Special Commentary by Big Dan: "This post is about college debt. Just like yesterday's health care post, I know first hand about this. My son is going to leave college with a 6-figure debt of loans. The interest on it is 5 figures and he didn't graduate yet. My daughter is halfway through college, so we're piled up with college loan debt. Most other industrialized countries have free or very little cost college education. Now, there are those of you who say, 'Then don't go to college' or 'Go to a community college'. What you're really saying, is we live in a country where only the rich and privileged get to go to college where they want and major in what they want. There are those of you who would like that. This is another symbol of what this country has become: the 'haves' and the 'have nots' who are not given a chance to educate themselves to move up, or they end up with enough college debt so they can't get married and buy their first house. How are these kids going to get out of college and get their first house and get married? If they get married to someone who went to college, too, that's double the debt! This country has become a country that doesn't care about these things. Not a very good country. Not the one we were told it was growing up. It's become a country where the rich keep getting richer with scams and the poor keep getting poorer. There are those of you who might say 'then leave it'. You're the same ones saying 'then don't go to college'. If I don't leave this country, maybe YOU should! Our politicians are quick to bail out millionaire and billionaire banksters, but won't bailout American kids getting an education. Are the people who say, 'then don't go to college' in an uproar about this? Wake up! Besides the billionaires' financial schemes, Americans have no money left to spend because of medical premiums and medical bills not covered by their sham insurances and college debt!!!"
Amid massive government bailouts of the nation’s banks, we speak to the Reverend Jesse Jackson about “Reduce the Rate,” his new campaign urging the Obama administration to slash the interest rates on crippling student loans. We also speak with Alan Collinge, founder of Student Loan Justice and author of The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History—and How We Can Fight Back.
Reduce the Rate: Rev. Jesse Jackson Joins Movement Against Crippling Rates on Student Loans
We get Rev. Jackson’s reaction to Attorney General Eric Holder’s branding of the US as a “nation of cowards,” a comment that drew a rebuke from President Obama. Rev. Jackson also talks about Obama’s plans to boost support for charter schools and his thoughts on the ongoing controversy surrounding Illinois Senator Roland Burris.
Rev. Jesse Jackson on Attorney Gen. Holder's "Nation of Cowards" Speech, Education Reform, and Sen. Roland Burris
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At core, student debt is a labor issue, as colonial indenture was, subsisting off the desire of those less privileged to gain better opportunities and enforcing a control on their future labor. One of the goals of the planners of the modern U.S. university system after the Second World War was to displace what they saw as an aristocracy that had become entrenched at elite schools; instead they promoted equal opportunity in order to build America through its best talent. The rising tide of student debt reinforces rather than dissolves the discriminations of class, counteracting the meritocracy. Finally, I believe that the current system of college debt violates the spirit of American freedom in leading those less privileged to bind their futures.
Are Students the New Indentured Servants? College student-loan debt has revived the spirit of indenture for a sizable proportion of contemporary Americans.
Student loans, for more than half those attending college, are the new paradigm of college funding. Consequently, student debt is, or will soon be, the new paradigm of early to middle adult life. Gone are the days when the state university was as cheap as a laptop and was considered a right, like secondary education. Now higher education is, like most social services, a largely privatized venture, and loans are the chief way that a majority of individuals pay for it.
Debt Education: Bad for the Young, Bad for America
Market endangers state-run prepaid tuition plans
