Way too long Bush Bashing SotU blow by blow

The BBQ Pit
81

Just to further drive the point home I think I remember saying you went to UVa and that you live there now. If you look here and scroll down to the first figure you will see that tuition almost doubled in real dollars from 1985-1994 a trend I can assure you has not reversed itself.

In fact even if you graduated 5 years ago tuition is now 40% higher.

Using that $85,000 figure you will need to invest $2675 each year at 10% interest to reach that figure. Now 10% is a pretty good return if you onl got 5% that figure jumps to $4000. Thats per child mind you lets say you have 2 children and you have a median household income of 43000. You need to be investing 15-20% of your income to be able to pay for your childrens education while raising said children.

Does that mean nobody can work their way through college anymore? Absolutely not. But it is getting harder and harder. At what point do we stop saying that the system we have is fair? In my opinion we can no longer honestly say that the economic system we have is fair. It allows the rich to pass on their wealth to their kids and keeps the poor kids poor.

That being said there is a good deal of financial aid availbile but nearly all of it is either merit based or need based. If you are an average student of average background you won’t get much if any aid. If you are of average background more likely than not your parents can’t afford to send you to school.

82

Actually, I went to Virginia Tech, which seems to have had a mere 15% increase from 1994 to today; I don’t know what the total figure is from my time (early to mid 1980s).

And my family was in the “needy” category, income-wise, at that time. However, my brother managed to secure a merit-based fully-paid scholarship with his 4.0 high school average, and he maintained a 4.0 average through college, which got him an offer from his first employer to obtain a master’s degree at their expense… which he did, maintaining a 4.0 average.

I didn’t do quite as well as he, although I did keep a 4.0 in my major and had a merit-based scholarship as well - not a full ride like his, though. I don’t understand the objection to merit-based scholarships. My brother was ribbed unmercifully for his lack of social life while in college. He made a choice to work towards his future instead of partying on the weekends. I worked three different part-time jobs to pay for things when I was in school, where I could have been out partying. I got sneered at as well for having to work while my residence hallmates were out tapping kegs and coeds with abandon.

This comes down to the ant and the grasshopper problem, in my view. The ants are now upset that they are in bad shape - but they were unwilling to buckle down and forgo short-term rewards like the grasshoppers were. Now that the long-term rewards are paying off, the ants are shrilly complaining about how unfair the system is.

83

Er… strike and reverse the roles of ants and grasshoppers in the above.

84

Not to belabor your tiresome and self-righteous metaphor, but its not so much the grasshoppers that bother me, but the anteaters.

85

Bricker, while on the whole I agree with your analysis, I think it needs a little tweaking.

First, let me add to the mountain of evidence about the soaring costs of higher education.

I got my BA from Columbia in 2000. It cost over $100k to fund my entire education. I was not on the five year plan, either. Three years later my MA at New York University (in a technical field) cost me over 50 large.

Let’s consider the insect metaphor further. At some time in a student’s career, an ordinary student makes the choice whether to hit the books or hit the booze. This choice represents the student’s trade-off between the marginal utility he gains from current consumption and the marginal utility he gains from future consumption times the probability of achieving a given level of consumption in the futureless the disutility of studying. This probability represents the student’s belief that his hard work and prudence will pay off in the future.

This belief is conditioned on what the student believes is the state of the world. This is based on observation and assumption (and Bayes’ Rule, if you care about that sort of thing).

Let’s try to think the decision-making problem through. As a student, my net future consumption interests me. I make a prediction of my future income (based on my education) and subtract my expected debt service. I discount this future consumption by some amount because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Then I can do a little math. I can figure out just how much money I would have to make in the future to offset the hard work of studying now, based on my expectations for the future. I can then do a little math and compare the marginal utility curve with the marginal cost curve to find the point at which I am indifferent between working hard and drinking hard. Even more usefully, I can see at every point on the curve what my beliefs about the world have to be in order to support a given level of hard work. In other words, to support high levels of work, I need to both value current consumption very little and I have to believe that my hard work will pay off in a major way in the future.

Let’s step out of the problem to see what conditions my beliefs and perhaps examine the returns to my efforts. As a guy in my mid-20s, my expectations are not great. I have worked four corporate jobs, dodged layoffs, ridden on the real estate roller coaster, and have endured lengthy unemployment. I am deep in student debt, and consume very little of my income. I have no credit card debt. I do, however, have a mortgage for an apartment in Manhattan that I purchased. I have a career-track job in a major financial services company doing non-administrative back office work. If I work hard enough and please the right people, one day I might make middle management.

My current consumption picture is fairly grim. My income is solidly middle-class, but my debt service is extremely high. I live well within my means. My “investments in my future” have transformed me into a slightly better paid expendable cubicle worker. I do not enjoy the fruits of my labor because I am still paying for my trip to this promised land. I have only been able to get here because my discount rate is very low, that is, I value future consumption almost as much as current consumption. While I was in college (96-00) in the height of the dotcom boom, I naturally assumed that there would be a place for a hard-working, reasonably well-connected, high-achieving ivy league graduate with solid communications and computer skills.

If I were a freshman about to make the decision whether to achieve today, I would probably look at the rapidly rising price of education, the decline in real wages, and the tense position of the United States in world financial markets. I would think hard about how likely it would be for me to make enough money to not only support myself but to compensate for giving up four years of freedom and virility by studying really hard.

I would then proceed to drink myself into oblivion and fuck anything that moves.

I have a hard time faulting 18-year olds who immediately understand and accept this without having to read The Economist and the Wall Street Journal or care about diminishing marginal utility.

Perhaps this will help you broaden your view.

86

What you are saying boils down to ‘Screw the kids of the poor families for being poor.’

Lets take two kids Bricker Jr. and a kid from Chicago. They are at the top of the economic ladder they look at each other and ask why am I up here? They are hearing the clamoring of the people below them for parity how do they justify it? They both went to college and got an education. A Ha! they say education is they key if you work hard you too can get what I have.

In other words education gives the upper class a justifcation for why they get more money than the lower class. I can dance to that tune if someone works hard and gets an education they should be rewarded. But let us examine the path that Bricker Jr. and our other hero took to take to the top.

Bricker Jr. went to a school that has computers, fairly new textbooks, small classes and (at least) one parent with a college education at home. The kid on the south side of Chicago may have had a few obsolete computers donated to them, not enough textbooks, the textbooks they have are dated at best, large classes, incompetant teachers, facilities that are run down pieces of shit and if they are lucky they have a parent at home.

Now after approximately 13 years of these differences they head off to college. Bricker Jr. probably has higher test scores becuase he has 13 years worth of better schooling. Bricker Jr. also will have significant help in paying his tuition. The kid from the south side of Chicago won’t get anything from his parents, will barely get into a college if he is lucky, and might get some financial aid. But he is smart and worked his arse off got into college but will have to work almost full time to pay for it. Once they get to college Bricker Jr. spends his weekends partying but still pulls a 3.30 GPA out and our other protagenist spends his weekends and nights working to make ends meets while studying at every other waking moment. He doesn’t have as much time as he wants to study and would have done better if he didn’t have to work but he still pulls a 3.30 GPA.

Now are you telling me Bricker Jr. and the kid from Chicago put forth the same effort to get to where they are? Absolutely not. Lets put some numbers to it there are high schools that send less than 10% of their kids to colleges while other high schools that send 95%. Assuming similar innate abilities if the 85% (95%-10%) from the rich school went to the poor school they wouldn’t have gone to college while conversly the 85% that went to the poor school that didn’t go to college would have. Is that a fair system?

My main point is that statistically speaking the education system in this country favors the rich. There certainly are poor kids that work their ass off and get to the top but we can’t use the exception to prove that the rule is fair.

What I am driving at is that I agree with you that income disparity isn’t evil in of itself. However it is wrong if the system is set up in a way that some kids are set up to almost certainly fail while others are set up to almost certainly suceed. I don’t see how anyone can honestly look at our educational system and use that as a justifcation for our economic system being fair.

There is nothing inherently wrong with merit base scholarships my point was that the cost of college is rising out of the reach of the middle class family. The increase in financial aid is going to the poor and the excellent students. What of the average income average student?

That being said the trend of college tuition is becoming increasingly disturbing. Do the students now adays get twice the value for the education that you got? Why is it that tuition is spiraling out of control? If we get to the point where only the elite can afford the elite education and the justification for their elite status is that elite education then we have an unfair self justifying system.

87

And I would remain perfectly still…

88

I’d also like to point out that with the real minimum wage falling and tuition prices rising your 3 jobs would have to be 4.5-5 jobs now.

89

Pul-lease, I’d be way too busy stuffing young republicans to have time for you.

90

It should be noted that I generally support diversification of the SS portfolio. I’ve been saying it would be a good idea for a long time. The problem I have is with starry-eyed proclamations like “I don’t want the government to be responsible for taking care of me. I want ME to be responsible for taking care of me.” Your proposal is quite reasonable. How closely it matches up with Bush’s proposals will remain to be seen.

Bricker’s position, no government responsibility for individual retirement, is what I was responding to. It is short-sighted, self-centered, ahistorical, and, as you noted, madness. Government providing something like mutual fund planning and administration for the people as opposed to the current handling of the situation is a far cry from the “I want ME to be responsible for taking care of me.” naivete that I was responding to.

I don’t happen to believe Bricker is naieve, but that statement was. It’s a shame that he’ll go so far out of the realm of the reasonable to defend some of Bush’s proposals.

Enjoy,
Steven

91

Your charitable generosity speaks well of you.

92

Perhaps this could be the start of a new trend? Exploring being Republican during college to be able to get into the panties of all those hot young Republican chicks. Sort of like “lesbian/bi-sexual in college” phase that so many seem to be going through.

Enjoy,
Steven

93

Maybe Ann Coulter wouldn’t be such a hateful loon if she’d gotten some soon enough.

94

I am engaged now. I am not about to take some for the team.

95

Compassionate Conservatism = Let’s kick 'em while they are down and make sure they stay there.

I’ve got mine, fuck you. No, really, fuck you.

96

Is it fair that I didn’t get Antonio Banderas’ looks? Is it fair that I can only sing in the key of off? Is it fair that I’m only 5’10" and, even when I was in good physical shape, threw up terrible bricks playing basketball?

No.

It’s true that Bricker Jr is going to get the advantages you mention, and more besides. But he’s going to get them because your humble correspondent, Bricker Sr., WAS THE KID FROM CHICAGO.

Life is not a fair system. Life endows each person with different abilities and capacities. Some of them are genetic, some of them are situational.

Where is it written that the proper role of government is to neutralize those differences? If it is, then I want Brad Pitt and Jude Law to get some bad plastic surgery and wear fat suits so they’re on par with my physical attractiveness. I want Shaquille to wear leg braces forcing him to walk stooped over so he can only jump as high as I can. I want Tiger Woods forced to wear arm weights and vision-distorting glasses so he hits the ball into the rough as often as I do. I want Bill Gates to be fitted with a device that gives him random electric shocks every few seconds, so his financial decision-making ability is closer to mine. I want one quarter of Scylla’s keyboard keys removed so his ability to relate funny and fascinating stories is is closer to mine. And I want Helen Hunt assigned to fall in love with me, just because I’m on a roll with this power trip.

97

Your argument (if that’s what it is) teeters on the brink of Social Darwinism. From there, the road to Hell is swift, sure, and steep.

98

The only problem with that scenario, Bricker, is that a fair bit of jobs in the US that pay well (let’s say 1.5 times the minimum wage in any particular state) require at least “some college.”

I can’t tell you how many jobs I’ve seen that require a degree that don’t necessarily need a degree. I don’t understand why secretary jobs need a degree. I don’t understand why assistant librarian jobs require a degree. I’m in college now, trying to find jobs that will both help me pay for the costs and provide decent medical insurance. I can take one of two routes:

  1. Take a full-time low-paying job with insurance benefits that doesn’t require a degree. Of course I’ll only be able to take one or two night classes per semester. That will stretch my degree out over 7-8 years, if not longer if I want honors on my degree, and even longer if I want a minor.

  2. Go to school full-time and take a part-time job that may or may not pay well, and likely will have no insurance benefits whatsoever, incurring massive student loans, even if I go to a cheaper university.

Either way, it’s not pretty. I can be 30 with my bachelor’s, no loans hanging over my head, and work experience, but if I’ve chosen a degree that offers me very few decent jobs, I’m “old” to be in an entry-level job in my degree, and therefore more of a liability. And if I want/need to go to graduate school, I’m going to be even older (and likely in debt before I get out).

Or I could be young getting out of college, but with massive debt that likely will take years for me to pay off (and that’s not even counting buying a house, etc). And if I go to grad school, even more debt for me! With big student loans, I can forget buying a house for a long time, or even a car.

Meanwhile, I see kids whose parents are financing every part of college, who don’t have to work, and are guaranteed good jobs when they get out.

I understand sometimes that if you pick a degree without job security that is in low demand, you have to expect to suffer the consequences. However, we can’t all major in pre-law or accounting. I don’t want to have to pay for most or all of my life just to try to get a “piece of the pie.” It’s unfairly skewed to people who can afford to send their children to college.

I’m not saying that artistic or athletic ability can’t get you a good job, but the chances are slim. A degree can get you a better paying job (usually) than you can get sans degree, but you have to pay through the nose for it. That’s unfair in that it will generally tend to keep poor people poor, rich people rich, and the middle class desperately struggling NOT to become poor. In a country that’s supposed to be all about “a good chance for upward mobility,” that is unacceptable.

99

Fuck the poor I got mine.

For whatever reason you were in the % that made it. What if you went to an even shittier school and didn’t? What if instead of working your way through college your Mom got sick and you had to drop out and support her? What if you went to war and came back fucked up? What if any number of things happened that through no fault of your own knocked you off the college path? Tough shit now you get to live on the street and die from a disease that we could treat for 1000 bucks. Hey I’d help out but my kid needs a dress for prom.

Fine so then you realize that our economic system is inherently unfair and apparently you don’t care. Whatever to each his own but don’t come in here and try and tell me that people can’t afford health care becuase they didn’t work hard enough or they can’t retire becuase they fucking got massages at Asian sex parlors. Becuase I know better. The smartest hardest working man I know lives on his SS check and is going to die penniless. Why? Becuase his wife had a stroke and he had to take care of her and raise 5 kids. But fuck him he should have worked harder. Toss his lazy ass out on the street. Health problems? Well he should have taken better care of himself. You mean he eats right and excercises every day? Tough shit I need those 4 extra inches on my HD TV enjoy dying fucker. Hey after all he was born to the wrong parents and just got hosed but thats life I made it out so fuck them.

100

You know, I’m sorry your friend has had some bad luck, but really, WTF do you want? Does he have a place to live? Is he able to eat? Medicare? Really, what else does he need? Sure that’s a brutal way to look at it, but what else do you think society owes him? A social safety net or a social American Express card? Do you think the governement should be buying him a plasma screen TV, a Lincoln Navigator and a oceanfron villia in the Hamptons just because he was a hard worker? That makes no sense.