2825

Woooooowwwwwww. Boom.

2826

I can explain this, at least: swings often hang from chains-- which is the “swing with a chain”. He was trying to unhook the swing from the swing-set, and the falling chain hit him hard.

2827

Man, she is so good at this.

2828

As a conservative, free university isn’t unthinkable. But you’d have to sharply reduce the number of people who can attend, otherwise the costs would destroy the program. You’d also want to pair back on luxuries. But that I think is actually very desirable.

My alma mater is building a multimillion dollar yoga studio, for example. And that’s just a waste of money, and another way to drive up the cost for everyone, without bettering anyones education.

Cheap loans are the biggest mistake we’ve made in higher education though. They’ve created runaway inflation, and like all subsidies, they’ve simply made things more expensive.

We’ve shot ourselves in the foot.

2829
2830

Okay, that almost made me spit cola out my nose.

2831

Or make it so that there are other restrictions, such as applying to local state and community colleges. Incentivizing community colleges for basics and general classes would be a good thing, as these would be less costly per credit hour than at larger universities.

Also reduce the stigma of using community colleges. Because it was a thing, at least when I graduated, for them to be perceived as inferior.

I actually agree. This is as much a donor problem as anything though. They want to donate to colleges, for various reasons, but want it to be for prestige too. And more prestige in luxury amenities than there is basic maintenance. Million dollar yoga studio with donor names? Easy to get that alumni money for. Same amount of money to replace and repair the wiring and networking equipment in all buildings on campus? Good luck finding that sugar daddy donor.

It is also a recruiting thing. Unfortunately there is a certain amount of ‘keeping up with the joneses’ and marketing spent to convince people that XYZ is needed. All to convince out of state and foreign students, which are often more profitable for the school, to attend there.

Problem: the issue isn’t the loans, per se. because in many ways the alternative is worse. Telling poor and middle class kids ‘fuck you’ for not being rich, and dooming them with inferior job prospects.

No the problem is education, to a lesser degree than medical care but still largely true, has inelastic demand. We told entire generations growing up that literally the only path to success and good jobs was college degrees. And my generation was specifically explicitly and implicitly told that if you go to college, you will get a good job. If you do not go to college, you will not get a good job. So to have any chance at job security it was not optional, but mandatory, to get a college degree.

There are a lot of reasons for this, many to do with corporate changes away from investing in workers and more towards employees as replaceable cogs. But the requirement of a degree crept into places it never had before. Jobs transitioned away from trades and more towards skilled work as well. There is a greater demand for technical competence than previous generations had. And traditional alternative career paths, such as manufacturing, automated away from blue collar workers to a smaller pool of skilled technicians.

Cheaper loans did not drive demand for college degrees. It merely enabled those who may have otherwise been excluded from attending.

2832

Excellent post.

Cheaper loans did not drive demand for college degrees.

Agreed, as you said earlier, we were all told that college was a necessity. That it was the only way to get a good job.

It merely enabled those who may have otherwise been excluded from attending.

This is where I disagree. Colleges are traditionally generous to the poor. It was the middle class students who took out loans.

And here’s the devil. The loans were effectively unlimited, and thanks to a well intended reform, you can not discharge them through bankruptcy.

That put universities in a plum position. Their customers believed that college was essential, and they could borrow as much as required.

Here’s the 2015 study from the New York Fed that explored the issue.

“We study the link between the student credit expansion of the past fifteen years and the
contemporaneous rise in college tuition.”

“We find a pass-through effect on tuition of changes in subsidized loan maximums of about 60 cents on the dollar, and smaller but positive effects for unsubsidized federal loans. The subsidized loan effect is most pronounced for more expensive degrees, those offered by private institutions, and for two-year or vocational programs.”

2833

This is not true if you don’t go to a heavyily competitive private school that had money to give. The for profits didn’t target the poor and sale them with bad or poor degrees because all the other schools just gave them free school. Also with the fees, the living expensive and all the other stuff that is not tution, it’s still a lot.

2834

Someone is getting mad that the GOP has monopolized the attention of the crazies for the last couple decades, and they have decided to strike back!

For most of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) Thursday town hall, the woman in a black jacket sat quietly in the third row. Then, as the event in Corona, N.Y., neared its end, the woman suddenly stood up and began yelling about climate change. “But we’re not going to be here much long because of the climate crisis,” the woman blurted. “We got to start eating babies,” she abruptly declared, taking off her jacket to display a T-shirt that read, “Save the planet. Eat the children.”

The Internet quickly figured out that this was some kind of staged stunt to embarrass AOC. But who was behind it? Jacob Wohl? (No, he was too busy hiring fake male escorts.) James O’Keefe?

Turns out the answer was a golden oldie:

The woman was apparently part of an attempt by a right-wing fringe political group to embarrass the Democratic congresswoman. Late Thursday, a Twitter account belonging to the LaRouche PAC — which was founded by conspiracy theorist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. — took credit for the stunt. A historian who has documented the organization said the woman’s outburst was “a fairly well-established tactic for them.”

Ah, I remember the good old days, when the only notable completely insane, frothing-at-the-mouth nutcases in politics were a tiny group of LaRouchies, and not a major political party and the President of the United States.

2835

Don’t worry - Fox is on to the hoax. Or not…

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2836

Yeah, my crazy brother-in-law has latched on to the Democrats eating babies (when they’re not acting out their pedophile fantasies)

2837

You can’t have your cake and fuck it too, as they are wont to say.

2838

Does he seriously think that Democrats eat babies?

2839

He believes Trump is the ultimate “alpha male” so I assume he’ll believe literally anything.

2840
2841

Wonder if Candace thinks she’d be welcome at a neo nazi rally.

2842

and this is why Reddit is still a secure base and wellspring for Trump’s socmedia presence.

image

2843

GOP “Icon” caught in incel rampage overseas
;)

2844

Lol.