Middle class people haven’t fucked over the poor. The top 1% has.
And as someone who came from poverty, I’m aware that your mindset is shared by many.
They look at anyone doing a little better than they are and think “that seems unfair”.
Yeah. It is unfair.
But it’s not those middle people who are stealing and taking.
Higher educated people 💯 benefit you personally and directly.
Universities 💯 directly benefit you personally and directly.
Who designs infrastructure ?
Who researches materials and designs to make safer cars, machines, houses?
Who does research on crop yields?
Who finds more effective treatments for health problems or early detection?
Who finds better materials to make things from?
Who who who ?
I don’t deny that the rich get first dibs on many things like medicine.
But mostly, everyone benefits from investing in tech and research.
My grandfather never even went to high school. Though he was self educated.
He has his own home. Worked as a janitor for a hospital for a large chunk of his life that paid pretty decently.
But those years are gone.
If minimum wage matched what it did in the 70s with inflation, it would be $20 an hour. It’s half that.
Even when I was 20 (2005) working two minimum wage jobs, I was able to afford my own 1 bed apartment.
Wasn’t great. Was in a bad neighborhood. But I did live alone and was okay.
That’s not possible for people anymore.
And rent is insane. It’s probably went up nearly 30-40% in the last 10 years in a lot of places.
I’m from a very poor rural area where rent typically is $400 for a 1 bedroom.
My mom told me that rent now is like $800 for that area.
For a 1 bedroom.
That was the cost to rent a 2 bedroom house just a few years ago.
Corporations buying up everything. Even in small rural areas.
Trailer courts are also getting bought up and people are abandoning their trailer homes because the lot rental has doubled.
It’s very sad to see.
Both of the people were older.
My impression was that they couldn’t pay off that much debt at that age.
I’m looking to teach and do research.
Tenure track positions are slim to none now days.
Most universities do something akin to gig work. (Isn’t that some shit? I go to school for 14 years to do gig work!!)
They hire you to teach a class at a semester-to-semester situation.
Those positions suck as there are no full time employee benefits nor security. But they are easier to find and get.
Since I’m a fresh graduate I’m looking at community colleges to start with. Then in 2 years I am hopeful I can find a university position and start research again. But you are right about competition. And at present I have nothing published. I’m hoping to get a published paper from my dissertation work but I feel like that’s 50/50.
Also I feel like I need a break from research and need to build up my syllabus courses and that takes an enormous amount of time. So I’m okay with doing teaching only for 2 years.
My first solo teaching class easily took 30+ hours a week to prepare for. Not counting the 3 hr lecture. And it was my specialty area.
I talked to a few other professors and they said that’s what they remember it being for the first time they taught each of their classes. I wasn’t expecting that.
At present I only have 1 fully prepared course. However I’m qualified to teach probably 6 courses.
So depending on what the college needs, I will almost certainly need to create new courses.
Research methods class is a favorite of mine and it just so happens most professors hate teaching it. So I think I might have a good “in” by emphasizing I’m open to teaching it.
It’s always good to know what you can do that others can’t or don’t want to do.
A cylindrical human centipede is a really good analogy to how LLMs work.
I didn’t summarize the whole article because that wasn’t relevant to my points.
My points were.
Fasfa contract says it can’t be reduced with bankruptcy but article gave two examples of when it has been.
One due to the institution being shut down. The other from owing a high amount and being older.
Everyone involved was not wealthy. Otherwise they wouldn’t have the debt in the first place. So I didn’t think that was relevant to mention.
I’m not sure that two examples is enough to convince me that this is possible for more people to get this exception made for their student loan debt.
But maybe with the loss of the loan forgiveness program, people can make a stronger case for it.
Already did.
There is a lot of spacing but I didn’t write much.
But society personally and directly benefits from people who are scholars and scientists.
If it wasn’t for people like me, willing to do the work and take on the debt, many of the best qualities of our lives would cease to exist.
Do people like me , deserve to be burdened by insane debt the rest of our lives for trying to improve our country.
Many other thriving nations realize that investing in their own citizens pays dividends.
Higher education is free or heavily subsidized by their governments.
But Americans would rather punish anyone trying to rise out of poverty by educating themselves.
The American individuality mindset is , : “I shouldn’t have to pay any of my taxes to help others , even though helping them also helps me”.
Socialist would be in support of free education.
Ah thanks for clarifying
PhD in cognitive neuroscience.
It’s a stem degree.
Husband?
So a two income household.
Banking ?
Yeah that’s a corp job.
“Worked construction and did house cleaning and bought a big house”.
That’s not something most people with those two jobs could do. Even in a dual income household.
Unless perhaps you failed to mention he owned a construction business.?
Maybe 30 years ago. Sure. Not now.
I think you are unaware of a few things that have changed.
The cost of education has went up so much in 30 years.
Even my associates degree I paid $13000 for in 2008-2012 is easily now a $25,000 degree. At a community college.
As I said. Going to the next level , a state college, will be at minimum, $30k a year. (60k for associates, $120k for bachelor’s).
Also , if you have kids or disabled, you are eligible for “free” money for college.
I did not qualify for any free money.
30 years ago , heck even 20 years ago, you could buy a house with only 8 or 9k down. And the house payments would be ~700 a month.
That’s not how it is anymore.
Those same Homes are half a million now.
And the down payments needed are 30-50k.
This is why boomers are very much out of touch with the reality of American life now.
It’s not how it was in the 80s, or 90s.
College is so expensive that when you graduate you owe so much, that the interest will rise faster than you can pay it off. Meaning you will just keep owing more money.
Also as far as credentials. Every place that isn’t base like minimum wage jobs , requires a degree of some kind. With the exception of hard manual labor jobs. Like working in factories and warehouses. Hard labor. Hard on your body. And usually men work those jobs because of the physical demands being high. Destroying their bodies by 40.
And also. I never could afford health insurance at any job I ever had until I got a job working for the health insurance company.
There is no way anyone on minimum wage could possibly afford health insurance premiums.
I recall working at Pizza Hut 2006 before I got my corp job. $6 an hour.
After taxes I made about 700 a month.
Insurance premium was $250. For a young healthy 20 year old.
It’s way more than that now. ~$500-700 per month.
And anyway. Doesn’t matter. Couldn’t afford deductable or copays. So pointless to have.
I literally don’t know a single person from real life that uses it.
1st degree means pre meditated.
Should be negligent homicide.
I was working 2 jobs when I was 18.
I didn’t start college until I found a single job that paid enough to live on. I was 24.
I’ve no doubt a lot of 18-19 year olds do fuck around and waste college money and time.
But I wasn’t one of those.
Here is the thing. When people say. “Don’t go to school if you can’t afford it”.
That’s social mobility.
What exactly was my alternative option?
Stay working shit minimum wage jobs my whole life. Where I’m reminded every day how replaceable I am. ?
No money for healthcare.
Ending up with chronic conditions at 40 from the hard jobs. No way to afford to treat them.
My parents are young. My mom is 16 years older than me and she looks like she’s pushing 80. She’s got a laundry list of health problems and can’t even work anymore. 56 years old. And at the end of her life.
Being poor will lower your lifespan significantly. It will age you prematurely.
Im also an atheist and believe this is the only life I get. And I better do whatever I can to make it at least 70% enjoyable.
It was unacceptable to me to stay at the bottom. Quite honestly, I’d rather not be alive than have that life.
I’ve seen it. I know exactly what it looks like. And I know exactly how it ends. Usually around 55-65. Dying of a preventable disease.
Never retiring. No fruits from a lifetime of hard labor.
As I said the 10 year loan forgiveness program was a way for people to get themselves out of the cycle of poverty. But now, only wealthy kids get to go to graduate school.
And not that many will. Nepo babies usually just get bachelor degrees.
It’s going to take years to re build departments at universities that will start closing in the next year.
People don’t realize how much they depend on higher education in our society.
Medical staff. Lawyers. Engineers. The people inventing things do so at universities.
Even in my field, the research I do helps us understand the human body better and could lead to new interventions to help people have a higher quality of life.
People seem to not realize that all these tech advancements take humans to make them. And companies rarely invest in these. Except in their own properties.
I know so many people who think universities should be defunded of grant money for research.
They literally have no idea where the things they use every day even come from.
I was referring to u netwirk_switch
Not your comment.
You said something like , “summary please” and I summarized what the said.
They also say artist are worthless for revolution and change.
The essay itself is incredibly out of touch with historical evidence.
Colleges and universities students, artists, and musicians were many of the leaders for change. They helped rally the people and spread awareness and unite the people.
It’s true they weren’t that instrumental during the industrial revolution.
Because they didn’t really exist. And it was union leaders and laborers that caused change then.
But that was a very long time ago.
I’m not saying every academic or artist is virtuous or knows what’s best. There are plenty of shitty out of touch ones.
Lots of upper class people have limited understanding of what the world is like for the rest of us.
But also. Less and less rich kids go into academia (become professor). Largely due to the actual work needed to get a PhD. Nepo babies aren’t going to do that much work. And with professorships not paying that well anymore, they just aren’t going into these positions. They go and work for tech bros. Industry jobs that pay 300k a year.
There are some of these out of touch people still at universities, . But the trend is changing.
. I quoted at the wrong age for that specific example. That one was 65.
I put “50+” because the other example was for a 47 year old.
Yeah it’s looking bleak here.
Plus why should I let a county benefit from my hard work that won’t invest in me? A country who is trying to discredit science?
I have better places I could be.
As I mentioned I’m 40. So I started college later.
I actually worked full time and supported myself for my entire undergraduate degree. A 4 year degree that took me 8 because I did it part time.
I went to community college for the associates and state for the b.a. and only took out loans for tuition.
Together those were 13k (a.as) and 35k. (B.a)
I think people don’t realize how expensive college is now days. That’s the cheap option.
Interest occurs during my studies.
Then I got a masters. I studied in Wales because it was half the cost.
I had 12k in savings to help me on my way.
Still had to take out a loan for 46k. That’s literally less than half of what it would cost in the U.S.
Then I got into a doctorate program that was partially funded. Funded for 5 years. But I need 6.5.
Partially due to “it usually takes 6 years” plus covid slowing down my doctorate research which is on humans.
I have had to take out around 30k to finish it. Only big universities in big cities have doctorate programs. Meaning cost of living is very high. My one room (no bed room) studio was $1300 a month. Plus utilities.
Again,interests incurs while I’m school. So I’ve also added around 10k in interests.
I’m trying not to be offended that you assumed I was some party kid fucking around.
I did things the cheapest way possible and I have very little social life.
Tuition is insane here in the u.s. also.
And dorm costs (which luckily I never had) , coat as much as renting an apartment now days.
I didn’t waste money.
Also when you fill out our federal loan papers every time, it forces you to look at your owed amount, expected payments, and interests. It tells it to you right on the website.
Many first gen graduate students are like me. We went the cheap route. But we still had to pay for our own education. And we are all in this debt and even worse. Most i know are closer to $200k right out of school. I worked during my first 2 degrees so I saved a lot.
If you did a 4 year state college with a dorm… Easily 35k a year. X4. That’s 140k just for a bachelor’s degree.
I got mine for 48k for all 8 years.
Higher end university is 50-60k per year for tuition. Plus dorms.
For wealthy kids; their parents pay this for them.
For the rest of us, we take out government loans. That have interest.
__
The 10 year loan forgiveness program works this way:
You work for the state or non profit company for 10 years and make payments based on your income.
These jobs typically pay less.
At the end of 10 years if you made all the payments, the rest of the loan is forgiven. Indentured servitude.
But many of us were willing to do it for an education. I was. I still am. If they bring it back.
It is a program to incentivise people with higher education to work for jobs that benefit society the most.
Otherwise no one would take these jobs because they pay significantly less. And we all have insane student loan debt.
Yes that’s what I was saying.
I’m honestly not sure why you keep arguing with me because I mentioned age when that was a factor.
Not in a direct way, but yes it is a factor in the way you say.
Age would imply a few things that would help qualify for the approval. But age on its own is not a criteria.