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And We Pay, and
Pay, and Pay...
By Kate Burch
Will Rogers, iconic American cowboy philosopher, once said, “Be
thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”
One current example of the ongoing violation of the American taxpayer
is the huge accumulation of student-loan debt---more than $1 trillion
now---promoted and subsidized by the federal government, which is now
working to make sure that it doesn’t have to be repaid. Jason
Delisle of the New America Foundation describes in the Dec. 31 Wall
Street Journal how the feds, via loan forbearance and forgiveness
programs are putting the taxpayer on the hook and moving closer to the
“progressive” goal of making college yet another federal
entitlement.
Students who participate in the easily accessed loan forbearance
programs will pay installments that in many cases do not even cover the
interest on their loans, and the loans are automatically forgiven after
a designated time period or if the graduate opts to work for the
government or in the nonprofits favored by the government.
Meanwhile, the easy money swells the coffers of the schools which, as
you have probably noticed, keep expanding and increasing the
luxuriousness of the campuses.
As a psychologist, I can tell you that only 25% of the population is
intellectually equipped to succeed at a true college-level
curriculum. (That’s why it has been called “higher
education.”) We are all being cheated by the dumbing-down of
secondary and college-level schooling that perpetuates the fiction that
everyone can—or should—get a college degree and turns out graduates who
may be unable to demonstrate academic prowess beyond even the
middle-school level and who cannot succeed in many jobs that their
credentials would suggest they can handle. The prolongation of
adolescence keeps our children in schools that are too often hotbeds of
leftist propaganda. Parents also suffer the drain on their
pocketbooks of continuing the support of young adults who would, if
secondary schools were maintaining rigorous academic standards, be
prepared to support themselves by the time they reached their
majority.
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