Tighten Up on Student Loans

Shortly before Elizabeth Warren dropped out, a man confronted her about forgiving $1 trillion+ in student debt. “My daughter is getting out of school,” he said. I saved all my money. She doesn't have any student loans. Am I going to get any money back?”

“Of course not," Warren said.

“So you're going to pay for people who didn't save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?” he said.

As The Washington Free Beacon reported it: “Warren told the man her policy would not disadvantage him, but he described how he and his daughter sacrificed to avoid going into debt, while others spent money on cars and vacations. ‘My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money," he said. "He made more than I did. But I worked a double shift, worked extra—my daughter worked since she was 10. So, you're laughing.’”

“No, I'm not,” Warren said.

“Yeah, that's exactly what you're doing," he said. “We did the right thing, and we get screwed.”

I could identify with that guy and so could millions of other Americans — and not just fathers. Anyone who has struggled for years, decades even, to pay off student loans would be pissed at being forced to pay off other people’s student loans through higher taxes.

While I wasn’t among them, there are people who know exactly what they want to do after graduating from high school and they follow that career path for the rest of their lives. A week before classes started in September I enrolled in a community college that September but had no idea about what to major in, so I dubbed around liberal arts courses for a couple of years. State-subsidized tuition was very reasonable and I could pay all my expenses with a part-time job during school and working full-time over vacations and summers. Classes were easy and I did the minimum. With no particular goal other than maintaining a student deferment (the draft was still on), I dropped out after Nixon reduced American involvement in Vietnam enough that getting drafted became unlikely.

After working various jobs for a couple of years I decided to become a teacher, so it was back to school for a couple of more years while continuing to work full-time. After obtaining a teaching position, I attended graduate school and paid for that myself as well by working additional jobs during summers. I never took out any loans and never got help from parents either. As a husband and father, I took out loans to help my children to go to college and they took out loans as well. Then my wife decided to go back to school and she took out loans. It took years to pay them all off.

As an undergrad I rushed off after class to work the 2nd shift while many of my fellow students went partying. Some of them had prosperous parents. Others had taken out loans. I graduated with no debt, lots of work experience, and time-management skills. Too many of my fellow students just prolonged their adolescence four more years, and not a few took six or more years to finish because they partied so much. Should their student debts be forgiven? Certainly not.

Unless they’re in STEM majors, today’s students are indoctrinated by leftist instructors, graduate with negative views of capitalism, and are more likely to vote for socialist candidates according to polls cited by salon.com. They’re taught to believe old white guys like me are enemies of everyone else and responsible for virtually all of the world’s historical ills — especially any suffered by women and minorities. Some still work their way through as I did, but most do not. They’ve become over-reliant on government assistance in the form of grants and loans. Should their student debt be forgiven? Certainly not.

They’ve also come to view college as a “right” just like “free” medical care. They think a lot of things should be free because they haven’t learned that nothing is free. They believe Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren when they claim that all we have to do is raise taxes on “the rich” and on “Wall Street” and it will all be paid for. They’re not taught that “the rich” are not only paying their “fair share”; they’re paying the vast majority of all income taxes collected each year. Neither do they learn that 50% of Americans aren’t paying any at all. Not only do they pay nothing, they actually get checks in the form of Earned Income Tax Credits.

Colleges charge more and more for teaching less and less to students who think themselves entitled. Grants and loans should be tied to performance by students in majors that guarantee employment after graduation. Those in majors like Art History, Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, and other dubious subjects should pay their own way.