Stupid decisions are a dime a dozen, ladies and gentlemen.

I’ve discussed that premise here before, and I’m here to do it again.

Stop chipping in the damn dimes, y’all.

As of this writing, Joe Biden has in recent days entered the 2020 race for the White House.  Granted, that doesn’t really have any impact on the fact that Faith the TharpSter Treadmill still expects me to contribute to her lemon sandwich cookie fix.  After all, I have my own demons. 

Why should I share them with her?

With Biden’s arrival, the gene pool of candidates looking to seize the Presidency for their own takes on a whole new viscosity of revolutionary goo designed to fight the monsters under the bed.  Certainly the judges have scored Biden’s cannon ball with a reverse, self fellating twist into the aforementioned goo with the highest marks based on technical difficulty and autistic expression.  Even still, Biden’s ability to remain that flexible in this race is going to be inhibited by sub-standard denture adhesive and an age old lack of mandibular control.

We’re now at a point where the other candidates in the race are voicing bold initiatives to help them get elected.  The timing of these announcements and Biden’s entry into the race are not coincidental, folks.

Reparations for slavery are on the table.

At least two candidates have committed to putting a woman on the ticket as their running mate.

Another one has suggested that felons should be extended suffrage rights.

Yet another has suggested that college should be made free and all current student loan debt should be forgiven in order to solve the ongoing student loan crisis.

I’m reminded of my favorite scene in Blazing Saddles where Taggart and his minions come upon the tollbooth for the Le Petomane Thruway in the middle of the prairie and feel compelled to pay the toll instead of just go around.

“Somebody’s gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes!”

As you are aware, I’m a big fan of solving problems, puzzles, and whodunnitry.  A big portion of my job involves solving problems so I guess that makes me a professional.  Whenever I’m presented with a new problem, I flash back to those idiots at the tollbooth to determine if dimes are really needed.

The premise of forgiving student loan debt and making college free is a bad decision.  Save your dimes y’all.

Forgiving the debt sets an ugly precedent for other types of debt crises the government can “solve” in the future. 

Don’t forget about those who have already paid off their debt and those who are working to pay it off. 

There are plenty of ways to attack the student loan debt crisis, but we need to stop feeding the problem first.

Consider that when a drug addict decides to get the clean, the first thing they have to do is stop taking drugs.

An alcoholic trying to get sober has to stop drinking.

Malaprop wielding bloggers should probably stop buying bags of miniature peanut butter cups to store in the freezer in order to achieve optimum levels of enjoyment.

People who are trying to get out of debt need to stop borrowing money.

More apropos to this discussion, the instrument which has been integral to creating the student loan debt crisis needs to be dismantled.  That means that the government needs to get out of the business of guaranteeing student loans. 

That nonsense went into high gear about 10 years ago when the government centralized the process of applying for financial aid and student loans.  Nowadays, under that program, students are provided with a clear path to enter into vast sums of debt in order to go to college. 

But wait, there’s more.

The parents can too.

In the process of applying for educational financial aid, the government calculates what the parents should contribute to their kid’s education.  The good news is that parents are then given the opportunity to obtain government guaranteed loans to assist with financing their kid’s school.

But wait, there’s more.

The parents have the option to borrow above and beyond what may be needed to round out the tuition bill.  Let’s clarify that with an example.

Let’s say a college bound freshman needs $10K for their first year at school.  I’m just using arbitrary numbers here.  Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.

With a $10K tuition bill looming, the student is provided with loans totaling $7K under the premise the government expects the parents to share the responsibility.  Again, I’m using arbitrary numbers and ratios to paint the picture.

If Mom and Dad don’t have the $3K shortfall readily available, they can apply for a government guaranteed loan to make up the difference.  The clincher is that they can borrow more than the requisite $3K with the requirement that all of the borrowed money is being used for qualified education expenses.

Under this scenario, the student could be on the hook for $7K, and the parents could end up owing $8K.  For those of you looking for a calculator, that adds up to a $15K debt to resolve a $10K tuition bill.  Furthermore, those obtaining the guaranteed loans don’t always seek out other options for paying for school or fully understand the consequences for borrowing all of that money in the first place.  Again, they’re sitting there on the prairie, feeding dimes to the tollbooth.

If you get anything out of that example, take the knowledge that the student loan debt crisis is not limited to students. 

The government needs to get out of the business of guaranteeing student loans and decentralize the process.  That was another one of those lofty plans with great intentions which sent us down an ugly path.  Returning this process to the private sector will help to insure that those borrowing money to go to school (students and parents) have the ability to pay the money back and aren’t borrowing more than they need.

Moving on, let’s address the premise of forgiving the debt.  Why should it be forgiven?

Were predatory lending practices used when the money was borrowed?  Are there unique or otherwise extenuating circumstances which keep the debt from being paid back?  For that matter, do those circumstances apply to everyone who has student loan debt?

Granted, I would suggest the percentage of borrowers with special circumstances is relatively small.  Otherwise, the answer to the questions above is generally “No.”

With that in mind, the suggestion is that all parties involved in the original debt agreement need to adhere to the terms of the agreement and take steps to repay the borrowed money.  The most straightforward way to do that is for the debtor to establish and maintain a monthly budget which includes making consistent payments on their student loan debt.  Furthermore, the debtor should adopt the mantra that the loan(s) should be paid off as fast as possible and well ahead of schedule.

This method has been successfully executed many times before.

At the same time, there are other options available to assist with the repayment.  There are plenty of employers out there today which include tuition assistance in their total compensation package.  There are also discussions around having student loan payments automatically deducted from debtors paycheck and some employers are already offering the option to their employees.

Irregardlessly of the method in which it happens, paying the loans back needs happen.  Forgiving the loans removes the responsibility from the parties who signed the loan agreement and puts it squarely on the shoulders of those who didn’t.

I generally take the approach that free college provided by the government is a bad idea.  I feel that way because I’m leery of government stepping into our lives and managing as much of it as they can.  At the same time, I have no problem with the GI Bill which pays tuition for our military personnel.  Granted, the GI Bill is part of a compensation program for those who have served.  It’s not the giveaway that’s being suggested.

So for those outside of the scope of the GI Bill (which I support as a good way of paying for college), I would suggest that the system needs to be tweaked.

Obviously, you’ve got to reduce the price of tuition where you can.

The absence of a government providing a guarantee of outlandish and unsustainable loans will remove the incentive of colleges to jack up their prices.  The gene pool of bodies willing and able to pay those jacked up rates will diminish and colleges will have to lower their prices to get asses in seats (AIS).  Don’t stop there though. 

There are plenty of colleges out there which generate millions of dollars each year on their sports programs alone.  At the same time, I would suspect that students and their parents are borrowing millions of dollars each year to attend those schools.  I know this because all of those schools appear as eligible institutions when it comes to applying for financial aid through the government.

Here’s an idea that’s really going to piss off you college sports fans. 

Keep in mind that everything I’m going to suggest here needs to be governed by an entity outside of the federal government like the NCAA. 

Now I don’t know exactly how much of that revenue generated by college sports goes back into grant and scholarship programs to assist with tuition for non-student athletes.  It would seem that any school generating a certain amount of money each year on its sports program(s) should expand their tuition assistance programs and stop admitting students who are using government guaranteed student loans to attend college.

If such a process creates too much of a strain on their sports programs, then the college has two options:

• Roll back their sports programs.
• Raise the cost of being a fan.  That means raising prices everywhere the school is generating revenue from its sports programs such as merchandising, event admission, broadcast licensing, and whatever else needs to incur the cost of additional tuition assistance.  That premise alone is market driven and puts the responsibility of paying tuition costs on the fans instead of the U.S. taxpayer.  Make sure the fan is aware of the fact that a portion of every ticket or other piece of merchandise they buy goes towards paying tuition for all of their students.

Now that I’ve alienated my share of college sports fans, let’s move on to other ways of reducing tuition.

Big companies should create and/or expand grant / scholarship programs in exchange for tax credits.  If they needs to raise the prices for their goods and services, so be it.  Again, the premise is market driven and relieves the responsibility of paying tuition costs from the U.S. taxpayer.  Make sure the customer knows that the extra cash they’re paying is going towards tuition assistance.

Next.

Lower some of the overhead expenses by expanding the on-line learning.  

Given the communication miracle that is the internet, just how necessary is it anymore to edumacate our young’ns with an AIS paradigm?

Exactly.

Consider all of the stupid fees a college will nickel and dime you for when you sign up for a course.  They range from parking permits, to lab use, to student services, to a host of other charges which generally wouldn’t be necessary for students who are logging on to take their classes.  On line programs could do away with those fees. 

Deep down, I know the colleges would come up with some other bullshit way to absorb those missing fees by levying an e-learning fee of some sort.  So be it.  If the fee is justified as something other than an overt cash grab, maybe it will be worth it.

Expand dual credit courses in high school.  For those of you not in the know, students nowadays can get dual credit for classes they take in high school.  The school is affiliated with a local college, and college credit is awarded for completion of the class along with the requisite high school credit.  This process allows the student to start earning college credit early, and then reduces the number of courses they have to take when they actually get to college.  Fewer college courses to take results in a smaller tuition bill y’all.  Expanding these programs to include more classes would dispense with the need to take a bunch of the basic courses that come up in the first two years of college.

I’m sure there are other ways to reduce tuition costs.  I’d like to think I’ve listed the obvious ones that aren’t getting as much traction as they should.

So in the grand scheme of things here’s what needs to be done to help solve the student loan debt crisis.

First of all, government needs to get out of the business of guaranteeing student loans.  By extension, colleges will lose the incentive to jack up prices knowing they can get whatever the ask for.

Student loan debt should not be forgiven with the stroke of a pen.  Those who have the debt need to execute a plan to pay it back.  For those business which can, expand tuition assistance and reimbursement programs for their employees.  I’ve got to think tax incentives could for the employer could help out.

Colleges which generate a shitload of dimes from their sports programs need to stop accepting government guaranteed loans as payment.  It doesn’t make sense that they do.  In turn, they need to transparently transfer that cost to their fandom where it belongs.  The market will drive just how much of that cost will be passed on to the fans.

Big business needs to expand their grant and scholarship programs to help lower the cost of college as well.  Again, transparently raise the cost of their goods and services if necessary.

Colleges which don’t rely on their sports programs need to expand their on-line learning programs to reduce the overhead cost involved with a college education.

Colleges need to work with school districts to expand dual credit classes for high school students.

Now that we’ve gotten all of the nonsense about a government created crisis out of the way, let’s move on to other things.  In researching some of my ramblings for this piece, I found a nice little nugget of intelligence which will serve as a great cannon fodder for the TharpSter New Year coming up in a few weeks.

Stay tuned.