US Presidential Race

by Blue Barrett Mon Jul 11, 2016 4:06 pm

She also would impose a three-month moratorium on student loan payments, which would give borrowers a chance to consolidate their loans. Her campaign said she would also restore year-round Pell Grant funding — an issue Congress is considering.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-free-tuition-225158#ixzz4E72QHqHA

by CBarca Mon Jul 11, 2016 4:40 pm

I don't have a problem with the plan. I like it, I think it's reasonable, even.

Just that I can't see it going anywhere. Same thing for a lot of Sanders proposals tbh, I guess in a way I'm just trying to be fair and throw the same skepticism back at Hillary that Sanders got (which I'm not saying was unfair).

Find it hard to imagine this country ever accepting "free college" for anyone. It goes against our long held values of working hard to get ahead and oppressing the middle/lower classes.

by Blue Barrett Mon Jul 11, 2016 4:45 pm

Millennials are the only ones suffering college debt so *bleep* them. We don't want the next generation to be buried in debt as well.

I do think she's gonna have to make compromises because Republicans will do all they can to make life hell for her.

by zizzle Mon Jul 11, 2016 5:32 pm

As a 30 year old free college pisses me off after all what i've paid to get my degrees, but then again i could go back and get me another degree in my spare time.

by Blue Barrett Mon Jul 11, 2016 5:45 pm

Whenever it pisses you lot of, take solace in the fact that your kids will have free college.

by DuringTheWar Mon Jul 11, 2016 8:43 pm

According to some educational statistics from the Broad foundation:

-Out of 30 industrialised countries Amercia's students rank 25th in maths and 21st in science.
-The elite US math students are 25th out of 30 compared to the others' elite math students.
-68% of 8th graders can't read proficiently, most of who won't catch up.
-80% of high achieving students admit to cheating.
-95% of the cheaters go undetected.

What is freeeeee college going to do? Turn semi-illiterate joe who can't do arithmetic, into the next Theodore Adorno? God what is the future of America going to look like.

by rincon Mon Jul 11, 2016 8:49 pm

So you identify education as a problem and then bash on the principle of making education more accessible?

What is free college going to do? it allows students to graduate unburdened of debt and makes it accessible for poorer kids that wouldn't consider it otherwise. How anyone can complain about that is a mystery.

by DuringTheWar Mon Jul 11, 2016 9:18 pm

Making higher learning more accessible. College is not the place to go to learn basics.

I mean I see all this talk about equalising the field through making college free, and I'm like, a great chunk of America, especially the poor and minorities, can't read, can't do math, don't know jack shit about anything basically. They got free education, public school is free right? The eduction system's failed them.

I'm not exactly complaining about the idea of free college I'm more concerned about the dumbing down of America and any notion that the free college is some sort of solution to that. (Not that I've seen that being claimed here)

by VivaStPauli Mon Jul 11, 2016 11:10 pm

Free college would probably take the burden off students, teachers, and schools to just teach how to take tests. Right now everybody and their mum try to get into the few scholarship programs that will pay for your education, or part of it. Otherwise it's monumental amounts of debt, that cripple low income households for decades.

Being freed from that pressure could mean schools could then reform their didactic concepts towards transferring knowledge, not producing good SAT scores.
IMHO that would help quite a bit.

All those fancy nations that tend to top those lists in all those student rankings? Usually have rather relaxed schools, where kids get to learn about life just as much as about the parts of the subjects that will be in the test.

And that's just the utilitarian argument - I haven't even touched on the moral argument of charging money for education, something that is deeply offensive to my soft, spongy European sensitivities. (Shut up, English, you left, I know you're the exception. And had your education been better, your dumb referendum wouldn't be biting you in your bloody stupid arses right now.)

by Moondoggie Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:47 am

zizzle wrote:As a 30 year old free college pisses me off after all what i've paid to get my degrees, but then again i could go back and get me another degree in my spare time.

When I graduated from college in 1980, I walked into the business office on the last day of classes and picked up a $600 check to reimburse me for expenses of living off campus. I had zero debt. The Pell Grant, scholarships and work study covered the entire cost of my 4-year degree (and I went to a private liberal arts college, not a state school). I want that for today's kids.

I can't even fathom having gone to college had I been facing the enormous debt graduates are stuck with today. I was the first in my family to go to college anyway and had things been then as they are now I would have ended up working at a building supply company like my father or some such job rather than going into journalism.

by Blue Barrett Tue Jul 12, 2016 9:23 am

DuringTheWar wrote:Making higher learning more accessible. College is not the place to go to learn basics.

I mean I see all this talk about equalising the field through making college free, and I'm like, a great chunk of America, especially the poor and minorities, can't read, can't do math, don't know jack shit about anything basically. They got free education, public school is free right? The eduction system's failed them.

I'm not exactly complaining about the idea of free college I'm more concerned about the dumbing down of America and any notion that the free college is some sort of solution to that. (Not that I've seen that being claimed here)

To add to VivaStPauli's points, while I understand your point, I would argue that free education does not dumb down the standard of colleges. You're still going to go on probation if your GPA is too low and you're going to get kicked out if it remains low/goes lower. There's still a standard each school maintains (they get to decide what the threshold is in their respective cases).

And in that case, that individual wouldn't be able to say they never got a chance to go to college. If you get that chance and you *bleep* it up, then that's 100% on you and you're not serious about life. Now you can go do whatever you think is better for your life. The government has done its best for you.

There are way more pros than cons to it imo. But I don't think it'll happen.

by Guest Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:13 pm

Moondoggie wrote:
zizzle wrote:As a 30 year old free college pisses me off after all what i've paid to get my degrees, but then again i could go back and get me another degree in my spare time.

When I graduated from college in 1980, I walked into the business office on the last day of classes and picked up a $600 check to reimburse me for expenses of living off campus. I had zero debt. The Pell Grant, scholarships and work study covered the entire cost of my 4-year degree (and I went to a private liberal arts college, not a state school). I want that for today's kids.

I can't even fathom having gone to college had I been facing the enormous debt graduates are stuck with today. I was the first in my family to go to college anyway and had things been then as they are now I would have ended up working at a building supply company like my father or some such job rather than going into journalism.

Did you end up working in journalism?

Most Journalism grads I went to school with work at starbucks/Home Depot now

by Moondoggie Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:59 pm

Betty La Fea wrote:

Did you end up working in journalism?

Most Journalism grads I went to school with work at starbucks/Home Depot now

I worked in journalism for 25 years, most of those as sports editor of daily papers in West Virginia and Texas, but with a couple of stints in news. But I preferred sports because, as I always liked to say, basketball games don't break out at 3 a.m. Fires do. Then I went into college administration (sports information and public relations). I actually had a part-time job writing and photographing sports for the local paper in my last two years in college.

But things were a lot different then. Newspapers were still the primary way people got their news. Cable news was in its infancy and the internet as we know it today was decades away. It's been sad to watch newspapers dying a slow and painful death. And the fact that cable news and the internet are such big reasons why so many people are woefully misinformed makes it that much worse. I was just saying to someone the other day that the internet is both the greatest thing to happen to information and the worst.

by RealGunner Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:15 pm

Part of the reason why so many newspapers have started asking for memberships from people who wish to read the articles online. Because no one actually buy newspapers anymore lol. Same with magazines such as economist. Journalism has definitely taken a different direction. Most are social media orientated now as it is apparent on twitter.

by zizzle Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:23 pm

Moondoggie wrote:
zizzle wrote:As a 30 year old free college pisses me off after all what i've paid to get my degrees, but then again i could go back and get me another degree in my spare time.

When I graduated from college in 1980, I walked into the business office on the last day of classes and picked up a $600 check to reimburse me for expenses of living off campus. I had zero debt. The Pell Grant, scholarships and work study covered the entire cost of my 4-year degree (and I went to a private liberal arts college, not a state school). I want that for today's kids.

I can't even fathom having gone to college had I been facing the enormous debt graduates are stuck with today. I was the first in my family to go to college anyway and had things been then as they are now I would have ended up working at a building supply company like my father or some such job rather than going into journalism.

There was a time when it was possible to work part time and still graduate relatively debt free. My uncle did that in the 80s and he graduated with a phd while working in a bakery. Obviously that's impossible these days so i agree that and some kind of reform is needed.

by Tomwin Lannister Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:28 pm

Free college would be a great thing, certainly wouldn't dumb Murica down. There are plenty of people from poor backgrounds who are naturally intelligent but have been let down by circumstances outside of their control. You still keep the standards and expectations high, so there won't be too many illiterate law students Laughing

Zizzle has a point though obviously, it's annoying for those who have already paid. Just like i'm bitter that I won't be getting several thousand Pounds of free money in the form of a grant when I go to Uni however progress is a good thing even if it passed you by. Wonder if they will address that point.

Especially considering if it did happen there would even be an overlap of people going to the same college a couple years apart, some paying out their ass, some getting it for free.

by Moondoggie Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:03 pm

RealGunner wrote:Part of the reason why so many newspapers have started asking for memberships from people who wish to read the articles online. Because no one actually buy newspapers anymore lol. Same with magazines such as economist. Journalism has definitely taken a different direction. Most are social media orientated now as it is apparent on twitter.

Exactly. Newspapers contributed to their own demise by ignoring the threat posed by the internet for too long (I'm not smart enough to say, even retroactively, what they should have done, but they should have done something). But even now it doesn't make much difference whether they give their content away or not. The New York Times and the (just recently) the Washington Post have gone to a "10 free articles a month" format for non-subscribers, but you can always find the information repackaged somewhere. I doubt newspapers will even exist in printed form in 20 years. That's sad to me, but time marches on.

zizzle wrote:

There was a time when it was possible to work part time and still graduate relatively debt free. My uncle did that in the 80s and he graduated with a phd while working in a bakery. Obviously that's impossible these days so i agree that and some kind of reform is needed.

It's staggering how much costs have gone up over the past few decades. The sad thing is that little of that cost increase has had anything to do with providing a better education. Money has gone to administration and football coaches while colleges and universities increasingly rely on less qualified part-time adjunct professors to teach classes. The Pell Grant and other scholarship and grant funding have not kept pace and loans have been encouraged in order to boost profits for banks. It's just another way that things have been restructured over the past 35 years to redistribute wealth upward. The profit motive should be removed from both education and health care.

Personally, I believe debt forgiveness is needed for the people who have been saddled with all this massive debt just to get an education. A better educated populace benefits all of us. Saddling graduates with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt only benefits banks.

by CBarca Sun Jul 24, 2016 9:22 pm

The DNC

Wasserman Schultz lmao

by FennecFox7 Mon Jul 25, 2016 10:42 am

College doesn't have to be free. It just has to be affordable. And professors deserve a lot more then what they get

by Pedram Mon Jul 25, 2016 6:53 pm

DNC convention is going to be a clusterfck, get your popcorns ready.

by VivaStPauli Mon Jul 25, 2016 7:10 pm

Will be a a boring affair, well-oiled political machine getting it's gears to spin neatly. There will be no scandal, and no dissent. Democrats will close ranks, and do so quietly and efficiently.

by BarrileteCosmico Thu Jul 28, 2016 2:11 am

Trump calls for Russia to hack Clinton. This guy Laughing

If I were Clinton I would just run 1 ad showing Trump praising Putin, his top advisers all having close ties to Putin, and then the video of Trump asking Russia for help.

by Freeza Thu Jul 28, 2016 2:12 am

There's no need to run smear campaigns, even if they're fact, against Trump.

The people voting for him clearly don't give a crap. That or they're the most ignorant bunch I've witnessed.

by DuringTheWar Thu Jul 28, 2016 2:47 am

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Trump calls for Russia to hack Clinton. This guy

If I were Clinton I would just run 1 ad showing Trump praising Putin, his top advisers all having close ties to Putin, and then the video of Trump asking Russia for help.

Problem is this isn't the 80s.
I think most people would be happy if satan himself brought the illegally deleted emails into the light.

by Cruijf Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:20 am

VivaStPauli wrote:Will be a a boring affair, well-oiled political machine getting it's gears to spin neatly. There will be no scandal, and no dissent. Democrats will close ranks, and do so quietly and efficiently.

Hasn't been very quiet or efficient so far hmm

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