Fuck y’all. I chose to not going to college and went with a lower paying career field as a trade off for lower earning potential. Using the tax dollars I’ve paid over the years to help eliminate the negative trade off everyone else chose to take on when they went to college is crap.
don’t worry, your taxes aren’t going into the education system! they’re all being funneled into the military anyway
Cool story man. Let’s all do the same thing. Let’s hope we never need a doctor or a civil engineer
Those jobs pay in reflection of college and it’s debts. Time and costs in exchange for six figure salaries.
Why didn’t you go to public university?
Because it would still be $60,000 plus interest, plus the other costs associated with going to college.
If just going to public university and paying that is no big deal, then i guess no one needs their college debt wiped, since everyone had that same option.
Guaranteed student loans, that you had to be approved for, were a terrible idea to begin with.
I hope they find a cure because even if you beat cancer, it can still come back.
But the post is about student loans.
It’s never too late to go back to school.
No thanks. I don’t want more debt.
No sir, this is a Wendy’s
No, this is Patrick.
I’m all for student loan forgiveness and all that. I think education should be socialised for anyone till any level.
That being said, this meme is an example of false equivalency. Where is the money for student loan forgiveness coming from? From taxes. Taxes that these ppl (who also had to pay for student loans) have to pay. Hence, effectively, these guys paid their own loans off and are contributing to pay others’ loans as well. That’s their grime from what I understand.
Morally, I believe that they’re wrong. I’m just pointing out the false equivalency generated here.
This is a shit metaphor. In reality no one should be angry if there is a cure simply because they didn’t have to use it. Some cancer cannot just be beaten so yea, let them have the cure. Move on That’s just childish view on cancer.
Student loans however yes, but for fuck sakes do not just compare such shit to cancer.
Checking my bank balance, and seeing this ugly growth that endlessly consumes while yielding nothing but anxiety and pain. Knowing that this ball of debt is intrinsic to my existence, but that a mutation in its purpose has transformed it from benevolent symbiote to voracious parasite. Talking to specialists and professionals about how to remove it, but hearing how my options are - themselves - often life-threatening or at least misery inducing for months or years at a time, and that there’s no real guarantee the growth can be removed as a result. Hearing how other people who were richer than me got a benign treatment much earlier on and are no longer suffering. Recognizing that there’s a national program to provide treatment in other countries, but we can’t import it because that would mean engaging with evil socialists.
Fuck. You’re right. Nothing like cancer at all.
It absolutely is not. you have no clue what you are talking about. Even if you refuse to understand and just want to self center ruminate your issues, you could at least make an effort to stop being an insensitive piece of shit to the people who are not the ones at fault for the situation you are in.
It absolutely is. You have no clue what you are talking about. Even if you refuse to understand and just want to self center whine about other people’s issues, you could at least stop being an insensitive piece of shit tonthe people who are not the ones at fault for the situation they are in.
Stop comparing minor things in your life to having cancer you hyperbolic piece of shit.
I like you. Wanna get coffee sometime?
Only if you’re buying.
This analogy doesn’t really work though. Most people don’t willingly receive cancer. I think the thought process is you chose to borrow that money now it’s your responsibility to pay it back. If you worked an entire year to pay off your student loan debt and another person doesn’t work and their loans are paid off, you worked an entire year for free. Essentially slave labor. Anyone would be grateful when someone beats cancer but watching everyone around you get free handouts while you did what you are supposed to, I can see why people aren’t a fan of the idea. I paid off my student loans during COVID and I never expected any money back but I’d be lying if I said getting that money back now would not be extremely helpful in my life. I’m grateful that people are getting their loans forgiven. College shouldn’t cost remotely what it does.
When it’s the only option for an education I would say willingly is a bit strong of a word.
While a higher education is really nice and it would be nice if everyone could have one. They aren’t necessary.
It is for a large number of jobs though. So its attempt to do what you want with your life or don’t take the predatory loan. It’s a shit situation all round.
I hear what you’re saying but you have to put a little more thought into this beyond “you pay for what you get”. A lot of professions still need specialization but do not offer commensurate remuneration with respect to cost of entry. I’ll give you some examples:
- Teachers
- Historians
- Social workers
- Architects
I could go on. It’s a long list. The world still needs teachers and social workers, but we are far from adequately compensating for these industries. When you adopt a utilitarian approach to education (as a pipeline that leads directly to a career track) you are limiting the potential of the nation to improve/grow. A humanist approach to education promotes a more universal type of growth where we can foster the best talent towards achieving their full potential. Otherwise we end up with a situation in which the humanities and arts are segregated exclusively for the affluent members of society because the cost of entry is high but the output is low.
For me, during college, I got my first credit card. Between student loans and credit cards, I’ve been set up to fail at every turn. I have a crap ton of debt. My student loans? Paid in full. But the fact that I was paying them for nearly 15 years, and the money that took from me while I did it caused me to get deeper in debt from other sources of debt that has led me to be in a position where I’m still just as much in debt as I was when I graduated. The debt has shifted from student loans to mostly credit cards, but it hasn’t gotten any smaller. I’m pretty sure I owe more now than I did when I graduated.
Financial debt compounds. Not only on itself, but it creates deficiencies in other areas requiring more debt to maintain balance. It grows like a cancer.
Sure, you can declare bankruptcy, and fuck yourself over for your ability to get any loans, but will that actually help? Does your income conver your expenses? Are you making a living wage? If not, and you go bankrupt, you might be screwing yourself over. It might be better to simply continue the cycle of violence until you earn enough to cover what you need to, then, when you’re cash positive, declare it at that point.
I’ve been on the debt treadmill for over 20 years now. I continue to find myself in situations that require large sums to get resolved. Whether that’s a broken vehicle, or another critical item I have to immediately pay for which was unexpected, or simple daily needs that have to be purchased when I’m at a low point in the availability of money. It grows.
I keep trying. I haven’t needed to declare bankruptcy yet; but my debts are attached to me like a cancer, slowly killing me by starving my finances.
I’m not even poor. I work a decently well paying job. I’m just so heavily in debt, that I can’t get out of it.
Good luck to you my friend. I wish you well.
Most people don’t willingly receive cancer.
When I was a kid, my parents were able to set aside money for my benefit in advance so that when I started college I had enough for tuition, housing, and a car. When I graduated, I even had enough left over for a down payment on a starter home.
I didn’t get to choose this. It was decided for me the day I was born. It was given to me purely by dint of who my parents happened to be and where I lived. In other countries, everyone has access to this level of
public health carecough excuse me cough higher education. But I had to rely on a private system that rewarded people with the means to accumulate financial surplus.Also, my mom smoked when she was younger. But when she started trying to get pregnant, she quit. If she’d continued smoking through the pregnancy, it would have significantly increased my chance to develop some form of childhood cancer. Again, this was not something I got to choose. It was purely a consequence of my parents’ decisions.
This also needs to go into the cancer he beat is dramaticly easier to overcome than cancer in the future.
“What do you mean? Just get a part time job. I waited tables and paid my way through college.”
“How much was your tuition?”
“$500 a semester. Why? How much is yours?”
“$19,000 a semester”
Beating cancer builds character!
Where does the forgiveness come from? After paying for my education I now pay a bunch of taxes, I assume that’s what is paying for their education? So the cartoon should say, I just fought and beat cancer and now I need to go work on a cute. “They” cutting cancer is not the same.
Can someone tell me what this comic is about?
IDK. Some cringe-lord wants free stuff and wants your taxes to pay for it. Something about cancer.
I spent five figures paying mine off two years ago.
Still 100% support my tax dollars paying for people’s college. In fact, I’d love that instead of the nine wars my tax dollars are paying for instead.
This comic is based on pretty childish thinking. Repaying student loans isn’t a cure. It’s making everyone else pay the price (either through inflation, through rising education costs, or through direct tax later).
Second, cancer isn’t a choice–student loans are.
More accurately would be: I’m going to be so upset if I have to suffer even a little again to help everyone else make up for their bad decisions.
Imagine being this brainwashed. You know where higher education is free? Pretty much the entire civilized world. Guess whether 'murican taxes compare favorably or unfavorably against that?
Besides your ad hominem attacks you changed the whole point of the discussion. “Free” is not the same as asking everyone to pay for anyone’s college education.
Usual 'murican take. Do you use roads? Do you use clean water? I would ask about public transit, but you’re a 'murican, so I already know the answer to that is “no”.
Everyone already pays for the State to exist. Civilized countries use that money to benefit all citizens through free higher education, free healthcare, free public transportation, etc. The US uses that money to kill children in the middle east and to bail out huge corporations.
It’s a false assumption that because that is the way things are that it is the way things ought to be, and that they couldn’t be arrived any other (much less any better way).
This is a pretty typical response to any limitations on government–“but who will build the roads?”
There are two basic problems
1st: Your unwritten implication is that if government does these basic things then it must necessarily assert even bigger economic control–such as higher education–which is a false deduction.
2nd: You imply that only the government can do these things or that government does it best. Also a false deduction. Practical experience says otherwise.
Practical experience with what, shoveling bullshit around and expecting people to believe your nonsense? Get the fuck outta here with your corporate bootlicking.
“Free” is such a ridiculous statement. No, higher education isn’t free anywhere. It’s funded by the people, but it’s ridiculously expensive. Maybe not as expensive as certain American universities, but still a decent chunk more than any student will make doing odd jobs while studying.
The point of not charging people for education is that those people will end up making lore money, so they will contribute more tax in the future, allowing more people to get even better education down the line. It’s a price people in many countries are willing to pay because it benefits the country as a whole.
But don’t be mistaken. You still pay your college fees. They come back at you in the form of decades of tax rates. American income tax is low compared to many countries with education of equivalent quality, and Americans don’t even have things like VAT/sales tax in many places.
I’ll gladly fund higher education through taxes for the rest of my life, but this notion that something is free because the government is paying for it needs to die. That money doesn’t come into existence out of nowhere. Even if the government would print money to pay for this stuff, the inflation that would produce would have a very similar effect to what handling this stuff through taxes would do.
This is also why I disagree with the current loan repayment schemes proposed and enacted by the current American government. The loans aren’t the main problem, the scammy tuition fees are. Making the government responsible for the loans will solve the immediate cash flow problem of current students, but will only exacerbate the problem if the forgiveness program isn’t accompanied by a legally mandated maximum tuition fee that’s one or two orders of magnitude lower than what they currently are.
Perhaps there’s something to be said for distributing the cost of the scam to everyone, as the problem is a result of decades of public policy, but it’s unfair to the people who made the responsible choice of picking a smaller, cheaper, slightly inferior college so they wouldn’t be stuck with unpayable debt.
It should also be noted that in many places where education is typically free, private education is still a thing. People with wealth pay almost American amounts of tuition for prestigious education out of reach of the common person, because the state not being willing to pay their ridiculous fees doesn’t mean that there is no private education. If America was to follow the European model, nothing would change for the people seeking out Ivy League colleges, you would mostly see the benefits in free community colleges.
You’d also still see a massive gap between the rich and the poor, as free tuition doesn’t imply free food or shelter, either; in many countries there’s a modest fee the government will pay out, but unless you want to live under a bridge subsisting of ramen noodles, you’ll still need a small loan or a side job to get by. Rich kids with rich parents will have more time to study, get better grades, and have more opportunities.
I went to a top university in Norway. My tuition was about $80 per year. All in all various student discounts on everything from haircuts to car repairs to housing, my tuition was effectively negative. I spent a good chunk on books, but rarely used them, and honestly could have saved the money. Considering everyone gets a scholarship from the government for the first 7 years (would have been converted to a loan if I didn’t pass enough credits worth of classes), I effectively got paid to study. I still had student loans, because they were interest free while I was a student and cheaper than a mortgage after. I spent some on food and housing, and saved the rest. Like most Norwegians I was not in a hurry to pay it down. Student debt is generally low priority for Norwegians to pay down due to the cheap interest.
Your egocentrism is showing, USAian. I don’t even know where to begin dismantling your bullshit from how awefully absurd it is.
tuition for prestigious education out of reach of the common person
“Prestigious private education”? Are you joking? The people who take private higher education are effectively ridiculed, not to mention how private schools/colleges are always lacking – e.g. back in the day, when I compared my curriculum (actually prestigious public university) with all relevent private alternatives, they’d always be one year or more behind, which also means they’d finish their course with a huge gap in knowledge.
in many countries there’s a modest fee the government will pay out
Here in Brazil you can get upwards of two minimum wages. How is it that Brazil can afford this, but apparently the US couldn’t? Besides that, yes, you may need a side job – that’s what non-abusive internship/trainee positions are for. You work a few hours per day at a relevant position to your minor/major to get cash and relevant experience.
They come back at you in the form of decades of tax rates.
Except those decades of taxes ALSO pay for my healthcare (excellent, btw), bicycle infrastructure, to maintain parks, to protect local fauna and flora, for libraries, etc etc
I’m not even American. And I am in favour of completely revamping the American education system, for the good of the students there.
“Prestigious private education”? Are you joking? No. There are private education institutes all over the world. The places where real power concentrates, where the old royalty gathers. Not the best in terms of scientific endeavours, but that’s not what those places are about anyway. It’s all about making connections.
How is it that Brazil can afford this, but apparently the US couldn’t? Double minimum wage in the USA is barely enough to cover rent in the cities, because the USA has a minimum wage of $7.50 per hour. The yearly spending (18.1 million students * ($7.50 * 4.25 weeks * 40 hours * 2) * 12) would add $553 billion to the $159 billion that’s already spent on education. For college kids that stay within their state, that may cover costs, but if you live in bumfuck nowhere and want to do something other than agricultural tech (or whatever your local college is actually good at), you’re quickly paying 85% of the $30k you’re receiving in tuition fees alone. Factor in an average monthly rent (ranging from $914-$1817 per month) and you quickly need a second full-time minimum wage job just to cover your expenses, let alone get any studying done.
You work a few hours per day at a relevant position to your minor/major to get cash and relevant experience. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but how feasible that is completely depends on your field of study. Plenty of jobs in computer programming, not a whole lot of side jobs in philosophy. For many jobs you also need some kind of certification, you can’t be a part-time lawyer without passing the bar exam, which is gonna be tough if you’ve just started your education. Also, not every student has the ability to stay on top of homework and keep a job, i.e. because they need to take care of family.
Except those decades of taxes ALSO pay for my healthcare (excellent, btw), bicycle infrastructure, to maintain parks, to protect local fauna and flora, for libraries, etc etc I never said taxes were exclusively used for education. Education spend comes down to a sliver of tax expenditure compared to healthcare spend, for sure, even in the USA with the rather lacking Medicaid they have over there.
I’m just sick of the idea some people have that just because the government pays for it, you’re not ending up paying that money back anyway. This is how you get the types of boomers that refuse to pay taxes to fund education, because they got theirs for free back when the system wasn’t quite so broken. Nothing is free, education is simply a worthwhile investment.
The loans themselves aren’t close to the root of the problem. The entire system is fucked up. Huge loans with compound interest are handed out to kids studying subjects that have no chance of ever making enough to pay their loans back. The responsibility for these loans has shifted from (semi) government to private banking. Parents and grandparents get involved and fall into debt, too, because people don’t seem to know how different types of interest work and take out loans they can’t afford. The $42k-10k of debt that college tuition will take would be negligible if it weren’t for the way interest and late fees are applied.
The USA won’t fix their problems by making loans disappear a few times per decade. They need to fix the system that caused the problem, and then forgive loans. Forgiving loans is a cheap measure that works for the short term with terrible results down the line, in exactly the same way the gradual changes to the student loan system has led to the current fucked-up state of American education.
First, your formatting is completely broken.
Second:
The places where real power concentrates, where the old royalty gathers. Not the best in terms of scientific endeavours, but that’s not what those places are about anyway. It’s all about making connections.
I.E. completely irrelevant. Got it.
Double minimum wage in the USA is barely enough to cover rent in the cities
The fix seems pretty obvious, eh?
would add $553 billion
I.E., even ignoring the fact that not all students would require this monetary assistance, less than the budget for the 'murican war machine. Seems fine to me.
you’re quickly paying 85% of the $30k you’re receiving in tuition fees alone
??? Why would they be paying the tuition fees with free public education available?
First, your formatting is completely broken.
I think I fixed it. Hope Lemmy gets a WYSIWYG editor one of these days.
I.E. completely irrelevant. Got it.
Depends on your country and the career you’re aiming for. Private educational facilities specialising in finance and econometry tend to educate their students much better.
The fix seems pretty obvious, eh?
Yes, just convince half of the USA to vote differently, and for the left-wing party to actually become left-wing rather than just making empty promises. Can’t be that hard, both parts only have been trying to do that for the last 300 years!
I.E., even ignoring the fact that not all students would require this monetary assistance, less than the budget for the 'murican war machine. Seems fine to me.
The 'murican war machine is what’s preventing Russia’s invasion into Europe right now. It also provided education and possibilities to countless Afghan women before some idiot decided to undo the work they’ve been doing in one fell swoop. It’s got its upsides.
Also, the people being paid those $750 billion dollars will need to find new jobs. I guess they can try to become professors?
??? Why would they be paying the tuition fees with free public education available?
Fair enough, I suppose; I was influenced by the way this works in my country. Just add the amount that they don’t have to pay to the billions I calculated before if the state funds the educational facilities directly. Quick napkin math leads me to about $283 billion dollars on top of your study grants.
I don’t get it
People with student loans are mad
They’re generally not. But a few well-situated op-ed writers working for newspapers with a vested interest in the private loan industry have expressed a great deal of outrage.
In the US it’s common for people to say that they shouldn’t cancel student loan debts because it would be unfair to people who have already paid theirs back.
“I paid off all of my student loans myself, it’s not fair for the government just forgive loans from other people!”
People who have paid off their student loans are allegedly opposed to the government forgiving student loans for people that are financially burdened by them.
I worked my ass off to pay off my student loans, and I wish it upon no one. It didn’t teach me shit except fuck capitalism. School should be socialized and free. And fuck cancer!
I’m still paying off loans and will be for the next 8 years. I’m ineligible for forgiveness now because I consolidated with a private lender. I hope everyone gets their debt wiped, even if I can’t. Education should be free to begin with.
I finally paid off my student loans!
If they suddenly forgive student loans given to people now, I’m gonna be so mad.
Nailed it. Thanks.
A common “reason” for why student loans shouldn’t be paid off by the government is that it would be unfair to everyone who has already paid off their student loans.
The person in this comic is acting like someone who paid off their student loans and now doesn’t want others to get loan forgiveness
I have to wonder if my generation [Millenial] had any effect on university enrollments yet. My kids aren’t quite the age to talk about education plans as I had kiddos later in life @30yo (40 now). I’ll be strongly discouraging uni unless it’s completely unavoidable to what they want to do.
Similar boat. Were lucky we were able to move to Europe so my kid has access through the Erasmus network to any college in Europe really. It’s a different world over here.
I generally encourage kids to just go live a normal life for a few years before college. That way they’re going for something specific they really want to do, and they have an experiential sense of what the dollar amounts mean.
I’m pretty resentful that I had tens of thousands of loans offered to me, far beyond anything my credit would warrant, when I was a teenager, who had been propagandized to go to college for the past ten years of my life.
I feel tricked. Perhaps not on purpose, but I feel like I was tricked.
This… is sad. Both discouraging and why you discourage.
Yeah…I agree. I will say I hope I can at least mitigate the debt issue as much as I can because I won’t be able to help pay, and I’m sure by the time my oldest is ready I’ll make too much for him to qualify for much aid. Maybe community college first or a trade school depending on what their interested in.
I mean the numbers still say that a bachelor’s degree doubles or triples your lifetime earnings over a high school diploma. Moreover, an educated society benefits everyone. College is still the right move at every scale. What we need to do is make it a more equitable system.
Maybe. Depends on how functional you are overall. Turns out I can pass college courses, but not keep a job so well.
I’m really good at getting high paying jobs, but my executive function is terrible. I can’t keep the jobs.
People with good executive function tend to not be aware of it as a factor. For them “getting that job” is the big uncertain hurdle on their path to success.
Not once in my upbringing all the way through college graduation did anyone talk about keeping jobs. It was all about getting the job. I’ve gotten some pretty amazing jobs … and lost them.
Yeah crossing my fingers there’s some fixes in the works along side any debt forgiveness, but with this political environment and some folks attitude of “F you, I got mine “, I’m doubtful.
I guess apprenticeships aren’t that common yet in the US, but in many countries you can learn a profession not only at uni. In that case the high school diploma isn’t the last/highest diploma one would get.
Same, I’m going to push my kid to do everything they can local. Because even though I don’t regret the experiences I had at university, it was a massive waste of money for me.
Yeah I’d definitely rather have them go to one of the community colleges or maybe a more technical school depending on what they want to do. I just want to prevent them from having to live with what might be debt I deal with for the rest of my life. No big University unless they manage a full ride or something, lol. Mean from my mistakes.
Yeah I look back fondly on the experiences, the conversations, the environment. But it was worse than a waste of time for me. It was, financially, the worst way I could have spent my first years out of high school.
I’m approaching 40 and have three kids from 10yo to 1yo, and I’m still going to encourage them going to college, but in a way that makes sense for them. My wife and I both work at a community college, and there’s no way our kids are going to go to a 4-year right out of high school (unless they get a full scholarship for something and already know exactly what they want to do).
Too many students don’t know what they want to study, don’t value the education, and drive themselves into too much debt. While I highly value the education and skills gained in a bachelor’s program, there’s no need to be going into debt at a university to take first- and second-year courses when community colleges are effectively free (in CA, anyway)
Ship 'em off to Germany and get a free college education. I know a few people that have gone there for grad school for that reason. I wish I had known that was an option…I might still be there, honestly.
From the school of “I suffered through [x], so therefore everyone else should suffer, too, even if they don’t need to.”
There’s always going to be a cutoff point where someone has it harder or easier than those that came before. That’s just life. As long as the change wasn’t malicious, just feel good (or whatever is appropriate) for those that benefit from it.
I work in a highly contract-controlled industry, and when things improve there’s always a segment of the group that might be close to retirement or something and gets all pissed that they didn’t won’t realize the benefits of a change that will apply mostly to those that will have longer under the change. They’re the same ones that bitch that new employees didn’t suffer under whatever crappy work rules that might have existed before, too.
So yeah…people that paid off their loans, or guys that I work with that paid for some/all of their kid’s college, bitch about people catching a break on their loans. STFU and be happy that someone else caught a break.
I’m glad I was taught not to begrudge and feel envy of other. I learned later in life that there are some insecure tw@ts who’d like to drag others down.
Making things better for the next generation should always be the goal not the exception
