So they cut Pell Grants. That would be hilarious. Unless it wasn't.

[Stinky The Clown]

Their answer to the inability to find a job is to go to school.

Their answer, in part, to the deficit, is to cut education funding.

Their answer to the call to improve the education system they're gutting is to fuck with the unions and fund charter schools to replace pubic schools.

How many of these fine new teachers they expect to hire after they throw out all the "bad" teachers do you think plan to, in part, finance their education with . . . wait for it . . . Pell Grants.






I really think these motherfuckers are among the most mean spirited shits to ever tread shoeleather on soil.




edit to add "be" to the thread title.

[Buzz Clik]

1. +1

[HereSince1628]

2. I remember a place in time before Pell Grants and guaranteed student loans.

It was a time when a person could think about the education award from the GI bill as something of an incentive.

I wonder if that isn't where they hope to return us?

[bluethruandthru]

11. I remember when the cost of a college education didn't require

a second mortgage on the house.

[Yupster]

12. Yes, why has college tuition gone up so quickly

the last 20-30 years.

Used to be a middle class family could send three kids to college if they worked on-campus jobs to help a little bit. That's how my family did it.

Today you need the government to give you money to go.

I know the teachers don't make that much at colleges so where's the money going?

[HereSince1628]

15. The double digit inflation under Reagan was a big part of that

It resulted in huge increases in the cost of living, which are all reflected in the salaries of university faculty and staff. Don't forget that as employers, colleges and state universities provide insurance which has increased in double digits for more than a decade.

Additionally, classroom technology has improved dramatically and is seen as essential. In need of tuition to keep the doors open, colleges and universities take on students from lower in their high school classes, this demands more money be spent on learning centers, writing centers, counseling centers, etc.

All the stuff generates tremendous overheads that mostly are met with tuition and fees that students pay.

[HereSince1628]

14. That depended on the family income.

Back in the time I am remembering a college would require ~100 in tuition and fees and $500- $750 a semester in room and board So that's about $1200 a year. That's was when my father made about $7500 a year and his house was worth between 18K and 22K.

He had 5 children that graduated high school. He told us boys that we were on our own because he couldn't afford it.
He did send my sister to college (he actually said he thought he owed it to her because she was too fat to ever get married). He did take on a personal loan using his house as collateral to send her.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. And tuition was affordable then

It's not now.

[HereSince1628]

20. It's all relative, really...depends on yours or your parent's income

I must say that the minimum wage has lost much of it's buying power since the 1960's


And that's still true, although employers are much less likely to take on an employee for any job without already having training, and more working class kids, from families with limited means, need and want to go to school

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. In the 60s my husband paid $98 a semester

My last year in college in the 70s, tuition was $197 a semester.

This was at a state university.

[HereSince1628]

22. Yes, I remember...that all sounds right

in 1965 my father made $7200 per year as a janitor

He bought a used car 2 years old for $1200

A monthly phone bill was $5 before long distance and a water bill for 7 people was also about $5.

Minimum wage was somewhere around ~40 cents an hour, and at age 12 I worked in my uncle's butcher shop and used every knife and power tool in the place.

In 1983 when my father retired as a janitor and was making just at $15 per hour.

The double digit inflation that began in the Carter administration was roaring.

I chose to leave the big schools of the midwest because I could go to Texas A&M grade school and pay $5 per credit hour as an in-state student with teaching assistant. I had $125 in fees per semester, and then my books (color print in texts was just getting to be a big deal and they got expensive--usually $30-$40 per book (I've taught at college and know that an intro text for bio now goes for $75 USED) which included a non-refundable $30 fee for the school having intercollegiate sports.

[WinkyDink]

3. It is a misapprehension to think Republicans care about education beyond looting the public coffers.

[Scuba]

7. Bingo on your point. Fuzziness on your use of "misapprehension". Is that a Bushism?

[annabanana]

8. nope.. that's a real one. . . n/t

[Scuba]

9. OK, coffee's kicking in... I get it. Thanks. n/t

[liberal N proud]

4. The wealthy don't want the poor kids going to the same schools

as their children.

[Vinca]

5. It makes no sense.

Especially since it wouldn't be uncommon to find a grant for a ferret farm in the same legislation.

[Tesha]

6. The Republicans don't even *TRY* to offer a self-consistent program.

They simply argue for whatever is expedient and
cheapest and best for them at the moment. And if,
viewed as a whole, their program is a hypocritical
mess, they don't care.

Tesha

[Warren Stupidity]

10. They certainly are focused on their objectives.

And they smell blood in the water. This is it. 80 years after the start of the New Deal, it is all coming to an end.

[xmas74]

13. I'm worried about this on a personal level.

I'm entering my late thirties and I'm back in school. The past few years have not been good to me on the job market (lay off, no call-back, now working at $0.75 an hour over minimum wage). I decided that now was the time to go back to school, since many offer classes online. I take six hours a semester, hoping to finally finish in the next couple of years.

If I lose any funding on my Pell at all I won't be able to afford to complete my degree. This not only impacts me but my child. She'll stay below the poverty line instead of having a parent who can actually provide for her.

I'm really scared.

[Fearless]

16. In the words of George Carlin...

"(America's owners) don’t want well informed, well educated people... They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it....”

[alfredo]

17. The rich don't want their children going to school with those

smelly, lice ridden middle class kids. And heaven forbid if they had to compete for a job against one of those lower caste kids.

[OnionPatch]

19. It's their most defining characteristic.

I wrote a little piece on how mean they were some years back that made the rounds.

I'm seriously looking into sending my daughter to Europe for college in the hope that she'll leave this country full of mean, hateful, greedy people. It's so sad to feel this way about my country.