by Charles Hugh-Smith
If America by some means managed to teach hundreds of thousands of school college students with out burdening them with $2 trillion in debt in 1993, why is it now “unimaginable” to take action, at the same time as America’s wealth and gross nationwide product (GDP) have each rocketed larger over the previous 27 years?
Predators thrive on Individuals’ quick reminiscences. Pupil loans of their current scale didn’t exist previous to 1994. Based on the Federal Reserve FRED database, the coed mortgage steadiness was zero in 1993.
From zero in 1993 to $1.728 trillion in 2021: that is the predatory financialization of upper schooling which has enriched lenders, Wall Avenue and the Increased Training Cartel. As I’ve famous earlier than, such parasitic rapaciousness would have been felony a couple of generations in the past; now it’s cheered as a dependable supply of income by Wall Avenue and handled as enterprise as standard by the corporate-owned media.
If America by some means managed to teach hundreds of thousands of school college students with out burdening them with $2 trillion in debt in 1993, why is it now “unimaginable” to take action, at the same time as America’s wealth and gross nationwide product (GDP) have each rocketed larger over the previous 27 years?
America is now an ethical cesspool, and scholar loans show it. Be aware that the $1.728 trillion isn’t all the load of debt crushing college students; that’s solely the securitized scholar loans. Wily sharpsters have discovered all types of private-debt niches which they promote as “scholar loans” however which are literally shopper loans. Then there’s the bank card debt from card issuers giving college students “student-only playing cards.” Add all of it up and the overall seemingly exceeds $2 trillion.
Monopolies, cartels, profiteers and insiders at all times have a raft of excuses and justifications for his or her exploitation of the powerless, and all these cashing in on the $2 trillion have the standard excuses plus a novel set of noble-sounding educational rationalizations.
Journalist Matt Taibbi lays waste to 1 slice of the coed mortgage racket in The Trillion-Greenback Lie (courtesy of correspondent Joel W.), the authorized basis of all the parasitic swindle: “college students can’t escape scholar loans in chapter court docket.” However suppose the authorized edifice had been to acknowledge that universities usually are not “non-profits” however are as a substitute a racketeering cartel?
Whereas crying poor, universities have pursued a building growth of trophy buildings with out precedent and piled up slush funds with lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} extracted from scholar debt-serfs. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, then you definitely have to be swimming laps in America’s ethical cesspool, praising the putrid stench as “the scent of cash.”
It doesn’t should be this fashion. Means again in 2012 I laid out a option to supply 4-year college levels for 10% of the present price (minus dwelling bills, which accrue whether or not you’re a scholar or not) in my ebook The Practically Free College. There are fashions which might produce higher instructional outcomes at a fraction of the present bloated price.
To all these swimming laps in America’s ethical cesspool, a couple of phrases of warning:
1. America has run out of powerless individuals who may be exploited and become debt-serfs.
2. The pendulum of exploitation, racketeering and greed that’s been pushed to near-infinity is about to swing to the opposite excessive. The banquet of penalties will quickly be served, and the doorways to the banquet corridor might be locked. The programs in karma and Divine Retribution might be particularly enlightening.
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