Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

[St. Clown]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

A campaign based on lowering college tuition rates doesn't make sense for someone with children?

Ever since lower college tuition rates has become a political goal, when have we see a true reduction in the cost of tuition? In 1995, my in-state tuition, room and board, books, and various extraneous course fees, totaled up to roughly $5,600 for that school year. That was for a full course load. Three of the four years I was at SCSU the tuition increased by double digits, the highest being 13%. For that same situation today, that same in-state tuition is, per SCSU's site, $16,944.

The devil is in the details when it comes to how education is financed. The more scholarship and grant aide we make available for college students, the more it costs to attend college because it changes the variables in a budget constraint analysis. Schools know this, they generally have a PhD or two on campus to help them run the data. Add to that, students are demanding better and better accommodations (look at how the dorms are changing at SCSU alone), which are going to add to that increased cost as fewer dorm beds are available, so they'll fetch a higher price.

 

[Jimjamesak]

Ever since lower college tuition rates has become a political goal, when have we see a true reduction in the cost of tuition? In 1995, my in-state tuition, room and board, books, and various extraneous course fees, totaled up to roughly $5,600 for that school year. That was for a full course load. Three of the four years I was at SCSU the tuition increased by double digits, the highest being 13%. For that same situation today, that same in-state tuition is, per SCSU's site, $16,944.

The devil is in the details when it comes to how education is financed. The more scholarship and grant aide we make available for college students, the more it costs to attend college because it changes the variables in a budget constraint analysis. Schools know this, they generally have a PhD or two on campus to help them run the data. Add to that, students are demanding better and better accommodations (look at how the dorms are changing at SCSU alone), which are going to add to that increased cost as fewer dorm beds are available, so they'll fetch a higher price.

Best way? Stop hacking away at education budgets like politicians love to do and stop forcing schools to raise tuition to cover budget holes.

I'd also add to stop steering kids towards college only and look at expanding trade schools. Not everyone needs a college degree. Yes the world needs ditch diggers but also carpenters and plumbers too.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Ever since lower college tuition rates has become a political goal, when have we see a true reduction in the cost of tuition? In 1995, my in-state tuition, room and board, books, and various extraneous course fees, totaled up to roughly $5,600 for that school year. That was for a full course load. Three of the four years I was at SCSU the tuition increased by double digits, the highest being 13%. For that same situation today, that same in-state tuition is, per SCSU's site, $16,944.

The devil is in the details when it comes to how education is financed. The more scholarship and grant aide we make available for college students, the more it costs to attend college because it changes the variables in a budget constraint analysis. Schools know this, they generally have a PhD or two on campus to help them run the data. Add to that, students are demanding better and better accommodations (look at how the dorms are changing at SCSU alone), which are going to add to that increased cost as fewer dorm beds are available, so they'll fetch a higher price.

Grants alone won't help, because as you point out an across-the-board grant of X just lets all the schools raise tuition by X. The solution has to be different for public and private schools.

Public schools are relatively easy: the state sets tuition and the state provides financial aid, so you don't have the perverse incentive for the provost (does the provost set tuition? I always forget.) because she's spending her own money.

Private schools are different, and the only solution may be the HYP model, where they subsidize kids who didn't win the birth lottery. The problem there, of course, is so few schools can afford to do that in an effective way that in the Ivies themselves not all the members can. If anybody has a good solution for non-rich private schools, I've yet to hear it.

Rather than "free tuition," which is too simplistic, we should be capping lender rates as something reasonable. Double digit student loan rates are like double digit home loan rates: they should tell you that you're going to default. So ban them -- thou shalt not issue a student loan for greater than 9.9%. Now, instead of schools participating in the ripoff of low income families, the schools themselves will have to cut their tuition, or make some sort of subsidy accommodation directly with the student, or keep tuition high and not have enough students to keep the lights on.

I don't like Bernie tuition plan except that it brings the issue front and center, which is important. But the workable solution doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, so I get why he did it.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Best way? Stop hacking away at education budgets like politicians love to do and stop forcing schools to raise tuition to cover budget holes.

I'd also add to stop steering kids towards college only and look at expanding trade schools. Not everyone needs a college degree. Yes the world needs ditch diggers but also carpenters and plumbers too.

The collegiate budgets are not being hacked away in this state. For a few years, the U of M and MnSCU were complaining about budget cuts, but when the data was reviewed between budgets, they were always getting at least 3% increases in year-over-year budgets directly from the State. Their complaints were that they wanted up to 10% funding increases directly from the State, and cried foul when they weren't given their oysters and caviar platters.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Now here's a compromise all Dems can get behind.

I asked him how bad a Trump candidacy would really be for the Republican Party — and would Clinton’s email troubles propel the Manhattan mogul to victory, as Trump has suggested?

“Hillary would beat him from jail,” Miller said. “I’m telling you. That’s how unpopular he is. It’s crazy.”

Crazy is one word for it. A friend working on a down-ballot race in North Carolina had thrown a Trump question into a poll last week. “Twenty-three fave, 69 unfave was the verdict on Trump” statewide, he told me. “Could he improve that over the course of the general after five months of people having to watch Hillary on their TV? Would [traditional Republicans] end up kind of holding their nose and moving back towards him? Sure, but how many?” The friend speculated that Trump might not even crack 35 percent favorability in North Carolina, a state Mitt Romney carried narrowly in 2012.

More ominously for Trump, Miller says many of the people associated with the Stop Donald movement have no intention of stopping their efforts even if he’s able to secure the nomination over a surging Cruz. Miller says he would eagerly work for a third-party conservative who rises to challenge Trump, even it means handing the White House to Clinton, a person he finds personally “loathesome.”

 

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Best way? Stop hacking away at education budgets like politicians love to do and stop forcing schools to raise tuition to cover budget holes.

I'd also add to stop steering kids towards college only and look at expanding trade schools. Not everyone needs a college degree. Yes the world needs ditch diggers but also carpenters and plumbers too.

I think Louisiana has it figured out. Just keep cutting funding until you can't pay anyone and have to contemplate closing them all. Can't have tuition problems when there's no school!

 

[Jimjamesak]

I think Louisiana has it figured out. Just keep cutting funding until you can't pay anyone and have to contemplate closing them all. Can't have tuition problems when there's no school!

That seems to be Alaska's solution.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Grants alone won't help, because as you point out an across-the-board grant of X just lets all the schools raise tuition by X. The solution has to be different for public and private schools.

Public schools are relatively easy: the state sets tuition and the state provides financial aid, so you don't have the perverse incentive for the provost (does the provost set tuition? I always forget.) because she's spending her own money.

Private schools are different, and the only solution may be the HYP model, where they subsidize kids who didn't win the birth lottery. The problem there, of course, is so few schools can afford to do that in an effective way that in the Ivies themselves not all the members can. If anybody has a good solution for non-rich private schools, I've yet to hear it.

Rather than "free tuition," which is too simplistic, we should be capping lender rates as something reasonable. Double digit student loan rates are like double digit home loan rates: they should tell you that you're going to default. So ban them -- thou shalt not issue a student loan for greater than 9.9%. Now, instead of schools participating in the ripoff of low income families, the schools themselves will have to cut their tuition, or make some sort of subsidy accommodation directly with the student, or keep tuition high and not have enough students to keep the lights on.

I don't like Bernie tuition plan except that it brings the issue front and center, which is important. But the workable solution doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, so I get why he did it.

I can't speak to the U of M system with its board of regents (Twin Cities, Duluth, Crookston, Morris and Rochester campuses), but the MnSCU system (all schools that have "State" in their names here) have funding and prices set by a collaboration between the MnSCU system itself and the schools themselves. Each of the four-year state schools has a president, and then MnSCU has a chancellor, that work together (or their staffs do) to set a base budget and then each school sets its tuition rates from there.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

I think Louisiana has it figured out. Just keep cutting funding until you can't pay anyone and have to contemplate closing them all. Can't have tuition problems when there's no school!

It's a virtuous cycle, because if you eliminate education you make more of the type of voter who cuts education.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

The collegiate budgets are not being hacked away in this state. For a few years, the U of M and MnSCU were complaining about budget cuts, but when the data was reviewed between budgets, they were always getting at least 3% increases in year-over-year budgets directly from the State. Their complaints were that they wanted up to 10% funding increases directly from the State, and cried foul when they weren't given their oysters and caviar platters.

As an employee of MNSCU I can tell you that while the numbers arent getting cut, they arent nearly at the support level needed to make the State System work. The U has similar issues as well. That is a talking point that is twisted by both sides to the point that people have no idea what the truth is anymore.

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Rover is channeling Red State, where everything to his left is pot and naivete. It's done every day on the Echo Chamber, and it is quite telling that he immediately falls into that patter when backed into a corner.

Clinton is losing on the merits in the marketplace of ideas; you can tell even she knows it because she's moving left, albeit perhaps merely for show. We'll see what she actually does in office. On Domestic non-fiscal policy she may actually be fine. Just don't expect her to do anything about inequality and corporate greed while she's in office, because that is simply not her inclination.

In the end, on a -10 to +10 scale of acceptability she's a solid +2 or +3, and the two leading orcs are -7 or -8. We have a three party system now, with Hillary and the DLC controlling a centrist party. The predations of the GOP are so lethal that pretty much anything is justified in keeping them away from power, so in the general we'll vote for her. I suspect neither she nor, to judge from here, her supporters care how as long as she wins, so they'll be happy. The creeps and cretins on the right will have been pushed back for another few years so we'll be happy. As for the future and demographics, well, we'll see won't we? Without significant change the mass of people getting madder and matter at the elites will only grow, so Hillary may actually finally be forced to do something positive by her prime directive: self preservation. Maybe it will be like TEH GAYZ and she'll "evolve."

Ahhh poor Keppy. Another long rant blowing a gasket when in fact the answer is much, much simpler. Could it be, hold onto your seat for a minute, but could it be that Democrats just prefer Hillary's solution to problems more than they prefer Bernie's? I mean, perish the thought and all that, but given that she's won 2.5M more votes than he has thus far, not everyone voting for her over him is 1) misinformed, or 2) really a corporate sellout. Your haughty arrogance is amusing, but don't cry when it comes back at you after Sanders crashes and burns.

Whether Sanders ever had a chance is a question we can't answer, but his supporters haven't done the man any favors. Really Kep's canine like devotion to Bernie is no different than a Trump supporter backing The Donald. However his impact on the race is a bit overstated. He has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter despite some of his fans trying to give him credit for helping their issues to the forefront. Certainly I'll give him credit on the trade pact opposition but Wall St regulation came along without his help (Dodd-Frank, Lizzy Warren's CFPB) and we won't be seeing tax rates at Sweden's levels anytime soon.

Finally I'll say this. If Bernie is the future, why can't the man lift a finger to help fellow progressives down ballot? If you're going to start a revolution, don't you need a few troops to do so?

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Now here's a compromise all Dems can get behind.

What's really kind of funny is that if the GOP race wasn't such a circus, if it was just Jeb Bush and Kasich or someone blandly puttering along until one of them hit the magic number of delegates, the entire story of this election would be about the Clinton meltdown. The narrative would be how Clinton, through her machine and early efforts to obtain pledged delegates, is mathematically almost certain to achieve a majority of delegates, but would do so limping into the convention getting beaten monthly by Sanders in money raising efforts, caucuses and primaries, until everyone shows up in Philly and someone asks, "so, who won this?"

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

What's really kind of funny is that if the GOP race wasn't such a circus, if it was just Jeb Bush and Kasich or someone blandly puttering along until one of them hit the magic number of delegates, the entire story of this election would be about the Clinton meltdown. The narrative would be how Clinton, through her machine and early efforts to obtain pledged delegates, is mathematically almost certain to achieve a majority of delegates, but would do so limping into the convention getting beaten monthly by Sanders in money raising efforts, caucuses and primaries, until everyone shows up in Philly and someone asks, "so, who won this?"

And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. In what alternate reality are Jeb Bush and John Kasich representative of modern day Republicans?

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. In what alternate reality are Jeb Bush and John Kasich representative of modern day Republicans?

They aren't. I'm just saying the old battle axe has benefited greatly by the distraction caused by the trainwreck that is the GOP race. It's like you driving by a thirty-five car pile up on the expressway in your 1974 Olds Delta 88, leaking a quart of oil every twenty miles. No one is going to notice your smoke screen until that pile up is pushed off the road and people drive on to their destination.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

foolishness, sanctimony, and bilge

I've gone out of my way to point out where I disagree with Bernie, and that Bernie himself means nothing -- the ideas are all. You, OTOH, dependably regurgitate the same talking points that DWS and John Podesta feed to CNN daily, and shuck and jive when anyone asks you where you think The Once and Future Queen falls short of Metaphysical Perfection.

 

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

Surely Walker could simply reach out to his buddies at the Bucks after he gave them a new arena?

Walker asks for help to repay campaign debts.

 

[joecct]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

For all those complaining about college costs - check the overhead (non instructional) percentage of the expenses. I would bet our national championship that the administrative slice of the pie has gotten larger and larger.

I'd also look at the same thing in local school boards.

 

[rufus]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

You'll get no argument from me that corporations are going about a great many things with the wrong approach in this country when it comes to managing their highly skilled labor. The problem is to figure out how to induce them into raising wages rather than retaining profits so as to reward those who helped make those profits possible. And it has to be done in a way that's politically palpable.

Working for a publicly traded company in the Fortune 500, I see that we're having record setting profits - that's been the story for the past two or three years now. Those record profits are not turning into increased wages because, and I don't know how many of my coworkers have put two-and-two together on this, investors have said that our expense ratio is too high compared to our competition; that same competition that we've been stomping for the past seven years. So our board cut costs where costs are easiest to cut in a non-retail environment - they slowed our wage growth and found ways to automate a certain amount of work that has led to, at least in my area, employee reduction through attrition rather than direct layoffs. Oh, and our profit sharing payout percentages have dropped year over year despite our continued success, in addition to reduced wage growth. They're brewing up a mean cauldron of trouble, if they'd only pay attention to the plebes. In short order, they'll see themselves undoing all those great gains we've made over the past decade.

And the reason is..............

We've gone from a country and a people that used to think long term, and are now seeking immediate gratification. Those "investors", rather than investing in a company that will be there for decades or even centuries, and provide them with a nice reasonable rate of return over that time, now think only in terms of the next quarter. Their cut of the next quarter's profits need to be more than this quarter, and the quarter after that better be even better. And they don't care what the company has to do to make it happen. Increase growth, cut costs, lay off half the work force, sell off a division or some intellectual property, buy back stock, whatever has to be done to boost that all-important share-price.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

And the reason is..............

We've gone from a country and a people that used to think long term, and are now seeking immediate gratification. Those "investors", rather than investing in a company that will be there for decades or even centuries, and provide them with a nice reasonable rate of return over that time, now think only in terms of the next quarter. Their cut of the next quarter's profits need to be more than this quarter, and the quarter after that better be even better. And they don't care what the company has to do to make it happen. Increase growth, cut costs, lay off half the work force, sell off a division or some intellectual property, buy back stock, whatever has to be done to boost that all-important share-price.

And it's always more more more. A good return is never enough. It has to be great. A solid company that pays it's taxes, gives it's employees a good life, contributes to the community, and pays it's shareholders is **** compared to the company that gives the shareholders the golden goose.

 

[rufus]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part, let's say, X: There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River

It's a virtuous cycle, because if you eliminate education you make more of the type of voter who cuts education.

And the perfect pool of wage slaves for our corporate overlords.