Senator Elizabeth Warren recently tweeted:
- Nearly 90% of President Biden’s student loan cancellation plan will go to people earning $75,000 or less.
- Higher education is supposed to be a ticket to the middle class—but student debt has become an anchor.
I have a two questions.
- Why are college graduates earning less than $75,ooo and what is the Democratic Party doing to raise these wages?
- When did a higher education become the ticket to the middle class? This was not so in the 1950’s, 60’s or 70’s. Please spare me the empty reply that it’s the result of a free market. Free markets are like Unicorns, they do not exist. All markets are manipulated (rigged) by those in power.
Finally, as it relates to the loan forgiveness without higher wages, I will leave you with this quote from Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 1932.
We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
Loan forgiveness without higher wages is not social justice, it is charity from the powerful who will not change the status quo that led to the need for charity.
Please share widely!
“When did a higher education become the ticket to the middle class?”
FDR signed the GI Bill, providing college benefits to returning WWII veterans, on 22-Jun-1944. That provision was a recognition that a college degree was a significant help in improving the lives of men and women who had served America in its time of need.
A college degree has NEVER been “the ticket to the middle class”. This is simply a lie. Buying a lottery ticket is not a “ticket to the middle class”. Paying the ante in a poker game is not a “ticket” to anything. If you don’t pay, you don’t play. Choosing to not go to college is choosing a lifetime of lower wages and salary.
“Free markets are like Unicorns, they do not exist. All markets are manipulated (rigged) by those in power.”
You may label it whatever you like. You may object to its consequences however loudly you like. The fact remains that wages for any job are determined by an equilibrium between what employers are willing to pay and what workers demand in order to work.
There are all sorts of power games at play and always have been. That is irrelevant to — and reflected in — the resulting wages.
Call it what you will, a man or woman with a college degree is likely to have higher wages and salary throughout his or her lifetime than that same man or woman without a college degree.
If a man or woman with a college degree is likely to have higher wages and salary throughout his or her lifetime than that same man or woman without a college degree, why do we need to forgive their loans? Tom, this is quite simple
The facts are, and Senator Warren admitted it, the wages for college grads are not high enough for them to pay off their loans. Perhaps it was thirty or forty years ago when you and I went to college, but is is simply not the case today. If it was, Senator Warren and the rest would not be asking the rest of us to help these college grads make ends meet. You keep avoiding that simple truth.
Let me be crystal clear. Forgiving college debt without addressing the wage problems with college grads AND with non-college grads is treating the symptoms, not addressing the causes.
Oh and you said “The fact remains that wages for any job are determined by an equilibrium between what employers are willing to pay and what workers demand in order to work.” well yes, but you leave out another reality and that is that the equilibrium is manipulated by those in power to do so.
“Forgiving college debt without addressing the wage problems with college grads AND with non-college grads is treating the symptoms, not addressing the causes.”
I agree that we need to address the underlying systemic issues that plague our economy. I think we agree that the underlying cause is unrestrained wealth concentration, and we have not addressed that underlying cause.
It does not follow that we should therefore do nothing about the staggering debt burden that we have imposed on several generations of young people.
“but you leave out another reality and that is that the equilibrium is manipulated by those in power to do so.”
There is an entire constellation of forces that influence that equilibrium.
I have never disputed the reality that those in power strive to manipulate the equilibrium.
Saddling our young people with staggering debt — owed to the federal government — only exacerbates the problem that we both agree exists.
Tom, so let’s say we cancel the debt. Now the kid who spent four years at university with the promise of a better paying job has lowered his debt, but he still has a low wage job. Meanwhile, his younger sister just graduated from high school is it looking to go to university. Should she have the same expectation of her brother; if the wages do not follow, I’ll get a rebate?
Meanwhile, the schools involved in this suffer no economic hardships at all. There is NO incentive for them to change the system. In fact there is an economic incentive for them to support the status quo.
“Should she have the same expectation of her brother; if the wages do not follow, I’ll get a rebate?”
No, of course not.
“Meanwhile, the schools involved in this suffer no economic hardships at all. There is NO incentive for them to change the system. In fact there is an economic incentive for them to support the status quo.”
Other than the fraudulent scam operations that we Democrats are already trying to shut down (with resistance from the GOP of course), the schools involved did not create this problem and do not seek to perpetuate it.
The solution is to provide federal funding for higher education, so that no American is blocked from higher education by economic woes. This is what our first-world peers like Germany have been doing for generations.
Your argument now comes full circle. This is the approach that Democrats have pursued for decades. It is the approach that you so loudly and falsely attack here at every opportunity.
“The solution is to provide federal funding for higher education, so that no American is blocked from higher education by economic woes.”
So long that it is means tested AND there is an audit of the schools benefitting from these programs, I have no objection.
“This is what our first-world peers like Germany have been doing for generations.”
Hmm, similar to the USA, 30% of German kids go on to college after K-12.
In the USA, fewer than 5 percent of young people train as apprentices, the overwhelming majority in the construction trades. In Germany, the number is closer to sixty percent—in fields as diverse as advanced manufacturing, IT, banking, and hospitality. And in Europe, what’s often called “dual training” is a highly respected career path.
In other words, in Germany, there is a cultural respect for those who do not have a college degree, unlike the USA where non-college grads are viewed as uneducated with insufficient skills.
So, yeah, let’s be more like Germany. We already have enough kids going to college, maybe too many. Let’s work on a tax code that supports apprentice programs and a culture that respects those without college credentials.
You seem to forget that I’ve been married to an immigrant from Germany for 20 years. I know a little bit about the public education system in Germany. You apparently do not.
Do you also agree that young people should be divided into “college bound” and “non-college bound” at the age of 12?
Do you understand that “public education” in Germany goes all the way through to PhD programs?
Do you understand how much more highly paid — and respected — high school teachers are in Germany?
The changes needed to be more like Germany have little or nothing to do with “a tax code that supports apprentice programs and a culture that respects those without college credentials.”
I see no evidence in your commentary that you’ve ever spent any time at all with those who are actually familiar with the German public education system.
I just know that only 30% of Germans go to college and Germans do not have the same bias as Americans when it comes to thinking that those without college credentials are not worthy of respect, good wages, and esteem.
I wouldn’t means test. Public higher ed should be accessible to all just like public K-12 is, and for the same reasons.
If a four year degree is free, provided by the government, what justifies the higher wage for one essential employee who has a college certificate and one who does not?
You are the only one suggesting the “without” part. Plus bringing college costs out of the stratosphere in the first place would go a long way as well. Forgiving loans is one way to retroactively compensate for that problem.
How does forgiving the past loans reduce tuition costs for the students who enter their freshman year this month?
You’re just trolling.
Forgiving past loans helps to address the abuses of the past.
Democrats are and have been striving to remove the economic barriers faced by students who enter their freshman year this month for decades.
You loudly and falsely attack all of those efforts.
Ah, dismiss me as a troll…..as expected. Still, the question remains, unanswered.
“Democrats are and have been striving to remove the economic barriers faced by students who enter their freshman year this month for decades.”
And it appears that, after decades of striving, they have failed and are asking for the taxpayers to bail out the poor kids who now have lousy pay and college debts.
When your commentary is trollish, I’ll continue to say so.
After decades of opposition from the GOP and from “Democrats” like you, it is rich to hear you complain that those efforts have not been as successful as we want.
Your response is to tell the poor kids who now have lousy pay and college debts to go pound sand. You certainly have a sympathetic ear from people like Mitch McConnell.
With “Democrats” like you, who needs Republicans?
They don’t, which is why we need to work on that too. Why are you picking fights with people who agree with you?
“If a four year degree is free, provided by the government, what justifies the higher wage for one essential employee who has a college certificate and one who does not?”
If a high school diploma is free, provided by the government, what justifies the higher wage for one essential employee who has a high school diploma and one who does not?
“If a high school diploma is free, provided by the government, what justifies the higher wage for one essential employee who has a high school diploma and one who does not?”
Nothing…well, social values, social pressure….credentialism.
Your unwillingness to admit a difference in skills and therefore value to an employer between a high-school dropout and a worker with a undergraduate degree says more about your posture than anything in the real world.
By this same standard, presumably you also admit no difference between a high-school dropout and a worker with a PhD.
I wonder if you take that same standard into the ER when you or your loved one faces a life-threatening emergency.
You’re either trolling or you have a ludicrously absurd contempt for the value of education — high-school, undergraduate, or graduate.
Your unwillingness to recognize only those skills acquired by a formal education and certified by a diploma is the very definition of credentialism.
In fact, depending on the skills acquired by each and the job at hand, the high school dropout might well indeed be the one with more value to the enterprise.
You insistence on calling me a troll is getting rather boring, Tom. I would hope we could get past name calling.
Yes, you and I were of an time when families would brag about their children going to college. But as we are seeing, times are changing. A college degree is not able to deliver the higher wages, as promised, and you keep denying this reality while at the same time, supporting government bailouts for those with college degree whose wages cannot support the repayment of the loans.
One promising change in this has been the shifting of parents to no longer press for college, but to see trade schools and apprenticeships with prestige equal to to that of college.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/choosing-trade-school-over-college/584275/
Higher compensation for more educated jobs is not just reimbursement for money spent on that education. It speaks to the value of those (what’s the word?) – CREDENTIALS. I don’t have a problem with credentialism, but I also believe that everyone should make a living wage. Yes, I believe that more formal education should result in more income, but I also include vocational training under the formal education umbrella. Your expectations are sometimes frankly unrealistic.
Since you are not a troll, then you show a ludicrously absurd contempt for the value of education.
I have no contempt for the value of education, Tom I simply see education is a much broader way than you, apparently, and place value on education that is not acquired in formal academic settings, complete with sheep skin diplomas and Harry Potter style costumed ceremonies to give some the image of superiority that they carry through life and disrespect those who took a different path.
On this thread, you have derided as “credentialism” any and every difference in wages and salary between high school dropouts, those with graduate degrees, and everything in between.
That is literally showing “contempt for the value of education”, whether you admit it or not.
All that language about “costumed ceremonies”, “image of superiority”, and “disrespect” is your own baggage.
It appears that in your world, every worker should be paid the same amount regardless of education, skills, or experience unless that amount is “justified” through a process that you do not describe by agents that you do not specify.
The rest of us want ER physicians to have — yes — credentials that high-school dropouts lack. The rest of us have no problem with paying those credentialed ER physicians more than a high-school dropout working as a bagger in a grocery store.
You do in fact show contempt for the value of education with every one of your many attacks on education, as exemplified in this thread.
I’ve sometimes called my own attitude “inclusive elitism”. That is, I believe there is such a thing as an elite and there is value to that, but I also believe that everyone should have the opportunity to enter the elite acts. I’ve also heard this referred to as the “aristocracy of everyone”.
The term “meritocracy” comes to mind.
My experience is that those who most passionately oppose meritocracy are those who have the least skills.
In a world of limited resources, there will always be competition for who receives them. It appears to me that the imperfect American way — excluding the policies advocated by those who suffer from MAGAtosis or its predecessor, “Reaganism” — is the least bad approach of all that have been tried on any large scale.
I make no claim that meritocracy is perfect or even great. I instead invite those who attack it to offer an example of an alternative.
I did not coin the term “Credentialism”. It is the accepted “ism” by many Democrats. Your black and white description of college grads as life saving physicians and non-college grads as worthless high school dropouts is the language of credentialism.
I chose those extremes in response to your refusal to admit that a high school, college, or by extension, graduate diploma has value.
Most definitions of “credentialism” use phrases like “undue” and “best measure”.
For example, Merriam-Webster defines credentialism as (emphasis mine):
A typical example of its use is:
Your commentary expresses plain old-fashioned anti-intellectualism.
There are numerous examples of absolute rubbish that are accepted by “many Democrats” — defund the police comes to mind.
Let me replay an earlier exchange on this thread:
I invite you to offer examples of reasonable sources who argue that there should be no difference in wages and salary between a high-school dropout and a degree holder.