The Big Scam: Higher Education, Student Debt, No Jobs

By: Dan Lyman | Western Free Press

Here’s the Big Scam, in a linear nutshell:

Federal government takes over student loan program (2010) –> Schools jack their tuition through the roof because they’re federally guaranteed –> Kids and parents still buy the ‘You have to go to college to get a good job’ lie –> Kids leave school $100K+ in debt, knowing more about the LGBT agenda and global warming and less about literacy, proper history, or useful skills/subjects (see: ‘Communications’ or ‘Women’s Studies’ degrees) –> Most of the jobs have been exported or sucked up by illegals or H1B visa imports –> No job, mountain of debt, dying hopes –>“Socialism will save us!”

A little while back, I published a piece at Rebooting Liberty detailing how I believe the socialist cabal in the United States are working towards fully nationalizing the higher education system. It becomes more and more apparent as time passes. Obama started the ball rolling, and he’ll either continue to advance it himself, or try to pass it off to another statist destroyer like Hillary or Bernie. The most common answer I have seen given by millennials asked why they ‘Feel the Bern?’ “Free college.”

When Obama federalized the student loan program in 2010 to help fund Obamacare, he was only just beginning to awaken the monster. Colleges realized they now had a virtually ‘limitless’ pool of cash from which to suck, so they’ve been increasing their tuitions at a dizzying rate that far outpaces inflation. Meanwhile, median family income continues to slide backwards, enrollment in higher education is dropping, and recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed atstaggering rates. This is a recipe for disaster.

Barack Obama and his co-conspirators intend to nationalize the higher-education system. He will drive private institutions out of business – or force them to go public. He has announced plans to more strictly control which schools have access to federal funds via loan disbursements, as well as his intent to crack down on 529 College Savings Plans (neutralized only temporarily). He’s been trumpeting ‘ObamaCollege’ – free community college for all – with the caveat that the curriculum must meet ‘federal guidelines’ (see: Common Core for college students), amongst a myriad of other inevitably nightmarish, regressive requirements intended to impose the will of the State on all schools. He has pushed a giant student loan bubble to the verge of explosion, in order to position the government as the ‘savior’ to swoop in and save the day, to the cheers of the unwashed masses – as with the auto and health insurance industries, the Internet, illegal immigration, school lunch program…

Last year, Sweet Briar College in Virginia abruptly announced that it would be closing its doors after the 2015 spring semester citing “insurmountable financial challenges.” Consider Sweet Briar the ‘canary in the coal mine’ – private schools are going to begin dropping like flies. Business Insider warned “people in higher ed should be scared.” Billionaire tech guru and financial wizard, Mark Cuban, proclaimed, “This is just the beginning of the college implosion.”

When you’re 18 years old and you don’t really understand all the nuances of what it’s going to cost to pay something back. What you thought you were going to get in quality of life by going to that college, you’ve just undermined with the amount of debt you’re taking on.

“It’s just a matter of time until we see the same meltdown in traditional college education. Like the real estate industry, prices will rise until the market revolts. Then it will be too late. Students will stop taking out the loans traditional Universities expect them to. And when they do, tuition will come down. And when prices come down Universities will have to cut costs beyond what they are able to. They will have so many legacy costs, from tenured professors to construction projects to research they will be saddled with legacy costs and debt in much the same way the newspaper industry was. Which will all lead to a de-levering and a de-stabilization of the University system as we know it.” – Mark Cuban

Adam Bessie weighs in on the realities of ‘free college’ in his excellent piece The Trojan Horse of Free College’ at Truth-Out.org:

“‘Free’ college might mean that community colleges would cede local, community control to the federal government; thus, the policies of Washington and corporate America would drive the curriculum, rather than the needs of the community. It’s likely that community colleges again would become junior colleges – designed primarily as trade schools, or for transfer, with a focus on getting students in and out the door as fast as possible, using standardized, impersonal methods more focused on efficiency than education.”

Dragging the young folks of the United States (and their subsequent generations) down this path is unconscionable. Democrats will champion this plan every step of the way. Establishment Republicans will play their role of opposition, but eventually fall into goose-step, as they do every time these days – because there is no party of opposition. There’s the ruling class, and then there’s the rest of us. And that’s what America has become.

Further reading:

Investors: “The Quiet Crisis of America’s Disappearing Workforce
CNN Money: Man Arrested By U.S. Marshals For Unpaid Student Loan
Bloomberg: “Small U.S. Colleges Battle Death Spiral as Enrollment Drops”
Forbes: “Here Comes the Student Loan Forgiveness”
Contra Corner: “The $1.2 Trillion Student Loan Bubble – The Ultimate Subprime Debacle”
Business Insider: “Mark Cuban: Forgiving $1 Trillion In Student Debt Is ‘The Worst Thing We Could Do’”
ZeroHedge: “Next Mega-Bailout On Deck: White House Studying ‘New Bankruptcy Options’ For Student-Loan Borrowers”
Liberty News: “Obamacare Is Being Funded By the Accruing Interest On College Student Loans”
Wall Street Journal: “White House Floats Bankruptcy Process For Some Student Debt”
Mother Jones: “College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive In One Generation”

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2 thoughts on “The Big Scam: Higher Education, Student Debt, No Jobs

  1. This is on the money. As a college teacher who teaches introductory biology I have seen first-hand students taking classes with no clue about what they are getting into and how unprepared they are. Consequently, about a third either fail or withdraw from the class every semester. Even more incredible: Many of those who failed very badly (average test scores below 40%) try again! For many of them, there is a gaping chasm between perception and reality. The teachers and parents who conditioned them to think this way should pay their debts.

  2. College has become the Great Lie of this society.

    Across America, high schoolers are being suckered into giving it the old college try … and paying a steep price for it.

    Now … college pressure actually begins in the monkey bars’ years … when children are just months out of diapers. It’s a Common Core thingy. Third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers routinely remind the pre-pimple crowd that the future in now … and that what’s happening in the classroom that smells like bunny-turd has college implications. We are such splendid asses.

    Telling third graders to get ready for college is such wormy stuff. They have no idea what college is. That’s how early this sick indoctrination begins … lathering 9 year olds in college guilt. I’m surprised fourth graders don’t have pre-college ID cards … or early admission forms crinkled up in their backpacks alongside Little League reminders.

    In my own neighborhood, I am surrounded by non-college folks who own their own businesses, work for municipalities, and some who have created mini-entrepreneurial empires of their own. They also live in glorious homes …and drive smart cars … and they enjoy lots of expensive toys and creature comforts.

    They lead wonderful lives and, in many cases, they’re the pillars of this community.

    Still, local high schools measure their success not by lives well-lived, but by the number who dash off to college … even for a year or two … because, well, that’s become the new yardstick of successful secondary education in America. College-bound kids are the new snoot statistics.

    Its as false as the premise that brought us Common Core … that our schools are failures and in need of drastic repair. College is … for many … the Great Lie. Nearly 50% try and fail. Read that line again, And that’s a very expensive lesson that didn’t have to happen.

    If anything about our schools needs fast repair, it’s this nonsense that college is a must. What we need is to acknowledge that lots of kids will go into the trades … or strike out on their own … or seek municipal positions. Then our schools should respond to that reality.

    We should never have killed off vocational schools. No one is in more dire straits than a homeowner without heat or stuck with a toilet that won’t flush. We don’t quote Shakespeare or call philosophy majors for those moments … we call plumbers.

    We rely on roofers and electricians and masons and carpenters. We’d be lost without sanitation men and snow-plowers or folks who patch our roads or catch drunk drivers. We’d be in constant despair without tradesmen to fix our A/C or our oil burner or our attic fan.

    These folks all have wonderful, successful lives … with wonderful families … whose children go to schools their taxes support. What’s so necessary about college to these folks? Or lots of folks?

    Let’s talk about a scam. Lots of kids … cajoled by guidance counselors and their high school’s “college for everyone” rah-rah rant … buzz off to college unprepared and unsuited for what waits for them.

    They dive into debt … and in a semester or two or three, it dawns on them that, well, college isn’t their ticket … and they drop out. But the debt drops in.

    That money … THAT DEBT MONEY … floated those colleges … and now those kids (or their families) are in high hock. For a LONG TIME. And everyone seems okay with that crap. The loan sharks love this … and so do the colleges that knew these kids would never make it. And the government is now a willing accomplice … as in the criminal way.

    It’s wrong. Extra wrong … because they were needlessly misled. And now they’ll pay for years. BUT the lie continues … from the White House on down … that college is essential. It’s the Great Lie of American education.

    We’ve gotta shake hands with reality once again. And high schools have to part ways with the scammers.

    Denis Ian

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