Republicans hate it, Democrats love it and independents narrowly approve:
Biden canceling some student loan debt for certain borrowers
% Approve/Disapprove
Total 54/46
Dem 88/12
GOP 21/79
Ind 52/48
Men 48/52
Women 59/41
White,4yr 53/47
White,No deg 41/59
Black 88/12
Latino 68/32
<30 75/25
30-44 64/36
45-64 47/53
65+ 43/57 pic.twitter.com/qdV17yGse6— Aron Goldman (@ArgoJournal) August 28, 2022
As Josh Marshall pointed out on Twitter, Republican critics like Jim Jordan who claimed massive numbers of black and brown people oppose student debt relief were…wrong. Or lying. Go figure!
Open thread!
SiubhanDuinne
Deleted because dupe, WHY???
SiubhanDuinne
Boy how-DEE, those are some painfully telling numbers.
oatler
@SiubhanDuinne:
Say again?
Anonymous At Work
Gym Jordan was basing it on the one of each he knows.
Scout211
Deleted
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
That “white/no degree” number…could they be any more obvious? “I don’t need it so I don’t want anyone else to get it!”
Dangerman
Sounds like lawsuits are coming; if it works it’s way to the USSC, we know how that will turn out.
I just see this as a tax cut for the “rest of us”. I don’t get the Reichwing bitching (other than they are required by law or domething to bitch and moan about everything Biden does).
El Muneco
The demo breakdowns look like they might be within margin of error of just being “prefers Dem”/”prefers GOP”. I wonder if there might be some “question phrasing” issues regarding trying to separate that factor out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Seen anything concrete? I keep seeing people say (on twitter so as ever FWIW) none of them can figure out who has standing to sue
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
More precise description is Old White Male / no degree.
Danielx
Jim Jordan lies? Say it ain’t so!
In other news, water is wet.
Danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve been getting that of late too.
James E Powell
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
The “white/no degree” demographic seems to be wholly owned by FOX. They just hate anything Democrats propose or do.
Every time I read the details & breakouts on polls, I wonder “Do the majority of white men have to be assholes about everything?” and I guess the answer is, “Yes, they do.”
Dangerman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nothing concrete. Just the usual threats from the usual suspects.
HumboldtBlue
@Dangerman:
Who hs standing?
Brachiator
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
Not necessarily. People with no degree, especially white men, tend to support the GOP, among all age groups.
Eolirin
If we can turn out young people and women we win. Hopefully this helps.
Baud
Young people love to talk smack about Boomers. Let’s see if they can actually stand up to them in November.
JaneE
Less support as you get older. More non college people, or college people who paid off their debts a while back, or both?
If we could bring back the tuition rates I had, and the loan rates I had, then there would be far less need for a forgiveness package. You didn’t get government loans for sleazy profit making schools, either.
I wonder how many of the “I paid my loans, why can’t they?” bunch have priced their own alma mater recently. I stopped looking at mine in the 90’s, the cost was too hair raising. Just looked. Tuition, dorm, books, and fees would be $85K. With a full scholarship it would still be $22K. They are estimating $12K just to live at home and commute. Not many parents can cough up that kind of money for 4 years. Fortunately, not all colleges are that expensive.
And when you graduate you may or may not be able to put your education to use in a job you prepared for. Lots of graduates haven’t.
And they wonder why students need loan relief and are glad to get any at all.
SiubhanDuinne
@oatler:
Compare Dem/GOP. Compare Men/Women. Compare 4yr/No degree.
SiubhanDuinne
@Danielx:
Yeah, it’s weird and disconcerting.
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m liking the meme I’m seeing for “Roevember”
Scout211
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is an interesting discussion with legal experts weighing in. All speculation at this point, but at least from legal experts. Some snippets:
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: @Danielx:
Does it only happen when you have edited a comment?
Brachiator
I was listening to some talk radio stations discussing student debt relief and one thing that kept coming up was how often the hosts and callers would justify PPP loan forgiveness and other relief for business, but condemn student debt relief for individuals.
It is weird how some people keep trying to sell the idea that business is sacred and must always be protected. And it is sad that so many people blindly accept this foolishness.
ETA. There is all kind of debt relief for individuals and businesses built into the tax code. And there is all kind of special relief for farmers. And it is tiresome and predictable that pundits and lay people fingerpoint at Democrats for being the main source of “handouts.”
Baud
People who think full cancellation would have been popular were dreaming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Scout211: thanks, that squares with what I’ve seen, but I haven’t seen it summarized like that.
I’m also kind of confused by how any blocking from a conservative judge would work. If they somehow block Biden’s move, can’t he just say he’s continuing the payment freeze until it’s resolved, which would drag on for a while, I would think.
eclare
Yay! A good news thread!
ETA I paid off around 10k, and I could not be happier for these kids.
Baud
@Scout211:
I’m not sure banks or loan servicers want to take the political hit. We’ll see.
bbleh
wrong. Or lying
¿Por qué no los dos?
(Translation for Republicans available here)
way2blue
Yes. But. The Democrats need to defend this vigorously or the numbers will shift away from them. Republicans are experts at messaging. Asinine sound-bites. But nonetheless they have a dedicated audience…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I was as worried about “slap in the face!” backlash from the left as I was about blowback from Indies and normies. Both have been pretty muted so far
Joe Falco
@Baud:
Are banks or loan servicers up for election or something?
HumboldtBlue
What the fuck does this mean? They’re getting paid either way.
Urza
@Baud: Only need 1 to step up and take the hit. The others would be happy with the result even if they stay quiet. I’m sure there’s at least one with a rightwing CEO willing and a board that won’t boot them.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, I’m pleased about that. It was a worry of mine too.
@Joe Falco:
Yes, in the sense that they depend on lobbying both parties in Congress.
Brachiator
@Scout211:
This sounds like horse shit. Uh, I mean, a stretch.
The sad thing is that I don’t know that you can call it the Robert’s Court anymore. We will see if the right wing extremists on the court continue to defy Roberts’ feeble and inconsistent attempts to avoid rulings that defy past precedent and go beyond public consensus.
bbleh
@Brachiator: Yabbut see the recipients of PPP loan forgiveness (when typically ran many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and among whom are many Republican members of Congress) tend to be small-business owners who are relatively well-off and vote Republican, while the recipients of student loan forgiveness (which are capped at $10-20K) tend to be young smelly lazy hippie layabouts who aren’t yet successful and don’t vote Republican.
It’s all about who deserves government handouts, see? Just like voting!
TheOtherHank
My father in law, a complete right wing nutjob, went to THE Ohio State University starting in the late 40’s (he is not a young man). It turns out you can look up the cost to attend TOS going way back. Last time I checked, converting from 1948 dollars to 2020 dollars, the cost for registration and fees to attend THE Ohio State University was $1200 per year (remember, that’s in 2020 dollars). My younger boy currently attends a California State University and it costs a few hundred dollars more than $10,000 per year (registration and fees). I haven’t had to opportunity to discuss this with him, but it should be fun if it ever comes up in conversation.
MagdaInBlack
@JaneE: The argument I am seeing is ” they should have thought of that when they took out the loan.”
I see mine, North Central College, in Naperville, IL, is $57k /year now. I went back full time at the ripe old age of 36 and I think I finished with about $15k owed, in 1998.
I paid off mine, and I don’t want others to struggle like I did. I’m funny that way.
bbleh
@eclare: Me three and ditto! And it’s not like I didn’t have assistance along the way too, from work and grant programs.
What is it with the “if I don’t get any it’s unfair” attitude? How many programs are there that everybody gets? Maybe Social Security and Medicare, IF you live that long? (And oh yeah, Republicans want to defund those too.)
Jayzuz what terrible people they are …
Doug R
@Scout211:
If the Roberts court wants to invent standing, this could be the straw that breaks the dam for court reform.
bbleh
@Doug R: And then all those camels come pouring through, along with a bunch of other metaphors and …
… I’ll come in again.
Feathers
I’ll get $20,000 in Pell Grant relief. I’m headed towards retirement, so being able to save for that rather than pay off college debt will be fantastic.
I think that as people looked deeper into this, it does seem fair and targeted. Could it be more? Of course. But there also needs to be a discussion of getting college costs under control. We massively overproduce PhDs, because the university uses them for cheap labor, not caring that there are no jobs for them when they graduate. I don’t think it’s an accident that college tuition started taking off and far outpacing inflation right about when federal loans programs increased.
Joe Falco
@Baud: I’ m just skeptical that banks or loan servicers trying to oppose student debt relief in courts is going to have a sizeable effect on their lobbying. We know one party is either not going to care or cheer the banks on, and the other party it will only matter so much as to how progressive/moderate those who are elected are.
Doug R
@bbleh:
I’ll have a mixed metaphor -stirred, not shaken.
Baud
@Joe Falco:
Industry doesn’t think in binary terms. They really don’t want to get into an overt war with even a faction of the Dems, or be seen as wholly aligned with the GOP (they’re not like the NRA, for example).
azlib
I graduated from college with both a BA and an MA and incurred no debt whatsover. and I am an old white guy. Of course back when I was in college (the University of Texas) there was strong support for the University from the state and UT had a big endowment fund. The policy was to make getting a degree economical even for poor students. I was not poor and I did get help from my very middle class parents. I paid for my graduate degree myself by working as a teaching and research assistant. It helped my wife was working full time.
It appalls me young folks have a debt burden hanging over them because they wanted to get a college degree. I applaud BIden for at least erasing some of that debt.
Mike in NC
I have two nieces who graduated from college in the past ten years. Have no idea what student debt they had to repay. I went to college 40 years ago when tuition and other expenses were dirt cheap.
HumboldtBlue
This cartoon explains the temper tantrum over the college loan forgiveness move.
Joe Falco
@Baud: That’s fair. I’m going to wait and see what they will end up deciding to do. I won’t be surprised if one or two do try their luck, despite whatever fear of blowback there may be the others might have.
Feathers
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I heard the lefties who hate Dems more than Reps referred to as the “dirtbag nihilists” and I like that.
geg6
@HumboldtBlue:
Banks aren’t even involved in this. Stupid know nothing lawyers. And servicers should shut the fuck up, what with all the scandals they’ve been creating for years. Several have been banned from the federal system for lying about the different payments plans to borrowers so they could get more fees. I doubt they want much more scrutiny. Maybe the feds decide to do the servicing themselves as nd they get nothing.
Shakti
This tracks like I thought it would. A lot of college debt is a job market discrimination tax.
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
ME TOO!!
geg6
@Feathers:
OTOH, federal loans increased because states were no longer supporting higher ed. The flagship state university where I work gets only 4% of its operating budget from the state. It was a lot more in the decades previous to the Reagan revolution. I mean, a LOT more.
ETA: Also, too…student loan limits have not changed in several decades. So a large percentage of education debt is from parent loans and private loans, neither of which are subject to this action.
different-church-lady
@Danielx:
Wait, when did this happen?
HumboldtBlue
The GOP has ceased spending form Senate races in Arizona and Pennsylvania and are directing $30 milolion to Ohio.
This is why:
Tim Ellis
As Atrios noted, those numbers don’t even capture the full spread of support; about a third of the “disapprove” responses are disapproving from the left (as in 10k is not enough).
I rather like this new model where Democrats do popular things and then pillory Republicans for opposing the popular things. Feels good!
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
No. my comments #1 and #2 showed up simultaneously, though I submitted only once.
FWIW, comment #1 provided an edit option (that’s why I was able to go in, erase the content, and write DELETED or whatever I wrote). Comment #2, which appeared at exactly the same time, did not have an edit option.
Starfish
@Baud: Activists are supposed to ask for everything that they want and then some.
Relieving all college debt would have been popular with the youngest cohorts.
The amount over inflation that college costs have been rising year after year is unsustainable and needs to be fixed in a more permanent way.
The current structure of debt relief benefits low-income people more than other structures.
Joe Falco
@HumboldtBlue:
Is part of that $30 million going toward extracting Vance from whatever hole he’s ensconced himself in?
different-church-lady
@Mike in NC: I wonder when people are going to make the connection that the loans are why tuition has inflated so much. “Oh, you have more money for college? We’ll take it then.”
Baud
@Starfish:
We can’t win elections with just young people.
Honus
@Dangerman: if trump had done it the GOP number would be 88-12 in favor, framed as a tax cut/reward for hardworking college kids. Because it’s Biden it’s seen as a handout by the GOP.
Grumpy Old Railroader
From the poll:
Men 48/52
White,No deg 41/59
45-64 47/53
65+ 43/57
HumboldtBlue
@different-church-lady:
Exactly, because water isn’t wet, the property of water makes other things wet. Until you come in contact with the water you are dry, contact it, you are wet.
Unless you’re Ben Shapiro’s wife, then you’re never wet.
@Joe Falco:
I can only think it is.
@Honus:
AND the media.
Starfish
@azlib: Some of these universities have HUGE endowment funds. Some of them are endowment funds with a side mission of education.
Anonymous At Work
RE: SCOTUS and Standing
Simple truth: a US District Court Judge in the US can do anything that has 5 votes on SCOTUS to back him [sic] up. Governor Abbott in Texas claims that the college debt relief and payment freeze harm Texas state colleges/universities somehow by lowering enrollment or driving up costs. District Court Judge [Take your pick] agrees and issues 2 nationwide injunctions against debt relief and the debt repayment freeze. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds injunction and Supreme Court shadow-dockets their agreement. Trial on merits scheduled to start 2025 at earliest with a possible postponement to 2029, depending on 2024 Presidential election outcome.
Not a practicing attorney, but I could write the minimalist CYA briefs myself and expect them to be upheld.
Geminid
@Brachiator: Unlike most political polling, this poll is of people generally and not registered or likely voters. I am reminded here that non-degreed persons tend to vote less than their degreed counterparts. That does not mean their opinions are worthless, just less important politically.
Jinchi
Throughout all of history, nobody ever talked more smack than an old person about “kids today”.And today’s kids have been voting in much greater numbers than their parents did at the same age.
Well then it’s nice that Joe and the Democrats in Congress have done more than just the one thing. I don’t understand why we’re always pitting “something good for young people” as though everyone else will automatically hate it.
Baud
@Jinchi:
The second comment was in response to the notion that bigger debt relief would have been more popular with young people. The problem is that young people aren’t the only consideration.
Starfish
@Baud:
My sister sent me this video that spoofs all 1990s toy commercials, and I need you to appreciate its genius.
Geminid
@Baud: I have been unsure on the student debt question both in terms of equity and of politics. I think this action, with it’s level of outright relief and it’s modification of the Income Based Repayment system, hits the “sweet spot” in equity terms. And maybe for that reason, it seems to have hit the sweet spot politically.
Frankensteinbeck
@Honus:
But Trump wouldn’t have done it, for the same reasons his base disapproves: Helping other people is immoral, and helping Other people is obscene.
Gvg
@Baud: i think private banks are actually helped by this. I can’t see how they lose anything if the government cancels debts to the government and that is all that is being done. These are not bank loans being canceled.
Now these people are better able to pay other debts they might have like to banks or other creditors AND they can now afford to maybe buy a house or car with a loan from a bank. So why would banks sue?
I think people still think student loans are from banks. They are misunderstanding what is being done.
Jinchi
Counterpoint: https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-education.htm
People with PhD’s do pretty well in this economy.
Geminid
@Feathers: I just call them Copperheads.
geg6
@Geminid:
I tend to agree. Especially once people realize how many people can benefit from the income based payment plan going from 10% of discretionary spending to 5%. That’s just huge and so, so many people will benefit. It’s also the least likely part of this to be attacked or nullified by courts since USDE has the power to create and change payment plans without legislation.
Geminid
@Shakti: Someone pointed out that the young people who graduated into the Great Recession were especially burdened by their college debt. I could see it, because that recession hurt me financially too. It hurt a lot of people who’ve never made up what they lost in those years.
Kropacetic
Sitting here, crying over my privately held student loans.
different-church-lady
@Starfish:
I worked for an event company that handled Harvard’s recent five-year capital campaign.
The take: 5 billion.
At least I got a couple of crumb off that plate.
Jinchi
Where’s your evidence that a larger payout would have seen a backlash?
I think Boomer grads forget just how much their education was subsidized compared to today. Tuition and fees have skyrocketed, so have the everyday costs of living. There are fewer grants and the loans are more expensive. It’s impossible to work a night or summer shift to pay your way anymore. Anyone who managed that in the past was living in an era when government prioritized education spending.
So a forgiveness of $10K or $20K on student loans is great, but it doesn’t put them anywhere close to parity with what their elders had on offer.
Baud
@Jinchi:
I can’t produce a poll in an alternative history. But the support for this action isn’t strong enough for me to believe that a more massive forgiveness would have been a net positive.
Raven
Anyone remember BEOG’s?
Geminid
@Jinchi: You are making a good argument as to why there shouldn’t have been a backlash to substantially greater relief. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t have been.
Shakti
@Geminid: Did I hallucinate Occupy Wall Street?
I just remember tumblr page after page of people holding up posters summarizing how they “followed the rules” of going to college and got such a raw deal.
I went back to school around 2008-2009 to be a paralegal, in hopes that I’d be able to get a better job, but the only job I could find advertised at $10. I went to the interview only to find they wanted me as an independent contractor that would file 2 1099s with a wage that was competitive with McDonald’s. I had experience in that field already — in fact I was over qualified*. They fired me after a day because I had another job that competed with their disorganized asses (seriously, they took four fucking hours to interview me) and I pointed out that their server password was dangerously insecure.
The younger you are, the more higher education is a bill of goods they sold you. It doesn’t even guarantee you a job that has the trappings of middle class-dom let alone a wage to match.
Feathers
@geg6: That doesn’t explain the explosion in costs at private institutions, especially the less competitive/prestigious ones.
Example I use Notheastern and MIT. Northeastern is a good school, but not MIT. Not objectively and not in expected earnings. In the 80s, when my brother went there, it was a commuter college with a 5 quarters schedule that set its tuition to what a student could expect to earn working internships for two quarters in your field of study. Internships were paid, too, but that’s another issue.
Northeastern’s tuition is now more expensive than MIT’s. There is no justification for that. Note: I did not check this year’s tuition. Every time I’ve checked it’s been higher or very occasionally $500 or so less.
Another culprit is the US News $ World Report rankings. They are ridiculous and highly affected by things that colleges can spend money on so they do. Colleges are a prestige luxury good. Parents will spend and students will borrow to go to a highly ranked school. Loans have made that easier to justify.
I wonder if Northeastern could pivot back to the work study model. A huge part of the problem is that wages have not kept up and local rentals are through the roof. The apartment I shared with some Northeastern students is now triple the rent that it was, adjusted for inflation.
Prometheus Shrugged
@MagdaInBlack: North Central at $57 k per year is insane. My brother was a history professor there in the early 90’s (you might have been in one of his students if you took any history classes!), and they paid him peanuts. I’m sure the academic salaries are still peanuts in relative terms, so all that sweet tuition money must be going to administration and insurance–a fairly good example of what must be happening at liberal arts colleges across the country.
Jinchi
@Baud: The support for this action is pretty strong.
And from purely partisan perspective, people who feel politically powerless don’t bother to vote. Young people in particular are constantly being marginalized and their needs ridiculed.
You want them to vote? Show them you take them seriously.
This is a small investment but it shows that someone is listening. That gives them to see a stake in voting and it doesn’t come at any real cost to the larger population. It’s a win-win all around.
Fox and the right wing echo chamber understand this perfectly well, which is why they’re trying to trash it.
Geminid
@Shakti: Not sure why you asked me that question. Your comment and mine are pretty consistent.
Queen of Lurkers
@Jinchi:
PhDs, especially in the Humanities, will rarely be “unemployed.” They are, however, often underemployed, as in, getting by with badly paid adjunct positions or other ad hoc work. I speak from the deep bowels of academia with decades of experience. PhDs are churned out because tenure-system faculty have to justify their existence. They produce “knowledge.” They teach far, far less than non-tenure system faculty who, even in full-time positions, are grossly underpaid.
Another Scott
Liberal: 638
Moderate: 601
Conservative: 792
When did self-identified “Liberals” pass “Moderates”?? That would seem to be important context in political reporting these days.
I haven’t seen the actual questions on this at the YouGov place. Without context, the responses could be all over the map. Context like: some not insignificant fraction of the cancelled student loan debt would never be collected anyway (no blood from stone). Recognizing reality is important.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Jinchi: This poll is 54/46. I don’t consider that super strong.
We’ll get to test that theory in 3 months.
Feathers
@Jinchi: That includes all ages, not just since colleges started beefing up their PhD programs and cutting way back on the number of tenure track faculty.
What you are ignoring is that these are people who spent 5-8 years at a low salary (or negative if relying on loans) who graduate into a job market where they often spend another few years scraping by in adjunct or postdoc positions.
Sure they may end up teaching high school or the corporate world, but they are not being compensated for the decade of low to no earnings they had while getting the PhD.
I’ve worked in higher ed for over two decades. I know the drill.
RSA
I totally support the loan forgiveness. Out of curiosity, I recently priced my own alma mater.
Annual tuition in the early 1980s was around $8,000; the median family income was then around $22,000. Call it a little more than a third. (In 2022 dollars, using an inflation calculator, that’s about $26,000.) Annual tuition this year is about $60,000; the median family income is less than $63,000.
So the cost of a pricey private university has roughly tripled since I was an undergrad, relative to an annual family budget, which is a sensible way to think of it. Financial aid has changed significantly since then as well, but that’s too complicated for me to figure out. On average it’s not quite as bad, but still hard going.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Are those the cross tabs for this poll? If so, I agree that makes the poll suspect.
E.
@HumboldtBlue: What a great opportunity for the Supreme Court to revisit our hopelessly modern standing requirements.
Baud
@RSA:
To be honest, if you want to do an apples to apples comparison, I think you need to look only at changes at state universities.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Fair point. I went back and looked at the polls over the past few months.
Hmm. Not totally worthless, but close to it.
Geminid
@Queen of Lurkers: Political scientist Rachel Bitecofer was denied a tenure track job iby the Christopher Newport University Political Science department. She was able to turn to political engineering and now makes a decent living working in the political-industrial complex. Unfortunately, there are no history- or literature-industrial complexes to employ those PhDs.
MagdaInBlack
@Prometheus Shrugged: I was history major, from ’95 thru ’98.
Another Scott
@Baud: Those are the numbers in the table in the image in the tweet at the top of the page.
They used a similar breakdown in the Roe poll in June.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
The conservative number seems high to me, but maybe it’s accurate.
Jinchi
The right will always argue that (thing Joe Biden just did) is the worst thing imaginable. Was $10K loan forgiveness the magic number? or was it $100K? Or was it full forgiveness?
I doubt the Fox news reaction would look any different regardless of the number you swapped out. The true magic number comes when the expense literally starts to affect other priorities.
I believe in finding that breaking point through experimentation.
Honus
@TheOtherHank: forget the 1940s. I just ran my 1973 UVA tuition through the inflation calculator. Out of state was $625 a semester. That’s about $7500/year in 2022 dollars. In state was $125/semester which translates to $1500/year today. IOW, you could work a summer job in the mill, and part time in the library during school, and pay for a year of school, including rent, food, beer and some weed.
Another Scott
@Geminid: Eh? This CBS/YouGov poll? It’s a poll of a nationwide group of Registered Voters – click on the image in the tweet to embiggen.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Yeah, no. Finding the breaking point means that people get broken.
Prometheus Shrugged
@MagdaInBlack: You just missed my brother then. He was at North Central from 1988-1994 and left to take another faculty job in the California State system.
RSA
@Baud: That would be fair. All I have is one anecdote.
BruceFromOhio
Really had it with dumb old white guys being fucking dumb old white guys.
I was fortunate enough to pay off my student loans, and I think ANY action that helps alleviate that burden for ANY person is looooong overdue.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Ah. Thank you for the correction. I just assumed it was a poll of the general population.
MagdaInBlack
@Prometheus Shrugged: I did have some great professors. One, also my advisor, is one of the editors of The Encyclopedia of Chicago. She is responsible for my love of urban history.
Shakti
@Geminid: It is rhetorical, but also I doubt my own memory and I fear my ability to make connections to the past is compromised.
There’s this tendency in American politics to behave as if voters can only remember maybe 18 months at most. In my bullet journals, I make a list at the end of events that has a section for current events and the one from 2020-21 is a doozy. I fear if we get a bad result in the midterms so much of this will be amnesia’ed.
Geminid
@Jinchi: I wasn’t concerned about the people who get their news from Fox and their consevative cronies. Far more people get their news from broadcast TV and radio, and those are the ones I would have been concerned about.
geg6
@Feathers:
Private schools will not be reined in by government. They have always been more expensive and always will be. And they will charge what the market for them will bear. Public colleges and universities should be heavily subsidized by the state for the benefit of all the citizens. 4% ain’t cutting it.
Jinchi
True enough. But do you know what a passing grade looks like?
In recent decades midterm voting rate among 18-24 year olds has been below 20%. During the red wave in 2014 it was at its worst: less than 16%.
In 2018 it was 30%. That’s the Trump effect.
The trends look the same at all age levels, but the swings are largest for the youngest voters. They are the contingent worth reaching out to, because everyone else has pretty much decided whether voting is a thing to do, or not.
My guess: if 18-24 yo turnout is 30% or above, Democrats win big. Anything above 20%, Dems keep the Senate and the House is a tossup.
Under 20% is bad news.
Baud
@Jinchi:
I haven’t crunched the numbers. Hopefully, we get that 2018 turnout or even better.
The problem young voters have is that they have some of the most vocal and strident advocates pushing for their interests. That has certain benefits, but one downside is that you lose credibility if you don’t walk the walk when the time comes.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: I think Turtle/Grim Reaper/Moscow Mitch would have killed any TFG education reforms, the way he killed TFG’s musings about Infrastructure.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: to riff on an old Al Franken line,
What do we want? INCREMENTALISM!
When do we want it? NOW!
tough sell
Jinchi
@Baud: What if it turns out that the breaking point comes when you invest too little and we discover that we’ve been below that number for quite a while now?
It’s easy enough to imagine. Suppose President DeSantis and Republican governors around the country simply decided to zero-out all education funding and all the public schools got shuttered. That’s close to what’s been happening in higher ed for the last several decades.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Heh. I think the line between imcrementalism and crab bucket politics is a thin one.
NorthLeft
Liars for $400 Alex.
Minorities are completely against student loan relief.
Who is Jim Jordan?
Yes! The judges would have accepted pretty much any Republican.
Sure Lurkalot
My upper middle class parents were able and willing to afford my undergraduate education at an out of state, state university. I pretty much self funded 4 years of graduate school with teaching assistant jobs and one year of a full on grant. No debt.
I majored in Classics and when I decided not to finish the PhD program, it was tough but not impossible to find a job…as a research assistant at a real estate company. I learned a lot of the trade because the company had lunch and learn programs for the (female) support staff. After a couple of years, I was upwardly mobile in a few aspects of the industry and had a 37 year career that allowed me to retire fairly comfortably.
A liberal arts education gave me life long learning skills and a love of learning that served me very well in business, not that it wasn’t demeaned and ridiculed at the start. Once a person acquires core competencies, the words on a diploma don’t mean as much.
Baud
@Jinchi:
There’s only one way to stop Republican policy.
As far as what Dems should do, they have to pick a path and go for it. They can’t constantly be in debate mode. Biden’s action didn’t solve all education related issues. There is still much left to do.
Prometheus Shrugged
@MagdaInBlack: Sounds like Ann Durkin? I met her a few times visiting Naperville, and she constantly comes up as a “friend suggestion” for me in Facebook, through whatever weird association algorithm they use.
Anyway, I’m sure the classroom experience was and still is great–just that you have to wonder what administrative drain the exponential rise in tuition is going down, given that it’s definitely not going to line the pockets of people like Ann Durkin!
MagdaInBlack
@Prometheus Shrugged: That’s her.
I know even then, they were losing good people. 2 great sociology professors and one of my other history professors, just in the couple of years I was there. I can only imagine now.
Queen of Lurkers
@Geminid: Yes, absolutely — PhDs in the social sciences who can manipulate (as in, work with) numbers/statistics can usually find work outside academia. Not so the lit/creative writing/classics/philosophy/history PhDs.
Also, there are always exceptional talents like Rachel Bitecofer. But huge numbers of PhDs in the humanities do not end up doing the kind of work they trained for in graduate school.
Amir Khalid
My understanding is that Biden is forgiving only federal student debt — which Uncle Sam, being the creditor, is entitled to forgive if he chooses. It won’t cost state or private-sector lenders their right to claim every penny due to them so they would have no grounds to sue. I’m not sure what Constitutional test the debt forgiveness plan could fail.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Also, Biden based his action on statutory authority under a post 9/11 law allowing debt forgiveness in times of national emergency. He cited the Covid epidemic as the emergency.
Skepticat
It annoys me that the message is not more clear that the cap is $10,000 or $20,000; not everyone has their full debt cancelled. My niece still will owe about $45,000, and she’s working at a nonprofit under a Trump-cancelled program that gave her a slightly lower interest rate because it’s a nonprofit.
However, I am very happy to see the campaign showing the politicians who had their often-massive “Paycheck” Protection Program loans forgiven.
Geminid
@Skepticat: There is a public service forgiveness program that was a mess and the Biden administration has been straightening it out. That might help your niece now.
Also, the terms of of the Income Based Repayment (IBR) program have changed considerably. The minimum payment will now be 5% of “disposable” income, not 10%, and disposable income has been redefined downwards so as to help the borrower.
And there is now a provision that limits interest charged in the IBR program that I don’t quite have straight, but that I understand benefits borrowers as well. So the good this action does goes well beyond the $10,000 or $20,000 forgiveness.
Tony G
@Brachiator: The dogma of the cult is that business are “job creators”, and must therefore be kept happy through periodic burnt offerings. The reality, of course, is that the goal of any business is to lower labor costs by eliminating jobs where possible, and to spend the bare minimum on wages and benefits for the workers who remain. Back in the days of strong labor unions workers understood that, but I guess that decades of propaganda has had its intended effect.
topclimber
@Queen of Lurkers: Business/government will always need people who can see the big picture and critique bullshit solutions. In other words, your “lit/creative writing/classics/philosophy/history PhDs.”
Whether business/government will value such talents is a different story. Over time, I think the answer is yes. But if you are in hock up the kazoo, time is the last thing you have.
Geminid
@Shakti: I suspected your question might be rhetorical. I guess I was being touchy.But you weren’t imagining anything. That recession put the whammy on half the population at least. And it won’t be forgotten by those of us who are still living with its consequences.
That’s why I am concerned about Fed Chairman Powell warning that he has to put the brakes on the economy to reduce inflation. I fear he will overdo it, and unnecessarily harm people who are finally making up some of the ground they lost 14 years ago. Not to mention those who are now entering the workforce.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My graduate loan balance will now be @ 14 grand instead of 24 grand. I’ll take any relief I can get. Fuck the haters. By the time I pay that off along with the other loans my wife and I are stuck with the little one will be hopefully weighing scholastic scholarships.