# Bush wants to eliminate Perkins Loans **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 14, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008 "2005-02-14T15:23:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/81 "2005-02-16T17:37:38Z")
My point is that you’re a simple minded dipshit regurgitating stupid memes and broadbrushing huge swaths of Americans as “lazy.” You’re mouthing imbecilic, dittohead. bumper sticker slogans in order to avoid having to actually thinking about an issue because that makes your head hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/82 "2005-02-16T17:47:10Z")
Considering that your assertions run somewhat counter to my own experiences, I’d appreciate some sort of citation that class mobility in America is just a “meme”. Help me out here. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/83 "2005-02-16T17:56:51Z")
Well, this is great news for me to hear literally moments after I open my billing statement for the first semester. Not an expert, but I’m inclined to think that fewer targetted programs mean that some people are less likely to get the aid they need. That sucks, no matter how you look at it. And, also? A huge majority of high school students aren’t 18. Many states won’t allow students to work 60 hour weeks. [cite](http://www.dol.gov/esa/programs/whd/state/nonfarm.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/84 "2005-02-16T18:12:09Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > My point is that you’re a simple minded dipshit regurgitating stupid memes and broadbrushing huge swaths of Americans as “lazy.” You’re mouthing imbecilic, dittohead. bumper sticker slogans in order to avoid having to actually thinking about an issue because that makes your head hurt. Dio, thank you for the beautiful example of exactly why you are such a moron. Nowhere have I called anyone lazy. Not once. Yet here you are, frothing off at reality as usual, mad at me because I said “huge swaths of Americans are lazy”, and then, in the “irony can be pretty ironic” department, you conclude by leveling the charge that I wish to “avoid having to actually thinking (I think the word you want there is “think”, Dio dear) about an issue because that makes your head hurt.” You haven’t thought about anything as long as you’ve been on these boards. You DON’T think. You project your personal prejudices and bias onto other posters, regardless of what they actually say, and then bust a nut responding to your own paranoid delusions. Reading your posts here, and in other places online, I think you are seriously deluded, as in it-time-for-lithium deluded. Your statements, diatribes and online vomit correspond solely to a world that exists only in your mind, and have as much to do with reality as oil has to do with water. If you’re not going to respond to what other people say, just go away. Please. There’s an entire continent somewhere that’s missing it’s idiot, and it’s time you found it and went back home. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/85 "2005-02-16T18:15:01Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Considering that your assertions run somewhat counter to my own experiences, I’d appreciate some sort of citation that class mobility in America is just a “meme”. > > Help me out here. I didn’t say class mobility was a meme, I said it was a myth that hard work guarantees anything or that America is a meritocracy. Are you familar with outsourcing of jobs. Hard working, blue collar Americans are losing jobs through no fault of their own. Entire local economies are destroyed. Other local economies are preyed upon by corporate raptors such as Walmart. A lot of companies delieberately underemploy workers so that they do’t have to pay benefits, etc. It’s not like anyone who wants a job can get one or if they can that it will pay a living wage. If anyone wants to assert that “hard work” will guarantee success everytime then the burden is on that individual. I’m saying I don’t believe it. I’ve sen people who worked their ass off their whole lives and never got shit. Then there’s also the fact that most rich people have NOT earned their wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/86 "2005-02-16T18:19:29Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > For God’s sake, don’t suggest that people actually work for what they want! What are you, some kind of a cruel evil Republican or something? What was the implication in this statement. The context was about whether poor people will be hurt by eliminating Perkins Loans. Your response is a sneering insinuation that they must not be working for it. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/87 "2005-02-16T18:31:09Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Considering that your assertions run somewhat counter to my own experiences, I’d appreciate some sort of citation that class mobility in America is just a “meme”. Dear Lord, I’m sick of the word “meme” (I know you didn’t start it here). Anyway, that irrelevance aside, there was an interesting [survey](http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3518560) in the Economist recently about decreasing social mobility in the States. Unfortunately the article’s subscription-only and is way too long to reasonably quote within the board rules. Here are some snippets (well within fair use limits, I think, mods - less than 5% of the text): > [@](#): > > The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earners) grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth. > … > Most Americans see nothing wrong with inequality of income so long as it comes with plenty of social mobility: it is simply the price paid for a dynamic economy. But the new rise in inequality does not seem to have come with a commensurate rise in mobility. There may even have been a fall. > … > All this may sound a bit impressionistic. But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter. > > The Economic Policy Institute also argues that social mobility has declined since the 1970s. In the 1990s 36% of those who started in the second-poorest 20% stayed put, compared with 28% in the 1970s and 32% in the 1980s. In the 1970s 12% of the population moved from the bottom fifth to either the fourth or the top fifth. In the 1980s and 1990s the figures shrank to below 11% for both decades. The figure for those who stayed in the top fifth increased slightly but steadily over the three decades, reinforcing the sense of diminished social mobility. I can’t reasonably quote more, but there seems to be a decent body of actual evidence that suggests mobility is declining. Maybe that’s a natural result of a society that’s simply bigger, maybe it’s something more sinister. Anyway, just thought I’d share the article, since I found it interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/88 "2005-02-16T18:47:16Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > What was the implication in this statement. The context was about whether poor people will be hurt by eliminating Perkins Loans. Your response is a sneering insinuation that they must not be working for it. No it wasn’t, not at all. My response was directed at **lel** who said "Working 60 hour weeks over the summer would take care of a lot of that problem. " In most if not all of these type threads, anyone suggesting that perhaps an individual might work and work hard to get what they want is generally greeted with a chorus of boos, repeated cries of “gimme, gimme, gimme” directed at the government and like as not, someone is going to claim that the poster suggesting work is doing nothing more than “mouthing imbecilic, dittohead. bumper sticker slogans”. Thank you for making my prophesy come true. If you want the lottery numbers, it’s gonna cost you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/89 "2005-02-16T18:51:15Z")
I missed this before. > [@weirddave](#): > > Reading your posts here, and in other places online… What other places online are you talking about? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/90 "2005-02-16T18:53:42Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > No it wasn’t, not at all. My response was directed at **lel** who said "Working 60 hour weeks over the summer would take care of a lot of that problem. " In most if not all of these type threads, anyone suggesting that perhaps an individual might work and work hard to get what they want is generally greeted with a chorus of boos, repeated cries of “gimme, gimme, gimme” directed at the government and like as not, someone is going to claim that the poster suggesting work is doing nothing more than “mouthing imbecilic, dittohead. bumper sticker slogans”. Thank you for making my prophesy come true. If you want the lottery numbers, it’s gonna cost you. You get booed because your implication is that they are not _already_ working hard. ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/91 "2005-02-16T19:02:02Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > What other places online are you talking about? 😕 Talking about other places online, there’s something very interesting to be found by Googling your email addie, Dio. Or should that be Dr. XXX? You mucky little fuckpig. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/92 "2005-02-16T19:15:41Z")
😕 > [@Kal](#): > > Talking about other places online, there’s something very interesting to be found by Googling your email addie, Dio. Or should that be Dr. XXX? > > You mucky little fuckpig. 😕😕😕 ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/93 "2005-02-16T19:18:20Z")
I just got out of meeting where someone mentioned that schools (at least some schools) can convert some portion of their Perkins loan money into SEOGs. 15% was the figure I heard. If that’s widely done, then it looks as though grant money will take a hit too. Unless they can do the same with Stafford money. Funny, though, I didn’t hear the financial aid people use the term “ass-raping.” ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/94 "2005-02-16T20:12:45Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > What other places online are you talking about? 😕 You mean someone **deleted** them from your _memory_, too? Wow, that’s some kind of impressive hacking. ---
**Author:** ![chique](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@chique](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chique)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/95 "2005-02-16T20:22:01Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > repeated cries of “gimme, gimme, gimme” If the subject was grants I’d understand this. Grants are free money that need not be repaid. Loans DO have to be repaid, with interest. I don’t get what you’re whining about. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/96 "2005-02-16T20:23:57Z")
Deleted what? I post under this user name in a couple of other places. I’m a moderator at Internet Infidels. I’ve posted at Pizza Parlor and Philosophy Forums but I was wondering which place **Weirddave** meant he had seen me because I generally don’t do any flaming or political rants anywhere but here. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/97 "2005-02-17T04:30:19Z")
You know, I should be rolling around in giant piles of schaadenfreude right now seeing Dio getting a taste of the kind of abuse he has so easily leveled at others in the past. But you know what? The abuse is just as obnoxious when it’s going in his direction. You all need to lighten the fuck up and start treating each other a little better. This is supposed to be a community. ---
**Author:** ![cj\_finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@cj\_finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cj_finn)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/98 "2005-02-17T17:09:48Z")
This really is a trainwreck. But anyway . . . Perkins loans fill a very critical funding gap for low income students. And because there are funding differences in how Stafford loans work out based on whether the student is considered dependent or not (a status that is determined without regard to actual affairs in some instances), Perkins loans are needed. Simplifying the student loan scene by shifting money from Perkins to Stafford without incorporating the functionality of Perkins into the Stafford program will leave many folks high and dry. I would be one of those folks. The Perkins loans helped me to attend my alma mater and I’m not sure I could have found the funding otherwise without knocking over banks. One other thing that Perkins does that Stafford does not, is to allow for the cancellation of loans for Peace Corps and VISTA volunteers. I’m not aware that this incentive will be continued. Its a pittance in terms of real money, but it was one of the reasons I joined. CJ ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/99 "2005-02-17T19:28:27Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > 😕😕😕 Googling your email address - well, the one that was there yesterday before you changed it - turned up some Sopranos slash fiction written by the enigmatic Dr. XXX - who also wrote a Married With Children story that I dare not look at. Even the synopsis made me go blind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mermaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@The\_Mermaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mermaid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008/100 "2005-02-17T19:33:24Z")
I don’t mean to sound simplistic but I have found if the desire is strong enough a solution can usually be found. I was 29 when I decided that my family was never going to live any better until I attended college, earned a degree and got a better paying job. I applied for any and every fiancial aid imaginable, including Stafford and Perkins loans, Pell grants, scholarships, tutoring and tuition reimbursement. I worked weekends and evenings and attended classes year round. I completed a four year course in three, made the Dean’s list 3 out of 6 semesters and graduated with honors, a 3.45 GPA. I ended up repaying about $2,000 total. And this was when my kids were young and active so I made sure they attended ball games, dance classes, you name it just like _normal_ kids. Oh and we also moved so I could care for my mother in law full time following a craniotomy for a ruptured brain aneurism. Sure I was insanely busy, exhausted a good deal of the time and had NO social life. But I became way better organized and just kept my eye on the prize, so to speak. At any rate, bitching over things we have absolutely no control over is a waste of precious time. I’d rather think of it in terms of finding out what I have to deal with and then _dealing_ with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wants-to-eliminate-perkins-loans/290008.md?page=6)