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The looming student loan crisis

&NewLine;<p>Before we get into dissecting the student loan issue&comma; we need to understand how it happened&period;&nbsp&semi; For all of you folks who have unpaid student loans – and especially those with big burdensome loans – never forget that your problem was caused by a bunch of left-wingers in Congress and academia&period;&nbsp&semi; They are the same folks that brought us the real estate bubble that triggered the Great Recession of 2008&period;&nbsp&semi; I mention that because they were both the result of promising something allegedly for nothing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>As a student loan holder&comma; you are merely the middleman in a scheme that used taxpayer money appropriated by progressives in Congress to enrich their pals in academia&period;&nbsp&semi; While you are weighed down with the burden of re-payment&comma; the educational institutions have been reaping huge windfall profits – academic gouging&comma; to be precise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The evolving increases in the size of the loans did not buy better educational opportunities for you&comma; the student&period;&nbsp&semi; But they did enable the schools of higher learning to consistently increase their tuition well ahead of inflationary price rises&period;&nbsp&semi; Essentially&comma; the schools were increasing their income from taxpayer money – or at least taxpayer guaranteed loans – with the students being the conduit AND the holder of the debt&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>It is a form of inflation in which more money chases fewer or unchanged spending opportunities&period;&nbsp&semi; The scheme was so successful for the colleges and universities that the students were left with debt far exceeding the value of the education they received&period;&nbsp&semi; Student loans have ballooned so much that they outpace virtually every other type of consumer debt&period;&nbsp&semi; Think about that&period;&nbsp&semi; Student loans are now one of the major types of debt – exceeding mortgages&comma; car loans&comma; consumer purchases&comma; credit cards&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In fact&comma; student loans have far exceeded the ability of graduates of even the more prestigious educational institutions to attain jobs commensurate to their investment&period;&nbsp&semi; That is why it took decades upon decades for students to pay off their debt&period;&nbsp&semi; The Return On Investment &lpar;ROI&rpar; is abysmal&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Student loans – which were sold as a benefit to middle-class kids – are now the latest example of the credit trap – a loan that is very difficult to pay off in a reasonable time with affordable payments&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The scheme was so corrupt that now the left-wingers who concocted the scam are looking to the taxpayers to bail out the victims&period;&nbsp&semi; Folks like Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to erase the sins of their policies by simply writing them off – sticking the taxpayer for the trillion-dollar obligation&period;&nbsp&semi; To be specific&comma; 42 million Americans owe &dollar;1&period;7 trillion dollars in student loans&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>To put that into perspective&comma; that is the same amount President Biden wanted in his final Build Back Better bill – an outrageous expenditure&period;&nbsp&semi; But in terms of the federal budget&comma; it has the same impact&period; It makes no difference if you spend &dollar;1&period;7 trillion or write off &dollar;1&period;7 trillion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Just as the Congress enabled citizens to buy houses they could not afford&comma; the Student Loan Program provided students with the ability to purchase an education they could not afford thanks to the gouging by the schools&period; It is even worse than the housing catastrophe since the house at least had had a market value commensurate to the purchase price&comma; but the education received for the exorbitant tuition was worth much less than the purchase price&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The big spending Democrats have put the students and the country into a no-win position&period;&nbsp&semi; The kids were screwed&comma; but we can hardly write off the debt&period; The real solution is to have the colleges and universities pay off the debt from their trillions of dollars in endowment funds – funds made fat by all that student loan money&period;&nbsp&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>So&comma; there &OpenCurlyQuote;tis&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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