Home > Obama: Saviour of Higher Education?
Obama: Saviour of Higher Education?
by Timbre Wolf - Open-Publishing - Sunday 29 April 20121 comment
So let me get this straight. President Obama is asking Congress NOT to raise interest rates on student loans. Have I got this right, so far?
Well, that might look pretty good to US college students and their parents . . . expenses NOT going up and all.
Then there’s they "issue" of how the president "got the word out." He delivered the message in a "slow jam" on Jimmy Fallon’s show. From the "left" he gets points for style. From the "right" (party of Richard Nixon) he was"unpresidential" (Nixon, incidentally, appeared in a equally "unpresidential" fashion on Rowen and Martin’s Laugh In - but we don’t hear much about that OR Romney’s similar "antics").
Rev. Al Sharpton says that the "right" can’t get Obama on substance so they have to get him on style. And that’s true because the Republican agenda is to cut ALL government "entitlements" for US citizens. Notice that they NEVER talk about cutting the grotesquely bloated US military budget (except for a little ol’ fellow from Texas named Ron Paul - a real thorn in their side, so-to-speak).
But "I" can get at a REAL substantive issue on this matter because I don’t have a political agenda - or, perhaps I should say, it’s not on the charts.
TOTAL US Student loan debt appears to be about a trillion dollars at 3.4% interest. That sounds like a lot. But that’s a lot of students, families, and communities benefiting from a greater knowledge base.
US military spending for ONE YEAR (2008) was near a trillion dollars.
Repeat: TOTAL student loan debt = one trillion dollars. US military expenditure for ONE YEAR = one trillion dollars.
Next up: student loan interest rates/Fed to banks interest rates.
The "Federal Reserve Bank" (the only true word is "bank") has loaned trillions and trillions of dollars, to haywire banksters run amok, at "NEAR ZERO" interest rates.
And I’m supposed to be worked into a fever of groveling appreciation because Obama has "stepped in" and discouraged congress from raising student loan interest rates - something which was immoral and destructive to begin with?
I don’t think so.
If you didn’t know: the following countries provide FREE college education for their citizens and, in some cases, anyone who comes to study in their country.
Algeria, Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Kenya (you know. . . where Obama was born HA! Gotcha), Malta, Mauritius, Morocco, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Trinidad, Tobago, Tunisia, Brunei, Turkey, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay
The cost of a college education is calculated a $17k (in state) to $40k (out-of-state) for students attending four-year public colleges and universities.
The REAL question is: Why can’t America, one of the (if not THE), richest countries in the world subsidize a college education for their promising and talented young people?
ALL student loan debt should be forgiven - a trillion dollars would instantly start flowing back into the economy!
And ALL college should be free to students. Take it from Russia.
Forum posts
2 May 2012, 20:28, by Faletua
Right on again Wolf! We’re already so far behind in education if something (college education) isn’t addressed and a solution found soon we may as well forget about it.