Paul wants to phase out federal student loans.

This is very good in my opinion.

College these days are just a scam. Out of all my friends who have gone to college, only the med students actually get a job in their field. Everyone else ends up flipping burgers anyway, when if they hadn't gone to college, they could have been doing long enough to get another job and not be in tons of debt.

We need to make college more serious. That would be forcing students to get their own loans, so they actually make a plan, instead of going to college just being the standard.

One main issue are parents these days, they feel their kids MUST go to college to succeed, but the kid doesn't know what they want to do yet.

I didn't go to college and make more money than any of my friends, and i'm only 21. Its all about networking and knowing what you are good at, college rules out public speaking skills and social networking, which is required for a job.

If some kid comes in with a masters degree in computer science and then some kid who has worked at a local IT shop a few years and has made a good name for themselves comes in, who is the employer going to pick?

With this one piece of news, he has lost my vote.

I wouldn't be able to attend college right now if not for those loans. This is ridiculous.

reply to post by dawnstar


Exactly. It seems that this is just the same old deregulation argument. Punish the consumer and the industry will have to adjust, but the global market is too big. It never works, not once. History is this tactic's worst enemy and I don't think we can ignore that. It seems practical until you realize that this economic strategy has been proven to not work. Now, I'm not saying regulate everything, but can we please finally see the flaws in the free market? We've been praying to that golden cow for 200+ years with monopolies, lobbies and large scale financial chicanery as the result.

Originally posted by AzureSky
Perhaps he would like to make higher education 'free' at some point in his presidency.
Or perhaps switch over to another type of loan system, he wouldn't just 'drop federal student loans' all together, without some sort of alternative that works for the student body as well. Knee jerk reactions.

He's ultra conservative. Dog eat dog. Yes he would.

And I believe all education should be FREE. And all top notch health care and dental, world wide.!!!!!!

Housing/land too.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


The primary reason companies out source to India is for cost purposes. Vodaphone closed a call centre in my town that used to employ quite a few people all of whom were intelligent enough to work there and operate the calls. They just expected a higher salary than what can be offered in India. No offense to yourself or other Indians, but the majority of people in the UK want to speak to a British person at the end of a phone, especially when dealing with technological issues. The reason companies outsource their call centres to India is for profit gain, thats all companies care about at the end of the day.

I got a master's degree on my own without a single college loan nor handouts from relatives/parents. I worked while I went to school. Call me a genius. Unlike my friends who ALL had loans and parental funding, I can actually balance my budget and live within my means. People will still go to college, even if it's not 'funded' by someone. Most kids don't know the meaning of work. They've never really had to.

Cutting the funding won't mean that no one will go to college. Well, some won't go unless they have a beer fund, but hopefully they'll get bankrolled by Mommy and Daddy.
It's like saying that if we cut off food stamps, no one in the country will be eating. Are you kidding me?

Ron Paul doesn't believe in any type of social net. No medicare, welfare, food stamps etc. I'd think that would catch more people's attention! We'll NEED assisted suicide to put people who can't afford treatment out of their misery.

Can't kill it without something else in place, and I seriously doubt he's talking about just eliminating it without reform. Sounds like a sound bite taken completely out of context to me.

Originally posted by Fitch303
Guess what happens when you tell a company, such as a university, that they can get a guaranteed paycheck from the government? Answer: They charge as much as freaking possible! These universities no longer have to worry much about being price competitive with each other since they all get a vast amount of dollars from the same source......our government.
If you cut away all government financial aid, college prices would drop like a freaking rock because no one would be able to afford the current government rate scam prices. Every college would once again be forced to compete for your hard earned dollars and would have to provide the best education at the lowest price possible JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER TRULY PRIVATE INDUSTRY IN EXISTENCE.

edit on 23-10-2011 by Fitch303 because: (no reason given)

edit on 23-10-2011 by Fitch303 because: (no reason given)

Absolutely! When I was in the Navy, I attended training in Orlando, FL. We used to walk down one highway that was nothing but one car dealership after another. The dealers would shout "Hey Navy" and do whatever to get you to come in. The bad thing is many guys in need of a car got "taken for a ride" because the dealership would jack the price around based on the premise that since you were in the military, you were a guaranteed paycheck!

So, yes, when one knows that the money is coming from the government, the tendency is to charge as much as possible for it. Why do hammers cost $800 in the military! How much fraud and waste was there from the Iraq war? Billions!

So, when a large university knows that the majority of it's funding is coming via the pathway of student loans backed by the US government, do you not think that tuition is going to be artificially high?

My personal thought is that there ought to be a stepping stone to higher education. After a student graduates high school, they should be required to attend a trade school for 2 years which includes an internship. Depending on how they do in trade school will determine whether or not they could go on to college. Loans would be available and college credit would be given for trade school.

This would thin out the number of people enrolled in college dropping tuition rates. For those who don't wish to attend civilian trade school, there would be a mandatory 4-year military service requirement.

end the fed. there are better ways to get $ for school.
dont be babies.

reply to post by ThaLoccster


I think people are reacting to the initial statement without thinking about it. He wants to eventually get rid of the student loan program. When I've heard him speak he wanted to expand the federal grant program while eradicating the repayable loans. 12000 that you don't have to repay or 20000 that you do, which makes more sense? He also wants the state loan programs to continue. It's not an issue of keeping anyone else down it's an issue of putting a lot of this back in the hands of the states.

The other thing he's commented on was during the Clinton years, it was a goal that everyone get a college education. To be honest, it's devalued a bachelors degree and associates degree to the point that they are equivalent to what a high school diploma was thirty years ago. Everyone doesn't need a college education. Now that there are so many folks getting degrees the more intelligent lot has to expend even more money on advanced degrees to stand out and have a shot at the good jobs they deserve. But because of the glut of 4 year degrees they have to go even deeper into debt getting the advanced degrees and getting removed from the workforce for another 2 years. If you eliminate the federal grant program and the ease at which the funding is available then you eliminate that dead pool or a big portion of it. Then a college degree will eventually go back to having value.

People take the path of least resistance which are federal loan programs. They aren't even aware of the vast amount of other financial aid out there that doesn't come from our federal tax dollars. They don't look for it because the fed loans are so easy.

He's also saying jobs aren't out there for these folks now. You get a kid on federal aid that struggles to a 4 year basic business degree or marketing degree, he's 80 grand in debt and the only job he can perform, regardless of the degree is an entry level marketing job making 25k a year. And he could perform the function without the degree and without the burden of 80k in debt. And maybe if it wasn't so easy to get the money he would have gone right to work and working his way up from that basic job and maybe getting an education as he goes using some of the education benefits from his new company. Or maybe he takes a blue collar production job and makes good money at that.

People are going to college because it's there. Because it's easy. Not because it's the best thing for them. Nobody ever thinks about it that way.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Must disagree with you and agree with you in some respect. Extreme solutions will be required to counter balance the extreme financial positions we now are encountering. The fed student loan program has caused the rapid rises in tuition and extravagant salaries and expenditures of many universities and colleges.
Too many young people that don't have an IQ capable of enriching themselves in a college atmosphere are borrowing only to end up dropping out with a debt that is more troubling.
Our federal government should not be involved in education per the constitution. If the states want a state university, then they should figure out how to fund it and how it should be operated. More localized state communities could bring this cost down and make it easier for kids to further on in their education. Community colleges are already in many locations making it easier for kids to live at home and continue on.
If the young people of today would earn their way through college, everyone benefits. They would be the ones there to truly learn something and come out better for it. Not everyone is capable of extended learning to a college degree and will need better vocational learning skills to make a living in their lifetime.
RP is telling you how a libertarian thinks society should work and react. You may disagree with those views and you have that right. It's also your judgement that can make you right or wrong and where that leaves you standing at the end of the day.
Guess were all judging now and I sure hope we get it right this time. Not so sure that we get a second chance again like were getting right now.

reply to post by ThaLoccster


The more we depend on that which we created the more in debt and enslaved we become. If you knew how to reclaim your trust account FROM the federal government and how to file taxes correctly using the form 4852 to reclaim ALL your earnings, if you have filed taxes, then you would not need the assisistance of anyone. Education should be free. Most of us get it like Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting, we research.

STOP THE DEPENDANCY!!!!!!!!!

Do you need a diaper too? That is sarcasm but I think you get the point.

Originally posted by Ihsahn
With this one piece of news, he has lost my vote.

I wouldn't be able to attend college right now if not for those loans. This is ridiculous.

So say that Ron Paul is wrong because you can't look into your own existence and the "Trust account" created in your name worth millions of dollars? Look into it, WE the people owe nothing, everything is paid for we just have to do the bookkeeping and set the record straight. Ron Paul can not tell you straight out that is the way it is, he would be killed for sure. But because you are too busy with frivilous bullcrap on a daily basis, you can't figure out that you have been had? Lets blame everything on someone else and keep the cycle of stupidity going strong? OR.........we could wake up, file the paperwork, TELL the government we are not gonna take this crap anymore, and settle the book keeping for good. School, college if you would like it, would all be free then. And you would learn the REAL truth of the world and not the garbage they teach today.

As a graduate, I would say this is a good idea. I'm still living at home and haven't found a job in my career field, and even if I do I will be making a maximum of 13-16 dollars an hour because my $25,000 education was only good enough to get me an entry level IT job.

So I'm working retail at 10 bucks an hour and paying off over 200 a month in student loans when I could be using that money to be financially independent from my parents.

I got ripped off, and I know I'm not the only one. I don't think that should happen to anyone else.

I had student loans back in the late 80's, got a job and paid them off somewhere in the mid 90's. I now work at the same University as a technician. Before the outsourcing of technical jobs like mine, I was making around 30k a year, Now under 22k with all the unpaid overtime they can stick me with The cut in paid was hard enough, but at my age the heavy lifting is taking its toll. My point being, one can not go four plus years, own almost 100k in loans then work for $10-15 bucks an hour. Sorry, but the math does not come out. Unless you are using that "New Math"

Originally posted by dreamseeker
reply to post by sarra1833

 

I think you are misunderstanding. Ron Paul wants to end the federal loans not make college free or cancel anyone's debt. Now I would be all for Ron Paul if he said he make college free, housing free and food free. If all basic necesaties were free then we would not need HUD or low income housing. We would not medicare or medicaid if health care was free. Someone correct me if I am wrong that he is not proposing that anything is free?

edit on 23-10-2011 by dreamseeker because: (no reason given)

Free? Nothing is free. It is payed by taxes. Taxing is a "legal" form of compulsory payment to the government. The government is essentially claiming a portion of the work that you, the citizens, have done as their own.

Originally posted by mastahunta

Originally posted by SuperTripps

Originally posted by mastahunta

Originally posted by SuperTripps
lots of you guys on here don't get it

he is NOT against education

he is against the Feds creating and sustaining this financial bubble in student loans and college tuition

without the insane amount of debts that you students have to take on, tuition would be cut in half along with fees

ron paul doesn't want generations of youth to be debt slaves let alone in housing, etc
KUDOS to him

It is speculative theory friend.

The banks will take over and charge higher rates or they will not and higher education will contract.

It is a boon for the banks

its supply and demand my friend. you care to call that speculative again for all of us to read?

I expect it to go to where it was before, do you even know what the higher education

rates use to be???

Universities recoil, OR they except foreign student who's nations help facilitate the financial
end of higher education. Like trying to fix a computer with a truck and a swimming pool.

Are you a paid union lobbyist? Teacher's union?

reply to post by Ihsahn


Did you happen to read any of this thread or try to research what happens when you stop giving federal loans to anyone who wants them? Or should I say what the schools do when the govt throws all that money around?
Obviously college hasn't taught you anything! Have a nice career at Walmart while it takes you half your life to pay that nice loan off.

reply to post by ThaLoccster


I think that many may misunderstand his reasoning for this. We have to look at it this way. What is the best way to reign in ungodly fees to attend college? Stop the system that is creating the mess in the first place. So many of the universities out there receive more than just the federal loan money. They receive grants based upon the number of low income students they have enrolled. In many cases these students don't ever show up for class yet these universities still have them listed as attending so they keep getting these funds in the range of millions per year. Multiply that across the country and you can see where a huge scheme is unfolding with these institutions. They increase their attendence which means they increase their rates over and over. They rake in millions in funds unjustly and the cycle renews.

This measure would hurt up front but eventually it will right the wrong that has been taking place. Students should not graduate from college with a mortgage sized student loan to pay off. Period.

Originally posted by Ihsahn
With this one piece of news, he has lost my vote.

I wouldn't be able to attend college right now if not for those loans. This is ridiculous.

I think you are missing the point. The system is broken. They are raping students and putting them in debt with mortgage like loans just to get a bachelor's degree. You shouldn't have to go to school for 4 plus years and be required to pay on it for almost 30 years! Why? Because the vast majority of graduates will NOT work in the field that their degree is in. Plus they won't get paid nearly what the recruiters at the school promises. It's truly one of the biggest scams running right now.

If this does take place then that degree will eventually cost what it used to. You won't have a mortgage to pay off for a bachelor's or master's degree. It will be more manageable.