Not Enough Damn Money
The New York Times had it right in its editorial this week that we are totally failing to keep the doors open for upward mobility in this country when we keep making it harder to go to college.
So when I read about the 1.2% increase in the maximum Pell Grant that was approved by an appropriations committee in Congress I thought "That is not enough damn money". Tuition went up over 10%, but the main grant program (which has been frozen for the last three) years got an increase of 1.2%.
That means that a bunch of people who are already working 20-30 hours per week and taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans, are still going to be shy the money they need to pay all the bills.
Not enough damn money.
Don't believe the lobbyists and their too too polite reaction in the media. They are just trying to put a brave face on it and stay on the good side of the people they have to lobby. That's fair, that is their job. BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH DAMN MONEY!!!
A 1.2% increase in 4 years is a pathetic-inadequate-disastrous-no-big-solution-let-it-get-worse-economic-disaster of a policy. And I am outraged that the beltway response is filled with words like better, grateful, optimistic, favorable.
More on this later....
So when I read about the 1.2% increase in the maximum Pell Grant that was approved by an appropriations committee in Congress I thought "That is not enough damn money". Tuition went up over 10%, but the main grant program (which has been frozen for the last three) years got an increase of 1.2%.
That means that a bunch of people who are already working 20-30 hours per week and taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans, are still going to be shy the money they need to pay all the bills.
Not enough damn money.
Don't believe the lobbyists and their too too polite reaction in the media. They are just trying to put a brave face on it and stay on the good side of the people they have to lobby. That's fair, that is their job. BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH DAMN MONEY!!!
A 1.2% increase in 4 years is a pathetic-inadequate-disastrous-no-big-solution-let-it-get-worse-economic-disaster of a policy. And I am outraged that the beltway response is filled with words like better, grateful, optimistic, favorable.
More on this later....
posted by Anonymous at 10:31 AM
7 Comments:
we are totally failing to keep the doors open for upward mobility in this country when we keep making it harder to go to college.
Are you serious?
College degrees are more useless now than they ever were. Why? Because so many people have them that they are losing value. The more people you put into college, the less valued a degree becomes, and that in itself kills "upward mobility."
A lot of people on this subject think you can magically fix everything by sending EVERYONE to college, or as many people as possible. Simple reality dictates that all this would do is increase the supply of college graduates so much that the demand for them would shrink. Thus, lower payments, less distinguished career opportunties, less upward mobility.
Personally, I think it's a lot easier to go to college now than it ever was. Get a decent score on your SAT and you can get into just about any state school. If you truly don't have enough money, you'll get some grants and loans, and that'll take care of itself.
I mean really, come on. Rock the Vote sure is good at screaming "fire" when there is none.
I am all with you (anonymous above) about pathetic standards in high schools and colleges. Grade inflation is a problem, lack of standards is a problem.
But that doesn't also change the situation on financial affordability. Qualified people still need to be able to pay the bill.
You said:Personally, I think it's a lot easier to go to college now than it ever was. Get a decent score on your SAT and you can get into just about any state school. If you truly don't have enough money, you'll get some grants and loans, and that'll take care of itself.
That's the point. It isn't getting easier for a whole set of people. Maybe not peoople like you which is why you personally don't feel it is a problem.
You add up all the grants and loans (more and more loans) and is not enough for a lot of people.
I think the whole view of this thing is twisted by the elites like you who probably come from a family where it was paid for, when to a good school, and just aren't in touch with how difficult it is.
I don't disagree we should get and demand more for our money, but that is a different question.
You're hobophobic!
That's the point. It isn't getting easier for a whole set of people. Maybe not peoople like you which is why you personally don't feel it is a problem.
You add up all the grants and loans (more and more loans) and is not enough for a lot of people.
I think the whole view of this thing is twisted by the elites like you who probably come from a family where it was paid for, when to a good school, and just aren't in touch with how difficult it is.
Elites, huh? I love it how some people on this blog are incapable of discussing anything without throwing around ad-hominems.
First of all, I'm not an "elite." Second of all, I have well over $40,000 in loans I have to pay off because of college. They were the only way for me to go, so I took them. Now I'll have to pay them off.
You can get all sorts of loans for college- why should you have to rely on the federal government for everything? More spending is not the answer. You can get Signature Student Loans, get your parents to sign off on a virtually unlimited PLUS Loan, get a Pell Grant, do well in school and maybe get a scholarship, the list goes on and on.
A flood of people coming into college has everything to do with it. The more people you send to college, the more devalued the degree becomes. It's that simple. College is no longer optional, it is virtually a requirement, because we have been so worried with "putting everyone in college" that now it is no longer seen as an extra.
It is absolutely NOT difficult to go to college in America- even if you're not exactly a genius. I have a friend who did pretty poorly in high school, didn't get any assistance from his parents to go to college- but he still ended up going to college, and he still graduated.
There is plenty of opportunity out there when it comes to college- one just has to stop whining and take advantage of them. Until colleges reduce their cost (which will never happen), loans are a fact of life. Take them out, and do what you can.
By the way, the more money the federal government launches at students (thanks to policies like the one RTV supports), the more colleges are going to jack up the cost.
Increasing the supply of money- like the federal government does with all these handouts- only gives them an incentive to continue raising tuition. This is a horrible idea, the one the RTV poster advocates.
Its a simple supply and demand issue, the more people that want to go to college the more value that degree has financially to those institutions that supply them. I'm not suggesting we start telling people they can't go to college, but the amount of 'free' money (its not really free some tax payer foot that bill) available for people to use to get the degrees that are in high demand the more that degree will cost.
One interesting observation to note, if degrees were like any other product there would be more value placed on degrees that require more work to achieve, instead at all universities degrees are handed out by semester hours completed and each hour costs the same no matter if you're going for pre-med or a simple liberal arts degree. Case in point, when I went to college an education major had the second most amount of hours to complete for a degree, the top degree in terms of hours was a pre-med degree and it only took an additional 8 hours to complete. So in the end of the near 160-170 hours to gain a degree a pre-med major and an elementary school teacher paid about the same amount to get that piece of paper.
Who would you rather hire? Which degree has more value? On paper they are nearly the same financially, but one degree is valued far more in the workplace than the other. My point? We should demand colleges work like any other business model, value the hours or class based on the difficulty or knowledge accumulated in that class. 100 level classes should not be the same amount at 400 level classes, just as an education degree should not cost a student the same amount as a pre-med degree.
You talk about not-enough money, and I agree that students pay an unbelievable amount for their education, but having the government increase the pool of funds available to purchase a degree is not the way to stabilize tuition.
Maybe people could work their way through college instead of begging money from congress if we and our parents didn't have to pay 15% to a social insecurity program that will be bankrupt by the time we would be it's beneficiaries.
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