Dumb Trump supporters raise mortgage rates, reduce money for Social Security and Medicare, and Make America A Laughing Stock.

    • flipht@kbin.social
      122·
      1 年前

      I don’t think it’s particularly complex.

      They captured state houses and gutted state budgets for direct funding to universities. Simultaneously, democrats tried to make up the difference at the national level by pushing for and getting pell grants, which are dedicated grant funds. This means there’s a dedicated amount of federal funds on the table every year, which mitigates against the market forces that would otherwise push tuition prices back down.

      Students are then encouraged to take personal loans to cover the manufactured shortfall. Students can’t discharge this in bankruptcy, which encourages bad lending practices.

      Almost all of this is very normal cause and effect with plenty of analogous historical examples, so even if we the idiot people don’t get it, you can be pretty sure that our highly educated and wealthy elected officials knew exactly what would happen.

      If this were all too confusing or complex to know the outcome, then at least some of the time we’d see benefit randomly go to the individual. But it doesn’t, ever.

        • flipht@kbin.social
          11·
          1 年前

          Let me clarify. It is complicated - there are a lot of moving parts, as you say. But again, that is 100% design choice.

          Complexity means that there’s some level of uncertainty. I don’t believe that there’s any uncertainty with how we have structured education. It works consistently to force individuals to shoulder the burden, while providing benefit to the people who need it least. If you implement these policies, you’ll get the same outcome every time.

        • snooggums@kbin.social
          22·
          1 年前

          You know what would help with rising costs and increased enrollment?

          Not eliminating funding.

        • flipht@kbin.social
          2·
          1 年前

          Sure was. Was using swipe typing in bright sunlight. Fixed a few of the glaring typos. Thanks!

      • hoodatninja@kbin.social
        31·
        1 年前

        I’m not sure I agree. It’s had a huge impact on community colleges and a lot of state schools, but the issues really are varied and impact different schools/states in different ways and to different degrees.

        Make no mistake, the democrats are better for schools than republicans. But we can’t just blame every single thing on republicans or we sound like them calling everyone they disagree with a commie in the 2000’s/2010’s.

        • samus7070@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          1 年前

          You should cite some of the other reasons rather than just saying they exist. For example administrative staffing costs have risen dramatically over the last few decades. The upper management of universities now make CEO like wages. Universities are competing on amenities more than they are academics. Nice housing and recreational complexes are the norm while full time professors are all being replaced by adjuncts who aren’t paid a living wage. The economics are broken.

          • Domriso@kbin.social
            1·
            1 年前

            While correct, the real problem came when they made banks unable to refuse college loans. Suddenly, colleges could set whatever price they wanted, and the banks had to agree. That skyrocketed costs and directly led to the current situation.

            Of course, it really started even further back than that when we allowed education to be privately funded rather than a public good.

              • hoodatninja@kbin.social
                1·
                1 年前

                We don’t bat an eye at having tax-funded libraries (well the GOP is starting to…) because we have internalized as a society that they’re a good thing. I have never understood why we can’t do the same with schools.

        • snooggums@kbin.social
          21·
          1 年前

          If Republicans didn’t spend the majority of their energy on destroying anything publicly funded I would stop blaming them first for destroying everything publicly funded.