Posted on 09/16/2012 5:00:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
"No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don't have the money," President Barack Obama told the Democratic National Convention as he accepted his party's nomination in Charlotte, N.C., this month.
That sentence -- key in Obama's "college affordability" agenda -- says everything about this administration's approach to selling itself to the American voter.
What's wrong with the message? Let me count the ways.
--It ignores reality. There is no reason a qualified poor kid cannot get into college in the United States simply because of money.
Richard J. Vedder, director of Ohio University's Center for College Affordability and Productivity, told me that Obama's correct, "people might get an acceptance at a relatively expensive private school that they can't afford to go to." But if students are accepted into one college, they can get into another, more affordable college, such as a community college, where Pell Grants cover tuition.
"If he's saying that not everyone can get into whatever college they want to get into, he's probably right," Vedder said. "I'm not sure that the American people would agree that every student should be able to get into the school they want." As an example, he mentioned Harvard University.
--It hints that GOP rival Mitt Romney would usher in a Hobbesian era in which poor kids are denied all opportunity to a college education.
To the contrary, Brookings Institution fellow Beth Akers recently blogged that Romney has "expressed a preference for redistributing aid dollars toward the neediest students."
Akers concluded that both Obama and Romney want to "tackle" college affordability -- Romney through market-based reforms, Obama with increased Pell Grants and price controls.
--It ignores the fact that a college education is not a ticket to the middle class or beyond if graduates cannot land good jobs.
The Associated Press crunched government data recently and found that 53 percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. These graduates need good jobs far more than they need a break paying off their student loans. They need careers. They need to see an economic future, a path that can lead them out of a downsized economy.
Recent graduates need a president who can instill employers with the confidence to hire new workers. Yet all Obama can do is wave the promise of bigger loans that are easier to pay off.
Or not pay off.
--It peddles a form of loan forgiveness in the name of "affordability."
Congress already passed an Obama measure to cap student loan payments at 15 percent of a graduate's discretionary income and forgive any outstanding balance after 25 years. This year, the Democratic National Committee platform held out "avenues for students to manage their federal student loans so that their payments can be only 10 percent of what they make each month." Actually, last year, the president issued an executive order that set a loan payment cap of 10 percent of income and proclaimed forgiveness of outstanding loan balances after 20 years for some graduates.
Romney's plan is to offer smarter financial aid, countered campaign policy director Lanhee Chen, "by working to create more diverse, affordable options for postsecondary education and by simplifying the financial aid system."
The Democrats' 2012 platform warns: "Tuition at public colleges has soared over the last decade and students are graduating with more and more debt; but Mitt Romney thinks students should 'shop around' for the 'best education they can afford.'"
America's student loan debt now exceeds the public's unhealthy credit card debt. Still, the Democrats think it's bad for young people to think about finances when they pick a school.
The president's remedy is to tell Americans: Vote for me and you can take out really big student loans. Be not afraid. As Vedder noted, "you've got a pretty good chance you won't have to pay it back."
We the taxpayers are subsidizing the liberal strongholds of liberal arts universities. We are also financing many useless degrees which subsidizes the looney leftist professors (non-science and engineering types mainly).
I appologize to the sane, conservative liberal arts professors, both of them.
There needs to be a truth in education financing act passed immediately. This act would force colleges and universities to provide prospective students with data on what recent, 5 year out, 20 year out graduates are doing with their degrees (i.e. engineering management, taxi driver etc.).
This would help the young borrower be wiser investing our money.
true or they just can’t vote for a MORMON! Idiocy.
I would dearly love to put the colleges in the position of being creditors instead of the government. I just don’t see it as politically viable right now. So you shove it in that direction as much as you can. I think making sure that the college stream of revenue is directly tied to repayment rates would get you closer to where we should be. You can also tie it to average tuition. Cheaper universities get more.
When the colleges squeal, you’re getting close.
Naah. We just can’t bring ourselves to vote for a LIBERAL just because he has an “R” after his name. Speaking for myself, the fact that willard is a reasonably devout Mormon is one of the few things I really like about him. I grew up in a heavily LDS area. Good people in my experience.
BIngo! For every $1.00 of support provided by fed gov, schools raise their rates by $1.10. All the benefits go to Obama’s cronies in education. Students and their families get NONE of it.
Obama’s “affordability” is not about helping people get into college, it’s about protecting the education industrial establishment’s access to government support college loans and grants, no matter what a college is charging.
In other words, like the rest of the Dims, it is not “education” they support, it’s the education industrial establishment, and their unions as well (but not just the unions) - the whole “enterprise” of our installed education mafias.
For a person who more than likely went to Occidental, then Columbia, then Harvard as a FOREIGN AID student at less than 10% of the normal tuition, he sure is full of words about “College affordability”.
Among many other things, that is one of the reasons he has frozen all of his college records, IMO.
If everybody follows Obama’s template, in 20 more years, you won’t be able to call a plumber—there won’t be any.
I will be SO angry if he does that! I paid for MY college tuition, room, board, books, clothes etc 1969-1973 by working summers in a HOT factory in Oklahoma, shift work, no AC, and by getting bank loans. I didn’t even have student loans. My husband and I repaid them all on time, in full. Then we paid for our three kids’ college and the youngest one took quite a while and his tuition was $30K. All together, for him to live in another state, and have an apartment, utilities, car, gas, insurances, books etc it cost me $75K a year, not to mention paying for community college and state university for the other two kids. We paid it. We didn’t buy a new car for ourselves from 1995 till 2011. We skrimped and saved and paid it ourselves. Now we find out Obama could have paid it with TAX DOLLARS by forgiving loans - my kids didn’t have loans. But man if they could have had loans, forgiven, jeepers life would have been EASY STREET for us. but at this point I will be SO ANGRY if he forgives these loans. Plus he hints art forgiving home loans for people who bought way more house than they should have! One little hint, buy less house than you think you can afford. Buy a cheaper car than the one you really think you “need” etc etc etc
Amen! Great comment! I really wanted a brand new Jaguar, or Porsche Cayenne, but I bought a VW Tiguan for much less money.
Great COmment!
Like going to the doctor or dentist before all the medicare, medicaid, health insurance, etc. Used to cost $5 - $7 to go to a doctor or a dentist. now you have to pay all the MIDDLE MEN! Prices Soared
If he thinks he’s behind, watch out......
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