By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen We’re well beyond the Presidential “Message: I care about the middle class” tour, but among his priorities at one whistle-stop was a plan for reining in the cost of higher education. The idea for a […]
Read more...Last week Obama began to make threats regarding a new college ranking system and its connection to federal funding. Here’s an excerpt of what he was talking about, from this WSJ article:
Read more...The president called for rating colleges before the 2015 school year on measures such as affordability and graduation rates—”metrics like how much debt does the average student leave with, how easy is it to pay off, how many students graduate on time, how well do those graduates do in the workforce,” Mr. Obama told a crowd at the University at Buffalo, the first stop on a two-day bus tour.
Yves here. It almost seems quaint to think that someone (in reality, large swathes of the investor and orthodox economics community) thinks the US economy will someday bear a passing resemblance to its former bubble-stoked vigor.
Read more...Facing big debts and few decent jobs, today’s young people can’t get started in life.
Read more...Yves here. This Real News Network interview with Alan Collinge, author of Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History and How We Can Fight Back, gives a short and clear overview of how student borrowers lack the protections that exist in other types of consumer lending, and how the Congressional deal to tinker with interest rates completely sidestepped the real problems in this market.
Read more...Higher education used to be free for millions of Americans. A transaction tax on the financial houses could help make it free again
Read more...When union members demand decent pay levels and work conditions, they are charged with featherbedding and overmanning or the new neoliberal catchall, “demanding uncompetitive wages”. But when the upper crust loots institutions, the mainstream media is typically missing in action.
Read more...Dave Dayen’s latest article at Salon makes a critical point about student debt, that is it fundamentally misleading to call it a loan.
Read more...It’s puzzling to see Elizabeth Warren pull her punches on a pressing issue for middle class families, that of student debt.
Read more...It’s hard to know where to begin with a story up at the Wall Street Journal, Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs.
Read more...I was at the Atlantic Economy conference the week before last, and Michael Hudson got in one of the best quips: “Helicopter Ben has taken off and has been dropping money all over Wall Street. But he hasn’t dropped any on Main Street.” He has an informative talk with Paul Jay of Real News Network on why the fixation on public debt is wrongheaded, and we should worry about private debt instead.
Read more...It may seem churlish to hector the New York Times for turning its attention to the sorry financial prospects of the young. But this sort of attention would be more useful if it shed more light, rather than wistfully evoking standards from the old normal.
Read more...It turns out Lambert’s mother-in-law research is pretty good.
Read more...No wonder the collision of the higher education bubble and the job market is proving to be so painful.
Read more...ow that student loans are undeniably in bubble territory, the officialdom is starting to wake up and take notice.
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