I see no problem in subsidizing education and dropping subsidies on Big Oil and all. Seriously, you'd rather give tax dollars to big oil profit rather than educate the very people who pay those tax dollars?!?
The "half pay no Federal taxes" is net.
I just wish that somebody would show ONE of these subsidies to a single oil company. As much as is claimed that they get, I would tend to think the it could be shown, maybe dug up out of a GAO report or something? I've not seen anything yet.
This is not true, the colleges due assume some of the responsibility in making sure their students are paying their loans. They must maintain a Default Rate that is acceptable(25% or less normally) or their Federal Finacial Aid will be reduced or eliminated.
So yes schools do care about the product they are producing and generally speaking the FA office does not like the fact that the loan eligiblity maximums keep going up. They are normally people with a degree, normally loans also and know the difficulties of paying them off. They are the ones tasked with tracking and maintaining the Default rate of the school.
If they were truly worried about the default rate, they could, oh, I don't know...lower the tuition rates???
I commend you for graduating in 4, and paying off your loans. This quoted portion of your 'rant' though, hmmmmm???
I was into art and music ever since I can remember- as a Piscean also born near the ocean Im a natural major 'dreamer'. My father didnt go to college but my mother did. (My father joined the Marines after highschool in Oklahoma, worked as cop for awhile after the Marines, then started his own auto body/mechanic business in southern California and eventually owned a chain of auto parts/auto paint stores. My mothers father was a character actor in the 30s and 40s in Hollywood and she was a child piano protege playing stages all over the world as a kid, then after highschool in LA she went to USC majoring in business and got into banking after graduating college- she just retired as the co-owner of a successful small chain of small credit unions her and 2 buddies from school started in the early 60s. I dont think my mom took out loans to go to school, back in the 50s I suppose school was cheaper plus they worked while they went to school).
Myself, I am the dreamer, I had been into art and music since I was little. By the 6th grade I was illustrating for a school newspaper and taking classical guitar lessons. I did art for school projects, high school newspapers and the yearbooks as well as a side business doing business window advertisement art. I designed a park in San Diego in a contest and won the contest and was given a scholarship to art school as a result. I also was teaching students at my instructors guitar school and working part time in a local music store besides playing weekend gigs in a rock band. I moved to San Francisco after highschool to go to art school on the scholarship at one school and took music composition and drama/stage technical courses at another school while playing in rock bands at night and weekends to pay the rent at the dump I lived in in Oakland with some buddies. I took out no school loans outside of my art scholarship, paying for music school out of my pocket. After graduating from art school with basically the equivalent of a college associate or technical school degree I went to work in a tattoo shop as an apprentice. I worked for FREE for 2 years while apprenticing during all hours of the shop, usually noon to midnight, and for a year did nothing but the grunt work and janitorial duties of the shop. I managed to survive playing music nights and weekends but had to drop out of music school because I didnt have time for it.
My mother was not happy with what I was doing though saying I needed a BACKUP to the art and music HOBBIES (my parents always called my art and music HOBBIES...) so I entered a highly regarded mortuary school in San Francisco where I did take out student loans. Eventually about the time I finished the tri-mester mortuary course I was also winding down my apprenticeship at the tattoo shop and I married one of the other artists in the tattoo shop. We both quit the shop and moved up to northern California where I owned property left to me by my grandfather and we started the first of our tattoo shops with money from a trust fund left to me by my grandfather that I couldnt touch until I was 21. After a few years of running the shop and after my first kid was born we bought into a friends shop in Las Vegas and another friends shop in Des Moines Iowa. I was playing music in a touring/recording rock band and also helping run the shops. Eventually we sold our interest in the Vegas shop, covered our stuff at our house in Cali and moved to Iowa to help run the busiest of our shops and for me to join a band there. Then came the divorce. We have stayed in business together mostly because neither wants to sell out to the other but also because we have stayed good friends for the sake of our kid.
Out on my own again and doing my own finances for the first time in years I ran across a letter I had shelved one day. The student loan I had taken out at the mortuary school had come due at some point- it was past the 10 year mark and they wanted their money. Even though I had done intern work back in Cali at funeral homes and in the country coroners office and had even become licensed, I still hadnt actually ever taken a full job in the industry. So I basically just had forgot all about it in the busybusy world of my weird assed life. Wowow, the interest had almost doubled it. It was only $18K and luckily I have been very successful in my art and music careers(hobbies...) so paying it was no problem, but forking it over, damn, that was still alot of money to be handing someone and that hurt. But I did it. I signed papers, I took the courses, it was my responsibility. I just had shelved the papers and really had forgotten about it.
For my own kids- one blood and 2 steps- I started trusts for them when they were young and have been adding to them over the years so that they could go to school and not have to worry about anything. My oldest just graduated in the medical field and is working already and will be starting her adult life thankfully debt free. One will be going to school next year after she completes a year of Americore where she will be adding a $5k scholarship to her trust for working for the government, and the last kid has 4 years before he graduates highschool. Its my duty as a parent to help if I can and Im glad Im financially able to do it.
About that marine biology statement. My younger sister raised her kids in a house on stilts on Galveston island near the beach. Her youngest son is in pharmacy school and her oldest graduated from a college in Houston several years ago with a degree in Marine biology and has been employed by a group of several oil companies where she has been working in the Gulf. She was valedictorian of her HS class, merit scholar, etcetc. She could have gone to any school she wanted and studied anything she wanted. She chose what she enjoyed the most in life having grown up near the water. I dont think she's pulling down 6 figures yet but she loves her job and is good at it, and she works hard. What else is there in life.
Last edited:
The fact of the matter is that many college graduates are ill equipped to excel in their chosen discipline, regardless of their GPA, schedule load or debt ratio. Some people are born to work in marine biology. Some are born to work in sanitation. Some are born to toil in prison, either in front of or behind the bars. I think a large part of the problem is unreasonable expectations. Simply going to school, amassing a large debt and grinding it out till graduation does not guarantee you a job in whatever it is you're studying. Being successful in whatever you do takes a lot of work. Being unsuccesful is easy. That's why so many people do it well.
There are a lot of Federal taxes, everyone who has a dollar in their pocket pays some form somewhere along the way.
It's interesting the views people hold. Friedman was against a Federal individual income tax, but thought that a negative income tax was a good step along the way. He was not opposed to many other Federal taxes.
Make the previous read: Federal Income Tax.
Is that better?
The former was better because we could rag on GE, Google and BofA
Similar threads
