At an annual growth rate of 7.45 percent, tuition has vastly outstripped both the consumer price index and health care inflation (see chart). The growth in home prices during the housing bubble looks like a mere bump in the road by comparison. For many years, parents could look to increased home values to make them feel better about paying Junior’s tuition—the so-called “wealth effect,” in which increases in asset values make people more comfortable about spending. Or at least they could borrow tuition costs against the equity in their homes. But that equity is gone now, and tuition marches on.
So where does that leave us? Even students who major in programs shown to increase earnings, such as engineering, face limits to how much debt they can sanely amass. With costs exceeding $60,000 a year for many private schools, and out-of-state costs at many state schools exceeding $40,000 (and often closing in on $30,000 for in-state students), some people are graduating with debt loads of $100,000 or more. Sometimes much more.
That’s dangerous. And the problem is not a small one: According to the Ohio University economist Richard Vedder, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the number of student-loan debtors now actually equals the number of people with college degrees. How is this possible? “First, huge numbers of those borrowing money never graduate from college,” Vedder explains. “Second, many who borrow are not in baccalaureate degree programs. Third, people take forever to pay their loans back.”
Total student loan debt in America has passed the trillion-dollar mark. That’s more than total credit card debt and more than total auto loan debt. Students graduating with heavy burdens of student loan debt must choose (if they can) jobs that pay enough money to cover the payments, often limiting their career choices to an extent they didn’t foresee in their undergraduate days.
Even students who can earn enough to service their debts may find themselves constrained in other ways: It’s hard to get a mortgage, for example, when you’re already effectively paying one in the form of student loans. And unlike other debt, there’s no “fresh start” available, since student loans generally aren’t dischargeable under bankruptcy. The whole thing looks a bit like the debt slavery schemes used by company stores and sharecropping operators during the 19th century.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Forget the Cellphone Fight — We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
While Congress is working on legislation to re-legalize cellphone unlocking, let’s acknowledge the real issue: The copyright laws that made unlocking illegal in the first place. Who owns our stuff? The answer used to be obvious. Now, with electronics integrated into just about everything we buy, the answer has changed.
We live in a digital age, and even the physical goods we buy are complex. Copyright is impacting more people than ever before because the line between hardware and software, physical and digital has blurred.
The issue goes beyond cellphone unlocking, because once we buy an object — any object — we should own it. We should be able to lift the hood, unlock it, modify it, repair it … without asking for permission from the manufacturer.
But we really don’t own our stuff anymore (at least not fully); the manufacturers do. Because modifying modern objects requires access to information: code, service manuals, error codes, and diagnostic tools. Modern cars are part horsepower, part high-powered computer. Microwave ovens are a combination of plastic and microcode. Silicon permeates and powers almost everything we own.
American Way: why it’s become clear that Obama’s White House is open to the rich and closed to the poor – Telegraph
Since last weekend, Mr and Mrs Regular Citizen have been denied the access people used to be granted to tour the White House, purportedly because of the clampdown on federal spending since the “sequester” that imposed cuts across the board.
These tours, most recently guided by volunteers though monitored by paid Secret Service staff, have been an American tradition since John and Abigail Adams, the first White House residents, personally hosted receptions for the public.
And their cancellation is an austerity measure that saves a pittance, while more frivolous taxpayer funding for items like the White House dog walker continues.
Meanwhile, noble Americans can buy time with the president for a suggested donation of $500,000 to his new campaign group, Organising for Action.
Yes, the announcement offering access to the president for cold, hard cash was made openly and with total transparency. But it was also made without shame.
SWAT officer attracts ridicule after he’s pictured with his rifle sight on backwards | Mail Online
Only the police can be trusted with AR-15s, right?
The officer is using a ‘military style’ assault weapon with a close quarters combat sight that costs roughly $500.
‘It’s disturbing to think that 1) none of his buddies corrected it, and 2) he’s in a real-life situation with his optic on backwards, which means he’s never fired that rifle with the optic on it, which means it isn’t zeroed and he thought it was OK to show up to a gunfight with an unzeroed weapon,’ wrote one Reddit user.
via SWAT officer attracts ridicule after he¿s pictured with his rifle sight on backwards | Mail Online.
‘Go and Repair My House’ – WSJ.com
The meaning of the name he chose should not be underestimated. Cardinal Bergoglio is a Jesuit and the Jesuits were founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, who said he wanted to be like St. Francis of Assisi.
One of the most famous moments in St. Francis’s life is the day he was passing by the church of St. Damiano. It was old and near collapse. From St. Bonaventure’s “Life of Francis of Assisi”: “Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray. Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation. . . . While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord’s cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: ‘Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.'” Francis was amazed “at the sound of this astonishing voice, since he was alone in the church.” He set himself to obeying the command.
Sources: Olbermann’s inability to get a job cited in Current TV settlement – POLITICO.com
Maybe it doesn’t pay to be a jerk to everyone who’s ever given you a chance.
“One of the cards his people played was hardship,” the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told POLITICO. “He spent last fall talking to all the major networks, and he couldn’t get a job. The idea was, this could be the last money he ever earned.”
The source said Olbermann’s lawyers used this as “a bargaining chip” to “appeal to the sympathy” of Current TV executives, but said it was unclear if that factored into Current TV’s decision to agree to a settlement.
Olbermann did not respond to a request for comment regarding the discussion; his manager Michael Price declined to comment, citing confidentiality. Current TV spokesperson Tony Fox also declined to comment, citing confidentiality.
POLITICO has confirmed that Olbermann approached numerous cable and broadcast news channels, including ABC News, in pursuit of a job while still on contract with Current TV. Olbermann has also approached non-news networks, including ESPN and AMC, the channel that broadcasts “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” sources told POLITICO.
But when representatives from Current TV complained in mediation that Olbermann had violated his contract by pursuing other employment opportuntities, Olbermann’s representatives responded by pointing out that nothing had come of those talks, according to the sources.
“No one would hire him, and that became a negotiating ploy,” a source told POLITICO.
via Sources: Olbermann’s inability to get a job cited in Current TV settlement – POLITICO.com.
Angry McCain ups ante, calls Paul, Cruz ‘wacko birds’ | WashingtonExaminer.com
It’s not really very “maverick” to go along with everyone else, John. Also, please watch out for power lines when flying low.
Elder Sen. John McCain, who this week engaged in friendly fire when he launched his “maverick” missiles at fellow Republicans seeking clarification on the administration’s drone policies, has upped the ante, deriding Tea Party-backed GOP lawmakers as “wacko birds.”
McCain, who hit the Senate floor Thursday to belittle Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster, which succeeded in getting an answer from President Obama that drones won’t be used to kill Americans on U.S. soil, even suggested that the Kentucky senator and his allies, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, don’t represent the GOP mainstream.
“It’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone,” McCain told Huffington Post’s Jon Ward in a story titled “John McCain: Getting Back To Maverick, With An Eye On Retirement.”
via Angry McCain ups ante, calls Paul, Cruz ‘wacko birds’ | WashingtonExaminer.com.
Newt Gingrich Schools Piers Morgan on Catholic Church ‘Reform’ | NewsBusters
GINGRICH: I am amazed at how much western elites translate reform into sex. If it doesn’t relate — if it doesn’t relate to sex, it doesn’t count. I think he’s going to challenge all of us in terms of dealing with the poor. I think he’s going to challenge all of us in terms of spirituality. I think he’s going to wrestle more than any Pope has in modern times with a part of your question, which is if Christ loves everybody, and that certainly includes people of different sexual identities, then what is the church’s relationship to everybody? And I don’t know that he’s going to come up, Piers, with what you would think of as enlightenment. But I think he may come up with some answers that are profoundly spiritual and that lead all of us to new dialogue and new conversation, in ways that, frankly, without him as Pope, we might never have imagined.
via Newt Gingrich Schools Piers Morgan on Catholic Church ‘Reform’ | NewsBusters.
Kid saves his mom and sister from sexual assault | khou.com Houston
A boy broke from his binding and grabbed a handgun that sent the suspects fleeing from the Webster home invasion, which started about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 18400 block of Anne Drive.
Webster police arrested Charles Allen Jacobson III, 33, near the home, and Dickinson police arrested James Ellis Barnett, 56, in a traffic stop.
Jacobson was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a woman and her daughter and with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, according to a Webster police statement issued Thursday afternoon by Chief Ray Smiley.
What Liberals Need to Understand About ‘Gun Guys’ – Hope Reese – The Atlantic
From the Atlantic, a good interview with a liberal who gets guns:
At one point in your trip, you switched from open carry to concealed carry. What was that like?
In some ways I really liked it. It’s physically uncomfortable, it’s heavy and it digs into you, and you have to be very conscious of your clothing to make sure you’re not displaying it, because you really don’t want anyone knowing you’re carrying it. But it kept me vigilant. You really have your shit together when you’re carrying a gun. You never forget you’re wearing it. Maybe cops who’ve been wearing a gun for 30 years forget they’re wearing it, but I certainly never did, and I wore it for about 18 months.
It also made me really calm. When you’re wearing a gun, you do not get upset if someone takes your parking space, or if someone cuts you in line. You have this quite noble sense of being the sheepdog, being the protector. And I liked that.
But then you start wondering — what is my responsibility here? It’s really complicated. Say you’re in a shopping mall and somebody starts shooting. What do you do? If you run away, are you like a doctor who doesn’t respond when someone starts choking in a restaurant? If you’re wearing a gun, do you have an obligation to run towards the sound of the guns?
via What Liberals Need to Understand About ‘Gun Guys’ – Hope Reese – The Atlantic.