Republican defunding eventually priced college, the ticket to the middle class, out of reach to so many millions of Americans!

Like the deregulated railroads and banks, Republicans continue to create cleanup jobs for Democrats. After decades of defunding our state colleges, despite their massive economic contribution to Wisconsin, Republicans forced higher education to increase tuition dramatically. That gave the GOP the opportunity to feign outrage over those greedy liberal indoctrination centers, an excuse to further cut funding and to blame federal loan programs for making it worse. Round and around it goes.  

It now requires the Democratic Biden administration to offer a loan forgiveness program to get the economy back on track. 

Exposing that myth, NPR uncovered this…: 

SHAPIRO: How do you respond to the argument we just heard, that this plan effectively asks taxpayers who chose not to take on debt to subsidize the decisions of those who did?

MCHEE: This big new policy is in the larger economic interest of the nation. It is going to be great for our economy to help unshackle 20 million borrowers. And 90% of the money is going to people who earn less than $75,000 a year.

First of all, it was the decision of politicians to create a debt-for-diploma system, where, because of cutbacks at the state level of public colleges and the shift at the federal level from grants to loans, we pushed the cost of college out of reach for working-class families at the exact same time that politicians decided to make a college degree the ticket to the middle class.

SHAPIRO: Explain why that shift in state funding for education is so essential to understanding this debate.

MCHEE: You know, college used to be virtually free at the public level, not because it didn’t cost anything, but because the government picked up the tab with state funding that was generous. And whatever was left over would be made up often by a grant, not a loan. And so it was a political decision to cut state funding for public colleges. So young people have been paying for that political decision, and now they get to benefit from a smarter political decision by the Biden-Harris administration.

A former liberal radio talk host who likes to ask the “follow-up question” at Democurmudgeon.blogspot.com