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education and schooling subsidy

Sell College Short?

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We are often lectured on the importance of a college education. The path to upward mobility is greased via higher education, we are informed, and all that investment in time and money pays off . . . with a lifetime of higher salaries and better opportunities.

“The typical American with a bachelor’s degree or higher,” President Barack Obama pointed out back in 2014, “earns over $28,000 more per year than someone with just a high school diploma.” 

Accordingly, Obama urged “students and parents” to “begin preparing yourself for an education beyond high school.”

Was he just pulling our legs?

After all, $28,000 extra each year for many decades isn’t chump change. Yet, if college proves such a royal road to wealth, why would highly educated folks gaining such lucrative earning-power need the bailouts . . . especially from taxpayers who didn’t make that self-investment?

That subsidy of the richer by the poorer is precisely what many Democratic Party presidential candidates are promising younger voters, with Sen. Bernie Sanders topping the proposed taxpayer-generosity by offering to cancel all $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt.

“Not satisfied with having the government take over 20 percent of the economy with his Medicare-for-All program,” James Joyner writes at Outside the Beltway, “the Vermont Senator wants the government to assume all debt taken on for education and make college absolutely free from here on out.”

If a college education is worth what it costs, no bailout should be necessary.

And only in the political world would anyone suggest giving away such a valuable commodity for free.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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5 replies on “Sell College Short?”

The average electrician in the US currently is 58 years old. Means in 7 years the average electrician will be at retirement age. And the need for electricians is not going to go away. A smart person could do a lot better than college.

When we are as little as 5 years away from all of the tax income that the federal government takes in going just to interest on the debt, we are getting close to a massive default.  Similar to a person facing bankruptcy who starts charging cruises, new cars, massive purchases. Burning through acquisitions that will never be paid for. Only going to be a question of which creditor gets screwed first, and which never get paid back at all. So bringing on more debt is a great trade off that is highly unlikely to be accounted fo.

The “value” of the investment in a college degree is dependent on its subject matter  and, most importantly, what is done with it.
Like it or not, when the average American has a four year degree then a degree holder will make the average wage.  It’s simple math. 
Fear not, those without degrees and whose children do not exist, are older, already when to college or paid for their children to go are not going to be interested in subsidies to those who are allegedly better off than they. 
Socializing medicine is easy for it is allegedly a universal benefit, free college is not.   This proposal could actually splinter those who would hopefully support it. 

We could just use the 10 trillion dollars wasted on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Whoops! Those dollars were BURNED and gone forever. Along with the dead and injured.

There is an old saying that “Something that is free has little value.” I was in a Christian literature mission that operated bookstores in many countries. I was asked if we gave the books away and if not why charge people in “poor countries” to pay for them. And I told them that the books became more valuable to them because they cost them something. And beside we could not exist if we had to give books away. Sanders and other like him HAVE NO COMMON SENSE!

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