We are hearing more and more about the financial burden students face after graduation. The government under Pres. Obama’s direction, pen and phone in hand, has attempted to alleviate the problem. Instead it is adding to the national debit (+5%) and student debit is increasing ($1.2+trillion).
Xiasumi School Festival by Kenzo Gateaux / oyasumi, on Flickr
Few people realize the new Obama student debt plan aggravates the problems. You can see the trend in a document by the Institute for College Access & Success. A small problem has turned into one too big to fail… and we tax payers are on the hook for the money. Obama guaranteed the bank loans (90% are now government backed). This is expected by numerous authorities to cost tax payers hundreds of billions per year. To learn more about what was actually done and is happening see: Heritage Foundation.
Bloomberg pointed out in late 2014 that college tuition was increasing faster than inflation. (Reference) And this is after implementing Obama’s plan.
Fixing the college loan problem will take an act of Congress. So, don’t expect a solution anytime soon. Millions of students will continue starting life in slavery to the big banks.
But, people are finding alternatives. Opportunity Live published a story about one alternative: Graduate Debt-Free And With A Good Job? This School Flips The Script On Traditional Education.
This article is about a school named: Make School. The school describes itself as: The college replacement for founders and developers. The school is NOT a government, state or federal, creation. It comes from the small community of people developing businesses and having developed businesses.
Small businesses are nimble. They have to be successful to survive. They respond to the customer, student and businesses hiring graduating students, to stay in business. Because they are small all those running the place involved are known to the customers and school directors.
This is in contrast to large faceless government bureaucracy that can’t hire, fire, or change without years of bureaucratic process. Nor does the government have any financial pressure to survive, they live off tax dollars. Every week we have new stories about MASSIVE government waste. The bureaucracies don’t have to serve the customer. Consider. You probably heard about the recent VA scandal of veterans needing medical treatment being ignored. After months of reporting on the scandal and Obama promising to get it fixed, what happened? Almost nothing. Veterans are still having big problems getting care. (Reference) Obama’s changes were the typical government changes: cosmetic, nothing effective.
After 50 years of the government’s war on poverty we have more people living below the poverty line and taking government aid than when the war started. That group has grown faster than the population. But, the government continues right on doing what has failed to work for 50+ years. Many believe the government is making it worse. There are good reasons for the politicians to want people dependent on government. All the reasons are bad for people wanting to be free. In a small business this ongoing failure can’t happen. The business would go bankrupt, close, and the people would do something more productive, effective, and profitable.
Make School is an example how some people are going around the government and solving problems at the small community level.
So you’re advocating for education funded by cooperations?
For hundreds of years now, universities have been democratic instituations of freedom of thought, free science and education. By putting their funding into the hands of businesses , you’re reducing them to mere education machines, producing the future work slaves and consumers of these cooperations.
I’m glad I live in a modern country, which offers anyone who’s mentally, but not economically capable to pay for their studies, a part stipend, reducing their debts to a minimum. When the society (=the government) pays for someone college education, it’s an investment, since the increase in income tax earned from a college graduate is a multitude of the initial cost for their education.
Think about it!
You should think about it.
Universities are no longer bastions of free thought and diversity. Week after week we hear of professors and universities in general punishing students that challenge their ideas and limiting discussion to Marxist ideals. Look at campuses that deny conservatives the freedom to present their ideas. The times they disrupt assemblies to stop ideas being discussed…
But, I am not advocating their replacement. I am advocating for alternatives that better serve people.
All the knowledge of the world is available in the Internet – for free. Why do we need schools anyway? I predict that education is the next field that will be totally turned upside down by the Internet. Udacity.com is just one tiny attempt to make it better. Virtual worlds are another great place to experiment with new ways.
I agree.
But read what the Electronic Frontier has to say about the new FCC rules and what it will do to free speech on the Internet. The government is trying to take control so they can control what is taught, said, and seen on the net. We will hear more in the next couple of weeks as people read the now released rules that we could not see until they were basically law.