2020 Election Thoughts

[Jose Abreu]

3 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

I don't even see anybody out there advocating what I'm suggesting for K-12 education. 20+ candidates in the early Democratic debates and I didn't hear it coming from a single one.

Not that it matters anymore, but this was one of Sanders' most discussed issues, so there was definitely at least one candidate talking about it 

[Texsox]

3 hours ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

Why doesnt the government just pay for everything? I would love some help on my car loans and mortgage. 

For public schools that's a great question. Why are public schools still so expensive?  The government is already covering some of the cost of those schools.  Why aren't they covering more? 

Are you bothered by the tax dollars that were already spent for those students or just spending tax dollars after the education? Again,  just speaking for the public, taxpayer funded schools. 

 

[NWINFan]

1 hour ago, Kyyle23 said:

 

 

whoops it appears you -cannot- say whatever the fuck you want 

Yes, finally. Newsmax is really eating shit and running scared. It has been so tiresome that the right-wing media has no standards at all. It's about time it caught up with them. They have slandered and smeared enough people.

 

[Dick Allen]

18 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

 

The exact same thing happened on 3 of Fox News' shows. 

[NWINFan]

2 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

The exact same thing happened on 3 of Fox News' shows. 

I just wonder if the Kool-Aid drinkers will ever catch on to how they been lied to over and over. This shame has no limits. 

[Dick Allen]

Just now, NWINFan said:

I just wonder if the Kool-Aid drinkers will ever catch on to how they been lied to over and over. This shame has no limits. 

They won’t. Whenever Greg comes back just read his stuff. He doesn’t care about the truth. He likes these people so whatever they say goes.

[southsider2k5]

17 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

They won’t. Whenever Greg comes back just read his stuff. He doesn’t care about the truth. He likes these people so whatever they say goes.

He lurks to passive aggressive like and laugh at posts.

[Dick Allen]

PA man arrested for voter fraud. He registered as his dead mother and voted for Trump. He also registered his dead mother in law.

[Texsox]

54 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

PA man arrested for voter fraud. He registered as his dead mother and voted for Trump. He also registered his dead mother in law.

And then the damn Democrats must have changed those votes to Biden. More proof of the widespread fraud perpetrated by Democrats. 

[The Beast]

11 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

Academia has been gutting professorships for a long time now. More and more teaching is done by TA's and poorly paid adjuncts. Tenure-track positions are withering away. All of that extra tuition money isn't going into their pockets. It's going to admin and increasingly lavish campuses.

Also going away are some liberal arts programs from campuses as schools lose enrollment in them or students focus on more career focused curriculum.

10 hours ago, NWINFan said:

I earned two Bachelor's degrees by working my way through college. It was a while ago, and I won't say how long.

I had the following advantages:

A state university had a regional campus a 15-minute drive from my home. I was able to get a decent paying job. By working full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year, I was able to pay for school, put gas in my car, and even go to a few Sox games. Where I worked allowed me to adjust my schedule according to my classes. I was able to live at home.

Things are more complicated now. I think we should be investing in the younger generation. Instead of wanting to spend billions on border walls, we would be better off by having a well-educated or well-trained workforce. It would help us compete in a world economy. Afraid of immigrants taking your job? You'd have less fears if you well prepared to enter the American workforce. But that is hard to do with the way college costs are now. 

We need more programs that are career focused. What you did with working while getting your degrees made lots of sense. I worked throughout college but I think you had more responsibility the way that you went to school and the amount of work you did year round.

I got to the professional world and worked as a generalist in a few fields and I am still thinking of going back to school while working a middle class job so I can have more job satisfaction and maybe avoid more corporate BS by working in health care. We will see. Either way, with automation and a changing workforce there will be more of a need for skills and actual professions as opposed to generalized degrees.

[Two-Gun Pete]

11 hours ago, NWINFan said:

I earned two Bachelor's degrees by working my way through college. It was a while ago, and I won't say how long.

I had the following advantages:

A state university had a regional campus a 15-minute drive from my home. I was able to get a decent paying job. By working full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year, I was able to pay for school, put gas in my car, and even go to a few Sox games. Where I worked allowed me to adjust my schedule according to my classes. I was able to live at home.

Things are more complicated now. I think we should be investing in the younger generation. Instead of wanting to spend billions on border walls, we would be better off by having a well-educated or well-trained workforce. It would help us compete in a world economy. Afraid of immigrants taking your job? You'd have less fears if you well prepared to enter the American workforce. But that is hard to do with the way college costs are now. 

OK, I know this wasn't your intention in posting this, and I really don't mean to pick on you.

But, whenever I read shit like the bolded, I think, "OK, Boomer."

 

Fucking working full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year MIGHT, just MIGHT get you through a year or so of Moraine Valley or College of DuPage. The world has changed, and not for the better for today's generation. When you post shit like the bolded, it makes you sound as out of touch as geezing geezers who complain about how candy or The Tribune used to be a nickel.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[Two-Gun Pete]

On 12/20/2020 at 4:24 PM, Danny Dravot said:

Who took out those student loans? And credit cards? Are you responsible for the fact that 24 y/o me decided he needed a touchscreen desktop all-in-one computer that he couldn’t afford and lived with the resulting debt and interest for five years or so?

However, forgiving student loan debt is wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich.

OK. So, if a grown man, who claims to be a billionaire, and a business guru, and a real estate genius makes an idiotic bet on an Atlantic City Casino, we as a society ABSOLUTELY MUST allow the courts to relieve him of the debts he/his business incurred.

BUT, if a stupid, naive, 17 or 18 year old makes a bad bet on what sort of education to pursue, then FUCK THEM, they made their own bed, and they have to fucking pay up?

Am I reading what society thinks correctly here? Is ONE wealth redistribution to the rich, but not the other? Do middle income types not pay additional vigorish when they borrow, while rich lucky sperm fucks who rip off the system get off scot-free? 

 

I'm not picking at you, and yes, you did the right thing to pay off your debts; Your reward was that you didn't have to undergo bankruptcy and the wasted years waiting to be allowed to be a borrower again. You did good. Better, even, than some schmuck who inherited MILLIONS, and then made moronic bets on how to run a casino. But we're asking inexperienced teenagers to make bets on themselves, in a world that requires an education to "move up." 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[Two-Gun Pete]

On 12/20/2020 at 5:10 PM, Jerksticks said:

Stop federally insuring/writing loans and the price of college would come way down

Ya know, usually I roll my eyes when I see your posts over here.

BUT, college education's inflationary pressures are indeed tied to the easy money associated with student debt. Student loans are the only loans [to my knowledge] that are:

1. Not tied to the value of the item you're purchasing [i.e. your potential future earnings]. A year of tuition is $14,904 at SIU, whether you stoopidly pursue a degree in English, or a degree in Electrical Engineering.

2. Not tied to your future ability to repay. Again, you can borrow the SAME AMOUNT, whether you major in Art History, Recreation, Business Analytics, Nursing, or Civil Engineering.

3. Not able to be discharged through the courts, if one makes a bad bet, based on teenaged stupidity.

4. Not really subject to very much underwriting, given the previous 3 items in this list

 

The first two items speak to luring a stoopid child into a lifetime of debt servitude. The last two items speaks to lenders giving up loans like a $10 whore, without any worry about the ability to repay, or the consequences to the borrower or to society as a whole. 

 

On balance, the pricing structure of a college education is all fucked up. If future borrowers knew they could discharge their loans through a bankruptcy, maybe lenders would demand some reasonable sort of underwriting. Which would then tend to make the REAL majors that can lead to a REAL middle-class lifestyle properly priced, while worthless piece of shit majors that help grocery stores and starbucks in their recruitment more properly priced as well.

 

Then, there's this 19th Century relic of having to "go away to school," which was borne out of having centers of learned men being the only place you could learn anything. Nowadays? Not so much. Greg can learn real information about the real world, if he used the google machine. So can Gen Z-types, whether they're in their mommy's house, or away in Carbondale. To me, extending loans to a child, so that (s)he can live in a dorm [$10K+/year @ SIU, so a total of an ADDITIONAL ~$40K of debt before interest] doesn't make any fucking sense, either. Why do we allow borrowers to borrow money to live in a dorm at all?

 

And, seeing the vomit-inducing contract just given out to Bielema (sp?) as the new highest-paid state of Illinois employee, don't get me started. U of C, Loyola, and UIC all seem to do just fine without a college football program. But that's a whole other irritant to me as a taxpayer in a broke state with tons of shitty sports programs that waste taxpayers' and students' dollars. 

 

So, TL;DR: Children are enticed to borrow money. SOME borrow TOO MUCH money, relative to what they get. Lenders don't bother with underwriting. Schools get away with charging whatever they want. I agree with you. The pricing structure of a degree is all fucked up.

[ron883]

1 hour ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

OK. So, if a grown man, who claims to be a billionaire, and a business guru, and a real estate genius makes an idiotic bet on an Atlantic City Casino, we as a society ABSOLUTELY MUST allow the courts to relieve him of the debts he/his business incurred.

BUT, if a stupid, naive, 17 or 18 year old makes a bad bet on what sort of education to pursue, then FUCK THEM, they made their own bed, and they have to fucking pay up?

Am I reading what society thinks correctly here? Is ONE wealth redistribution to the rich, but not the other? Do middle income types not pay additional vigorish when they borrow, while rich lucky sperm fucks who rip off the system get off scot-free? 

 

I'm not picking at you, and yes, you did the right thing to pay off your debts; Your reward was that you didn't have to undergo bankruptcy and the wasted years waiting to be allowed to be a borrower again. You did good. Better, even, than some schmuck who inherited MILLIONS, and then made moronic bets on how to run a casino. But we're asking inexperienced teenagers to make bets on themselves, in a world that requires an education to "move up." 

People with student loans are generally middle to upper class folk, who have the ability to make more money due to their degrees. You're b****ing about bailing out the rich, then advocating for a bail out towards the middle to upper class. How is that fair to those who never had college as an option in the first place?

[Quin]

1 hour ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

OK, I know this wasn't your intention in posting this, and I really don't mean to pick on you.

But, whenever I read shit like the bolded, I think, "OK, Boomer."

 

Fucking working full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year MIGHT, just MIGHT get you through a year or so of Moraine Valley or College of DuPage. The world has changed, and not for the better for today's generation. When you post shit like the bolded, it makes you sound as out of touch as geezing geezers who complain about how candy or The Tribune used to be a nickel.

Yeah, I worked 28-hours a week across three university jobs (TA position + two other jobs. The university capped it at 28 hours to prevent benefits of some sort) and that was enough to pay for rent, gas, and groceries. 

 

[Quin]

5 minutes ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

People with student loans are generally middle to upper class folk, who have the ability to make more money due to their degrees. You're b****ing about bailing out the rich, then advocating for a bail out towards the middle to upper class. How is that fair to those who never had college as an option in the first place?

Well, that's the beauty of forgiving student loans. Due to the racial wealth gap that exists in the US, Black households have to borrow more money on average than white households. Now student loans are punishing them for that. So for families that might never have had college as an option in the past and then had to incur massive debt to attend, this is righting a wrong.

Quote

As the table shows, black Millennial graduates are much more likely to take out loans for their education, at a rate 17 percentage points higher than their White peers for a bachelor’s degree and 20 percentage points higher for an associate degree. Not only do black students borrow at a higher rate, this data shows they borrow more for their undergraduate education. This is likely due to the racial wealth gap that exists in the United States requiring black borrowers to need more money to pay for college. This plays out when considering household debt in the United States broadly. Black households are more likely to have student debt. Thirty one percent of black families have education loans compared with only 20% of white families, despite the lower college-going rate for black students than white students.

Here's the research for that.

Yes, most student debt is owed by higher income households. Here's that research.

Quote

The highest-income 40 percent of households (those with incomes above $74,000) owe almost 60 percent of the outstanding education debt and make almost three-quarters of the payments. The lowest-income 40 percent of households hold just under 20 percent of the outstanding debt and make only 10 percent of the payments. It should be no surprise that higher-income households owe more student debt than others. Students from higher-income households are more likely to go to college in the first place. And workers with a college or graduate degree earn substantially more in the labor market than those who never went to college.

But, in this same research from Brookings.

Quote

Students from the wealthiest households might not need to borrow as much because their parents can pay for college or cover their expenses while they are in school. This reality contributes to the perception that it is unfair that anyone has to borrow to finance an investment that should be available to all who can benefit. But the data show that students who go to college and particularly graduate school tend to earn more and are more financially secure, which is why student debt is nevertheless so concentrated among well-educated and higher-income households.

And none of these proposals are saying that they need to wipe out all student loan debt (because Democrats would need to win both Georgia seats and convince Manchin to get on board). They're proposing set numbers — $10k is the commonly floated number, $50k on the high end — to provide a modicum of relief. So those with the majority of debt (the highest income households) will still owe some student debt.

[Two-Gun Pete]

42 minutes ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

People with student loans are generally middle to upper class folk, who have the ability to make more money due to their degrees. You're b****ing about bailing out the rich, then advocating for a bail out towards the middle to upper class. How is that fair to those who never had college as an option in the first place?

Yawn. We pick winners and losers all the time in this society.

For example, the (permanent) corporate tax cuts in 2017, coupled with the trillion dollar deficits gave cash to the todays rich, while fucking over future taxpayers, by means of piles of debt.

We continue to mint pennies, at a loss, all to succor a few miner interests, rather than doing away with them.

 

 

I'm talking about allowing those who made shitty bets on their education to use the courts, just as your president did to find some relief. AND/or, for those who are terminally overburdened, to be given some measure of relief by allowing some debt to be forgiven/written off.

Why not forgive some student loans, just as PPP loans for Kanye west and other billionaires were forgiven? Some named recipients

 

But yeah, according to you, some schmuck who borrowed student loans is a greater sin than Kanye West getting free money, right?

 

And that aside, if you get the red ass over student loan forgiveness, then means-test it. Or limit it to bachelor's degrees. Or limit it after a certain period of time/amount paid out. It ain't that hard to work this out.

Because again, the courts haven't helped out student borrowers, and the overwhelming majority of student borrowers have paid more back than Ice Cube or Kanye did for their PPP loans.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[ron883]

6 minutes ago, Quin said:

Well, that's the beauty of forgiving student loans. Due to the racial wealth gap that exists in the US, Black households have to borrow more money on average than white households. Now student loans are punishing them for that. So for families that might never have had college as an option in the past and then had to incur massive debt to attend, this is righting a wrong.

Here's the research for that.

Yes, most student debt is owed by higher income households. Here's that research.

But, in this same research from Brookings.

And none of these proposals are saying that they need to wipe out all student loan debt (because Democrats would need to win both Georgia seats and convince Manchin to get on board). They're proposing set numbers — $10k is the commonly floated number, $50k on the high end — to provide a modicum of relief. So those with the majority of debt (the highest income households) will still owe some student debt.

I have student debt still, about 10k left. Would it be cool if they paid it off for me? Of course. Do I need it? Not at all.

Were in the middle of a pandemic and many people have lost their jobs. We're really talking about bailing out the college educated up to $50k while there are people struggling mightily that have gotten only a fraction of that in stimulus checks. 

Believe or not that isn't very fair to a lot of people, and that does matter. 

[ron883]

4 minutes ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Yawn.

We pick winners and losers all the time in this society. The (permanent) corporate tax cuts, coupled with the trillion dollar deficits gave cash to the rich, while fucking over future taxpayers, by means of piles of debt.

We continue to mint pennies, at a loss, all to succor a few miner interests, rather than doing away with them.

 

I'm talking about allowing those who made shitty bets on their education to use the courts, just as your president did. AND/or, for those who are terminally overburdened, to be given some measure of relief. Why not forgive some student loans, just as PPP loans for Kanye west and other billionaires were forgiven? Some named recipients

 

But yeah, according to you, some schmuck who borrowed student loans is a greater sin than Kanye West getting free money, right?

 

And that aside, if you get the red ass over student loan forgiveness, then means-test it. Or limit it to bachelor's degrees. Or limit it after a certain period of time/amount paid out. It ain't that hard to work this out.

Because again, the courts haven't helped out student borrowers, and the overwhelming majority of student borrowers have paid more back than Ice Cube or Kanye did for their PPP loans.

Yes, we get it. The rich get bailed out and play by different rules. News flash: it has always been that way and always will be that way. 

 

 

[Jerksticks]

1 hour ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Ya know, usually I roll my eyes when I see your posts over here.

BUT, college education's inflationary pressures are indeed tied to the easy money associated with student debt. Student loans are the only loans [to my knowledge] that are:

1. Not tied to the value of the item you're purchasing [i.e. your potential future earnings]. A year of tuition is $14,904 at SIU, whether you stoopidly pursue a degree in English, or a degree in Electrical Engineering.

2. Not tied to your future ability to repay. Again, you can borrow the SAME AMOUNT, whether you major in Art History, Recreation, Business Analytics, Nursing, or Civil Engineering.

3. Not able to be discharged through the courts, if one makes a bad bet, based on teenaged stupidity.

4. Not really subject to very much underwriting, given the previous 3 items in this list

 

The first two items speak to luring a stoopid child into a lifetime of debt servitude. The last two items speaks to lenders giving up loans like a $10 whore, without any worry about the ability to repay, or the consequences to the borrower or to society as a whole. 

 

On balance, the pricing structure of a college education is all fucked up. If future borrowers knew they could discharge their loans through a bankruptcy, maybe lenders would demand some reasonable sort of underwriting. Which would then tend to make the REAL majors that can lead to a REAL middle-class lifestyle properly priced, while worthless piece of shit majors that help grocery stores and starbucks in their recruitment more properly priced as well.

 

Then, there's this 19th Century relic of having to "go away to school," which was borne out of having centers of learned men being the only place you could learn anything. Nowadays? Not so much. Greg can learn real information about the real world, if he used the google machine. So can Gen Z-types, whether they're in their mommy's house, or away in Carbondale. To me, extending loans to a child, so that (s)he can live in a dorm [$10K+/year @ SIU, so a total of an ADDITIONAL ~$40K of debt before interest] doesn't make any fucking sense, either. Why do we allow borrowers to borrow money to live in a dorm at all?

 

And, seeing the vomit-inducing contract just given out to Bielema (sp?) as the new highest-paid state of Illinois employee, don't get me started. U of C, Loyola, and UIC all seem to do just fine without a college football program. But that's a whole other irritant to me as a taxpayer in a broke state with tons of shitty sports programs that waste taxpayers' and students' dollars. 

 

So, TL;DR: Children are enticed to borrow money. SOME borrow TOO MUCH money, relative to what they get. Lenders don't bother with underwriting. Schools get away with charging whatever they want. I agree with you. The pricing structure of a degree is all fucked up.

Totally.  But the irony of it is that the educational inflation is 100% the government’s fault for insuring and writing these loans...AND NOW...we want the government to borrow more money from the taxpayer to “fix” the problem they created by insuring these loans in the first place.

It’s interesting to wonder what college would cost today if there were no insured loans.  

[Two-Gun Pete]

3 minutes ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

Yes, we get it. The rich get bailed out and play by different rules. News flash: it has always been that way and always will be that way. 

Dude, come up with a better line of reasoning than this. You feign outrage at a ~$10k or so bit of relief, while yawn at millions of free cash to Kanye.

I mean, reconcile that, or accept being a hypocrite.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[Two-Gun Pete]

3 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

Totally.  But the irony of it is that the educational inflation is 100% the government’s fault for insuring and writing these loans...AND NOW...we want the government to borrow more money from the taxpayer to “fix” the problem they created by insuring these loans in the first place.

It’s interesting to wonder what college would cost today if there were no insured loans.  

FFS, the G supports homebuying/builders/real estate types through their support of all sorts of mortgage programs, and by buying some MBS. 

But, the mortgages are underwritten. (i.e. tied to valuation, & to the borrowers ability to repay.) And, they can be relieved through bankruptcy.

What's resulted from underwriting & relievability is that not EVERYONE who can fog a mirror gets a mortgage. And, the price of residential real estate hasn't escalated out of control over the course of decades.

 

If they did the same with student loans, the cost of college would moderate. Fewer students/families would be buried in debt, IMO.

[Balta1701]

6 hours ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

FFS, the G supports homebuying/builders/real estate types through their support of all sorts of mortgage programs, and by buying some MBS. 

But, the mortgages are underwritten. (i.e. tied to valuation, & to the borrowers ability to repay.) And, they can be relieved through bankruptcy.

What's resulted from underwriting & relievability is that not EVERYONE who can fog a mirror gets a mortgage. And, the price of residential real estate hasn't escalated out of control over the course of decades.

 

If they did the same with student loans, the cost of college would moderate. Fewer students/families would be buried in debt, IMO.

Am I the only one who remembers the decade where the financial industry dumped money into housing loans because simplistic computer models said housing was a perfect investment, doubled the price of the average house, then nearly imploded the economy when it turned out they weren’t worth that leading to a multi trillion dollar set of bailouts?

[Two-Gun Pete]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Am I the only one who remembers the decade where the financial industry dumped money into housing loans because simplistic computer models said housing was a perfect investment, doubled the price of the average house, then nearly imploded the economy when it turned out they weren’t worth that leading to a multi trillion dollar set of bailouts?

Sure. Back before the great recession, lenders gave out NINA Loans (no documented income, no documented assets) that were negative amortization, and interest only. In other words, shitty/no underwriting. I know; back then I originated loans, but left the industry before the recession.

Since then, there arent any NINA mortgages any more. For residential real estate, you gotta produce some proof of income, and some proof of assets for the overwhelming majority of mortgages.

Also, compare the Case Shiller Index to the rate of inflation in college costs. The former is relatively level, while the latter have climbed grotesquely. Go ahead & check how much college costs have gone up since ~2005, compared to the case skillet index. One has gone up, without any correction. The other (real estate) still hasn't gotten back to the levels it was at back then.

 

Ya know what ARE a type of "NINA LOAN?" Student loans. Pretty much everyone who wants one can get one, and pretty much as much as they want. Even if you'll NEVER be able to pay them off, you can get as much as you want. 

And this is part of the reason why college costs are out of control, while student/parent debt continues to rise faster than most other types of debt.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[The Beast]

14 hours ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Ya know, usually I roll my eyes when I see your posts over here.

BUT, college education's inflationary pressures are indeed tied to the easy money associated with student debt. Student loans are the only loans [to my knowledge] that are:

1. Not tied to the value of the item you're purchasing [i.e. your potential future earnings]. A year of tuition is $14,904 at SIU, whether you stoopidly pursue a degree in English, or a degree in Electrical Engineering.

2. Not tied to your future ability to repay. Again, you can borrow the SAME AMOUNT, whether you major in Art History, Recreation, Business Analytics, Nursing, or Civil Engineering.

3. Not able to be discharged through the courts, if one makes a bad bet, based on teenaged stupidity.

4. Not really subject to very much underwriting, given the previous 3 items in this list

 

The first two items speak to luring a stoopid child into a lifetime of debt servitude. The last two items speaks to lenders giving up loans like a $10 whore, without any worry about the ability to repay, or the consequences to the borrower or to society as a whole. 

 

On balance, the pricing structure of a college education is all fucked up. If future borrowers knew they could discharge their loans through a bankruptcy, maybe lenders would demand some reasonable sort of underwriting. Which would then tend to make the REAL majors that can lead to a REAL middle-class lifestyle properly priced, while worthless piece of shit majors that help grocery stores and starbucks in their recruitment more properly priced as well.

 

Then, there's this 19th Century relic of having to "go away to school," which was borne out of having centers of learned men being the only place you could learn anything. Nowadays? Not so much. Greg can learn real information about the real world, if he used the google machine. So can Gen Z-types, whether they're in their mommy's house, or away in Carbondale. To me, extending loans to a child, so that (s)he can live in a dorm [$10K+/year @ SIU, so a total of an ADDITIONAL ~$40K of debt before interest] doesn't make any fucking sense, either. Why do we allow borrowers to borrow money to live in a dorm at all?

 

And, seeing the vomit-inducing contract just given out to Bielema (sp?) as the new highest-paid state of Illinois employee, don't get me started. U of C, Loyola, and UIC all seem to do just fine without a college football program. But that's a whole other irritant to me as a taxpayer in a broke state with tons of shitty sports programs that waste taxpayers' and students' dollars. 

 

So, TL;DR: Children are enticed to borrow money. SOME borrow TOO MUCH money, relative to what they get. Lenders don't bother with underwriting. Schools get away with charging whatever they want. I agree with you. The pricing structure of a degree is all fucked up.

We need more Illinois fiscal politics discussions around here. Hope you’ll join in on discussing pension reform while you’re at it!?