked and still does. And DeFund the Stasi.
In my retail career, I worked for 34 managers over 33 years. Only one of those 34 was incompetent (not to mention corrupt). It was a woman who was promoted up four rungs on the ladder all in one step. (At the time, the corporation was anxious to avoid a potential class-action lawsuit.)
Working for that woman was a nightmare and I finally had enough and quit. She was fired six months later. Over the subsequent years, the whole industry turned stupid with HR Diversity and Inclusion, and it has never recovered. Not in financial terms --it still turns profits. But it does that at the expense of the workers, whose pay is less than half of what it was when promotions were entirely based on competence.
Are you making the mistake of "my solitary experience is totality of all similar expereinces?" The two corrput VPs I worked for in 40 years of engineering were white males. (true). Hence, we should work harder to advance non-white females into executive roles. (bad conclusion)
Sorry you had that bad experience. The fault lay with the idiot who promoted someone too soon. If they had their heart set on a woman to fill a certain role, they certainly could have found several with the requisite skills and experience.
Properly done, diversity isn't promoting or hiring unqualified people. It's about expanding one's hiring pool to consider a wider group of applicants.
When bad talent decisions are made in organizations, everyone loses. You lose, because you get a bad boss. She loses, because she's in a set-up-to-fail situation. Company loses, because all that will cause disruption.
I never worked retail, so I defer to your experience in that sector. I always did manufacturing, sales, or later, HQ workforces.
DEI is just rebranded communism, yes it should be ditched in entirety. D & I = identity category quotas, which are also antithetical to justice and equal opportunity.
Always with the "quotas!" in any discussion of diversity or affirmative action. Best to understand topics before wading in.
I understand perfectly. It is axiomatic that preferences in hiring = quotas regardless of whether it is spelled out as a specific % which it often is.
I'm afraid you don't understand. Affirmative Action has its own legal terminology. Few understand it. Most assume it means certain quotas of women or black people need to be hired. This is incorrect.
And it's REALLY incorrect to call corporate D&I programs "quotas."
Can you specifically describe the results and success of D and I! What did it look like and what did your organization do differently to achieve results? I would also be curious if you could describe what you looked like before you adopted D and I? Serious question. Thanks.
It would be a term paper. Bottom line (quite literally) is D&I resulted in more revenue and profit growth, driven by more innovation.
This concept is well-understood and supported across industries in this country. It was pretty settled until the asshole with the E came around.
Prior to the adoption of diversity across American industry, it looked like a bunch of white guys who went to the same type of schools, from the same types of backgrounds, and who all thought eerily similarly.
Even expanding diversity to include white guys from different parts of the country, or who had been in the military, led to different kinds of thinking, and therefore better innovation. Man, I love Junior Military Officers (JMOs). You get people who have organizational skills, know how to execute against objectives, and are often showing great leadership after only a 4-5 year stint. You only have to weed out the few who are of the "drop and gimme 50 maggot!" types.
"Properly done, diversity isn't promoting or hiring unqualified people. It's about expanding one's hiring pool to consider a wider group of applicants."
The problem is that in practice, DEI often did involve not just outreach to underrepresented groups, but discrimination in favor of such groups and consequently, against white (and sometimes Asian) people, along with "grading on a curve", eliminating standards (e.g., SATs), and censoring or "canceling" those who criticized DEI. I expect that I would support your version of "DI", but I oppose DEI as it was widely practiced.
The difference was nicely summarized by Coleman Hughes (1), and it's illustrated by by comparing MLK Jr.'s proposal for a "Bill or Rights for the Disadvantaged" to Ibram X. Kendi's approach (2, 3):
"The cause of a disparity or an inequity must be policies or practices that we see or don’t see"
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”
“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
[1] https://colemanhughes.substack.com/p/the-gaslighting-of-martin-luther
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-ibram-x-kendi.html
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/opinion/ibram-x-kendi-racism.html
Like I said, I'm not talking about universities and what they have done. Appears to be some dumbass stuff.
In corporations, it works, probably because all the extracurricular stuff that seems to accompany the E isn't present.
So I'm not even sure how widely DEI in its all its Capital E glory is even practiced outside universities. Corporations hire and employ far more people than academic institutions, by a huge margin. And it's primarily D&I in corporations. DEI just became an easy to use slander. Like when Reagan used to complain about welfare queens driving Cadillacs. It's simply not demonstrably true just because politicians and journalists with a burr under their saddle (like Bari Weiss) may say so.
I don't know about Coleman Hughes. He seems to be often quoted in media because he's the black guy who will say things that other black people won't say. He's like Herschel Walker.
I'll also say that white men from lower-middle-class and higher in socioeconomic terms continue to massively dominate the US economically. White men still run everything. As soon as they're asked to share a little bit, all we hear is "reverse discrimination!" We are a loooooooooooooooooooong way from that ever being a real problem.
Many years ago, after she had retired, a friend told me a story about an episode she experienced while working as a personal secretary to an officer high up in the managerial hierarchy of PacBell, a telephone company headquartered in San Francisco.
My friend was rather cynical and conspiratorial by nature, and since her boss had a personality similar to hers, they soon developed a rather close rapport. It wasn’t sexual at all, the first thing that many people think of when it comes to bosses and secretaries; she was older than he was and not physically attractive by any means.
The dynamic between the two was always fascinating for me because it seemed so unlikely. She always assertively identified herself as being Boston Irish. Her boss was a tall,slim, elegantly dressed black man who was born and raised in what had once been known as the British West Indies.
On a professional level, their deportment was formal and businesslike. On an informal level, they would talk to each other as equals with the understanding that nothing they said was ever divulged to others or even that they had discussed anything at all.
In the early 80s Affirmative Action was the social cause du jour. The company made a public show of signing up lots of minorities, mostly Chinese and Philippine. They all nominally could speak English but since it was a second language for many of them, their pronunciation at times was unintelligible, especially on the other end of a telephone line.
My friend and her boss were discussing this situation in the informal mode one day when the boss said “well, don’t worry about it. In six months when the Affirmative Action thing has died down we’ll just get rid of ‘em on the QT.”
A revealing insight into corporate governance 45 years ago. How much has it changed since then and how much has it not, I wonder.
In the Sea of Appalling, what I find most reprehensible is the DoE + Mackenzie Bezos seduction of "first generation college students" into the racket while waiting to sell them (mostly bullshit) master's degrees on the back-end...all the while siphoning those sweet, sweet rents.
Great point. You can't hire all your graduates, though, and it's worn through. The Dems revealed their true fealty to the colleges over the students in 2022 by killing their own bill that would have returned limited bankruptcy rights to the loans, and also had a modest clawback provision from the colleges. At the 11th hour, the colleges pressured the Dems to nix the bill and they did. So the borrowers definitely are turning on the Dems AND their colleges now. Big, Big mistake. The Limousine Liberals will probably never acknowledge it though....
regulatory govt jobs are essentially "make work." working hard, creating nothing of value and patting yourself on the back the whole time while you sit smug with your degree and feelings of pride and entitlement
This level of strategy from the same Dems inept at even weak counterpunches to the Trump admin? Are you giving them too much credit for a 'planned scheme'? I agree that this scenario evovled. My own unverified, unresearched opinion is this scenario grew more organically.
I have been waiting years for this article.
Me too. Better late than never. Go Buckaroo Matt and his Hong Kong Citizen Journalist Cavaliers after these greedy higher ed leftist assholes.
Could not have said it better
Universities, NGO’s with seemingly nefarious objectives, dead people receiving money, foreign scammers receiving payments from the US and Elon Von Hitler Musk is the villain! Makes me sick.
I retired from a management position at a public ivy. Whatever you hear, it is worse on the inside. The amount of grift accepted as normal boggles the mind of someone on the outside.
Would love to hear some stories if/when you have the time!
Matt... Please pull this and a couple other threads you are familiar with and bring them together. Remember Asset Backed Securities from the GFC? Dig into how student loans are bundled into ABSs and sold to investors. The pitch: An investment yielding 6% on an underlying asset class which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and is otherwise 100% backed by the tax payers - student loans.
When you look at this from the point of view of an investor, the first question is: Where do I sign? The second: How can get I get more?
This was bad enough when interest rates were "normal." But when they dropped well below 6%? And investment banks were rolled into holding companies with access to the Fed's discount window? There was a point where they could borrow basically for free and plow that money into student loan ABSs yielding 6% while taking no risk. The number of seats in the incoming freshmen class remained stable but had a bazooka of money shot at it.
This is the putatively "non profit" higher education sector... Now you see where all that money has ended up. Is there a major university that is not building a new building? The number of students and faculty have not grown, but look at the administrations and their upper echelon bloated salaries. And only then do you get to the cash reserves. And - as you see - we're not even talking about the endowments yet.
And multiple generations of their students are debt slaves. "Collusion?" How about the finance and higher education sectors?
Brilliantly stated. My only thought (making it even worse) is that faculty (at least tenure track) have actually shrunk, replaced by Visiting Lecturers and Adjunct Professors who are often part-time with no benefits. All the while the administration mushrooms.
The SLAB argument carried a ton of weight before 2010, when Obama federalized the program. Since then, though, all the loans have been made and are owned directly by the Dept. of Education. So the percentage of federal loans that are sitting tradeable SLABS today is really small. Not even 10% of all federal loans.
Still very valid for private student loans, btw, but those are around a tenth the size of the federal loan portfolio.
The heart of this problem is we have an essentially unlimited money supply chasing a static "inventory." Money for lending is normally restrained by risk. When the loan cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and is backed by the taxpayer, the risk restraint is gone. Back to high school econ: More money chasing the same amount of product equals higher prices.
Totally agree. The Founders called for uniform bankruptcy rights. The floor of good faith (IE skin in the game) that this compels from the lenders is exactly what is needed to restrain lending and keep prices rational.
Take this away and we now see what happens.
The Founders were smart.
Indeed! The whole story of lending and collecting as it was abused by the merchant class against Revolutionary War veterans who ended up leading the Daniel Shays Rebellion is why we have a Constitution which governs both legal tender (they can't just take your horses and livestock anymore like they used to) and bankruptcy laws.
During the post-2008 financial crisis, I read that the colleges/universities' building projects were the only thing keeping construction companies afloat.
And they kickback money to their demonrat political sugar daddies in an endless cycle of grift.
Education is not the aim, credentials are the only currency understood.
The Left basically treats the modern college experience as a ritual cleansing process that rids the soul of racism, homophobia, and sexism, and which the proles are too inferior and/or poor to undergo.
Then they installed hate and ignorance.
State-run (funded) education is state-run media with a captive audience in their formative years.
Few things are more important to a healthy America than getting government out of the "education" business entirely. Subsidies shouldn't be cut for "supporting Hamas"; they should be cut because they should never exist for any reason.
That the amount of subsidy and its form is more than commonly understood is simply a natural consequence of its existence. This is what bureaucracy is.
Yes, here in Washington state K-12 education is a responsibility of the state, per the state constitution. Fat chance getting an amendment through
That is one reason why that state will take a miracle to save. And another reason to avoid putting causes du jour into the constitution with 51% votes.
Let’s start a reality check on these institutions by taxing their endowments
Just stop government money going in.
The endowments will have to come out.
I wonder. It might even just become more of a blatant influence-purchasing mechanism with only wealthy Arabs, Chinese, and children of prominent black politicians being admitted. Think Harvard for example. The administration will not give up their perks and the power the environments but them.
THIS.
Thank you for putting this all in writing. I’ve complained to friends for years about the relentless rise of tuitions, all backed up by taxpayers’ guarantees of loans, only to see those loans written off, while the universities pay royal salaries and complain continually that they need more funding.
I don’t have your way with words so I’m glad to see your views on the subject. Unfortunately this all has the smell of USAID, and all the other “NGO” grants that have bankrupted the country while leaving the club members ever more rich and entitled.
As an Ivy League interviewer, I have watched the last 20 years as one after another vastly superior white and Jewish kid got passed over for inferior DEI candidates that it became almost pointless to bother. So I just told kids to lie on their applications. Claim to identify as a minority and WALTZ into the best colleges in the land. And… POOOF! It worked, Of course, I am only kidding, NOBODY should EVER do such a horrid thing.
...in my daughter's private high school class, a girl with a Jewish father and a Hispanic mother got into Yale by changing her Jewish last name to the mother's Hispanic last name during her senior year in high school...it seemed to help her...
Torquemada just spun in his grave!
We could probably use him right now.
Funny that no one seemed to care about Hopkins employees during the Great Recession. For two years I did not receive a merit increase, and some of my older colleagues were forced to retire. It was made quite clear at the time — and clearly is still the case today — that the endowment was off-limits.
Most universities are hedge funds with an education side hustle.
Let's be clear, it's a government backed student loan hustle. Education is redefined to be a progressive indoctrination camp.
As always, when in doubt, consult Oscar:
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
It’s also well to remember that the current fetishization of college degrees is suspiciously tied to a matrix of financial controls from which many students will never free themselves.
Knot-tying is worthwhile knowledge that can be taught.
Teaching and training are different things, I suspect Eric Hoffer would agree.
So nice to hear someone else remembers Eric Hoffer.
Dude was an intellectual OG with an outdoor miner’s heart. He wrote the intellectual guide to Al Qaida 60 years before 8/11.
I’ve always interpreted Wilde’s aphorism on other levels. Wilde didn’t say that nothing worth knowing can be ‘learned’, he said ‘taught’. His message was that all real learning is self learning.
By coincidence, I’ve long owned a treasured copy of “The Ashley Book of Knots”. I briefly learned hundreds of them. But the ones I remember are the ones learned from necessity, and use often. That’s the advantage of the autodidact.