Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
So, you’re a barista with a problem – you took out $200K student loans to get that master’s degree from Gumbo State in “LGBTQ2#v& Experiences as Reflected in 17th Century Bolivian Folk Songs” and now you can’t find an uncaffeinated career. Worse, those fascist monsters who you took money from based on your agreement to pay it back with interest now expect you to pay the money back with interest despite the fact that you really don’t feel like it anymore.
Well, I have a fresh solution to this crisis.
It’s an innovative strategy that totally and permanently resolves this problem in a new and exciting way.
Ready?
Here goes.
How about you pay your own student debt?
That’s it. It’s as elegant as it is simple. You. Pay. Your. Own. Debts.
If you follow this bold, one-step program – the one step is you paying your debts – then you will eventually be debt-free. And best of all, I won’t have to pay any of your debts.
See, a lot of Democrat politicians are promising “free college,” but what they really mean is “free for you.” Someone has to pay, and that someone is me, and I need to level with you.
I am not interested in paying for your college.
Now, some may call me “greedy” or “selfish” for not wishing to work and then have the money I earned taken from me to provide things to you that you want but did not pay for instead of being able to spend it – the “it” being the money I earned – on things that I want. I am okay with that. I would much prefer having people who fundamentally misunderstand the concepts of greed and selfishness call me “greedy” and “selfish” than subsidize their educations, educations that evidently did not include learning about basic concepts like greed and selfishness.
I understand that your priorities for my money may differ from mine, but it being my money, my priorities should take precedence. Here is a short, partial list of things that I prioritize for my money over paying off your student loan debts:
1. A lease on a sweet German sedan
2. A delicious tri-tip sandwich
3. A walk-in humidor
4. Guns and ammo
5. A pedicure for my wife
6. A pedicure for me
7. A pedicure for my fat corgi Bitey
8. Literally anything else but your student loan debt
Now, those who support the idea of taking my money to give it to someone else so that someone else can have things he, she or xe wants rarely put it so bluntly. It’s never, “Well, I want this education but I don’t want to do the things necessary to pay for it. I want you other people to do the things necessary to pay for it.” Instead, it’s always put in some other way that makes them taking our money to spend on things they want appear as a favor to us, the people expected to do the work.
For instance, sometimes they say that us working to give other people free stuff is an “investment.” Again with the not understanding what words means…
Traditionally, with an investment, one gets a return on investment. No one ever explains what my return on investment for Kaden’s Marxist Puppetry degree might be, other than an occasional latte which I would still have to pay for. I prefer that I instead determine how to invest my own money in order to benefit myself, which I do not see as unreasonable since it is my money. Which I earned by working.
This is the beauty of my one-step student loan plan. It puts all this controversy aside. Pay your own student loan off. That’s it. End of discussion. Now get to work.
Note that I am not pointing out how I managed to fund my own education without asking strangers to chip in – actually, without forcing them to chip in, because if you don’t pay your taxes designed to fund “free college” people with guns will come to haul you away. The argument that “I paid for mine so you should pay for you own” is valid, but we need not even reach it. No one should ever be forced to give other people free stuff. It’s my money, and that’s reason enough why you can’t have it.
I certainly understand that academia is a scam and that the government allows lending to people who foolishly undertake debts that they cannot pay. I would stop it all – no government participation in the student loan industry and full bankruptcy dischargeability for student debts. Of course, this would mean many less people taking loans, and therefore fewer college students. No lose to society there. This means many colleges would actually start having to compete for students, and even – gasp – lower prices. Sounds good to me, though they would scream bloody murder – colleges have gotten fat off of loan money and many schools would go under without this pot of suckers’ cash. Oh well.
Sure, academia is a grift, but you did sign on the line that is dotted. You took the money. And I say that you pay it back instead of me.
Now, I have read many tales of woe from people who have taken out huge student loans and have not taken jobs that pay enough to support paying them off. Yes, this is a problem. But it is your problem.
Often, after I suggest my patented student loan debt resolution system – which is, in its entirety, “Pay your own debts” – people who have taken out debts they can’t pay will ask me “Well, how do I do that?”
And my answer is, “I don’t know, because it’s not my problem. It’s your problem. You’re an adult, with at least one degree, so you figure it out.”
See, it’s important to allocate responsibility. It is not my responsibility to provide a solution to your problems. Your problems are your problems. You solve them.
Now, I can provide some helpful suggestions, if you wish to hear them. You won’t like them, because all of them recognize that your problem is your problem, not mine, and all of them require you to do things that you would probably prefer not to do. These suggestions include:
1. Get a better job. You can thank President Trump for the record low unemployment rate. Sure, you might not be able to continue at your dream job because it does not pay enough, but too bad. I’d rather pay for my own dreams.
2. Get a second job. Yeah, that will cut into your free time. Better that than paying your debt off cutting into mine.
3. Spend less on things you enjoy in order to pay off your debt faster. Again, I would prefer you to sacrifice to pay off your debt instead of for me to sacrifice to pay off your debt.
There are probably other ways to pay off your debt, but I am not going to spend my time thinking about them. After all, your student debt is your problem, so you spend time thinking about how to pay it off.
Now, let me once more provide you with my student debt solution.
Here it is again.
Pay your own student debt.
Creating a debtor class of over-educated, under-smart serfs with gender studies degrees is another Cloward-Piven-seque ploy to undermine our society in the pursuit of the socialist Utopia our garbage ruling class seeks to command. Of course, this would be a Utopia built of envy, incompetence and lies. If you want to see the reality of the country they dream of, then check out my action-packed yet super-snarky novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Liberals hate my novels. The sissy castaways from the Weekly Standard call them “Appalling.” So, obviously you’ll call them “Awesome.”
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8. Literally anything else but your student loan debt.
My son, who began testing in the 90+++ percentile in analytical mathematics in 6th grade, informed me he really wanted to study psychology in college. I bought him several old psychology texts and told him to enjoy them but realize that shit only pays the bills if you want to talk to crazy people all day.
He is now a software engineer making enough money to pay for any college debt he accrued his last semester when I refused to pay the cost of his dropping a class prior to graduation.
And, guess what? He still gets to talk to crazy people all day. He works for a very large medical “group” intent on making sure everyone has all the medication they need to keep them sedated.
I would rather he’d focused on Electrical Engineering but at least he isn’t a two-bit psychoanalyst.
“That’s it. It’s as elegant as it is simple. You. Pay. Your. Own. Debts.”
Bwahahahbababa
1) what can’t be paid, won’t be paid
2) how about we hold everyone and every entity to that same standard. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I have found a really good piece of advice for young people about to head out into the world to pursue an education.
Before you decide on what you want to commit the next 4-8 years studying and going into debt for, spend one year as a low level volunteer/employee in that industry or business and see if you think you’d like to do that for the next 25- 40 years. I know a lot of kids who want to be in the medical field, but when you explain to them that they will spend virtually their entire adult life confined to the inside of a big building under artificial lights it’s as if they never once considered it. A kid who thinks being a cop is a great idea should go on ride-alongs and see what it’s like spending the majority of their life dealing with lowlifes, abused children, drug addicts, pencil pushers, petty bureaucrats and other assorted losers and dregs. That takes a lot of the romance out of it.
Most Americans have spent most of their lives inside their own heads, as passive watchers of screens or objects of teachers agitprop, they have done very little by way of real world experience and their perceptions of how things operate and what careers and jobs are like are formed by TV and movies. Doing a thing is a completely different world from imagining yourself doing a thing.
The idea that after 13 years of school the next step for an 18 year old is to continue doing that for another 4-8 years is criminally insane. The last people on earth who should be going to college are 18 year olds. I know why they go and anyone with a penis or a vagina over the age of 16 knows why they go and it isn’t to study for a great career that they will likely stick with for the rest of their adult life. That isn’t a decision someone just out of puberty should be making for themselves, but we’re too overwhelmed by authority figures and social pressure to even think of bucking the trend. The status quo just want to keep able bodied people out of the job market to make their unemployment figures look good and to tie these future taxpayers into lifelong debt and parents just want their friends and family to be impressed so we continue with this retarded program that renders most kids incompetent, indebted and floundering around in early adulthood with a sense of dread and helplessness in a world that for the most part doesn’t care about them in the least.
Great advice. I’ve spoken to career classes at high schools about what I do. I do not sugar coat it. Yes, I’ve walked them through how the field contracted through 2008-09. I’ve told them that the average salaries are not six figures. I’ve told them that there is an under 10% chance you’ll make it big and most are drones doing a job for the paycheck. I’ve told them that the college degree is anywhere from 5-7 years – if you want the accredited masters (which they all do) but you’ll start out in the working world not knowing anything and your employer will spend 3-5 years training you before you’ll even be profitable. I’ve told them that where you get your degree matters very little after you have a couple years experience – in the industry we value who has trained you in the “real” world far more than what professors you have in the make believe world. And to that I also say that whatever student loans are taken should be easily paid back on a salary of $50-60k, where you’ll be for many years when starting out. Oh, and since you don’t get paid more to work in NYC (sometimes even less due to the high demand to work there) that means starting out in a place like Cleveland might be a better idea. Move to the cosmopolitan place after you have a footing.
My son worked for a woman who owned and rode Dressage Horses (I think that’s spelled right… the horse used to “bow” to me when she rode up in her little suit, which is just weird.) She was a member of our prepper group, but she intended to pay folks to do for her. She thought my son might like to work for her. He didn’t like her, but he grew fond of the horses. She paid him well and when she broke her hip his junior year, my son was the only person able to care for her five horses and he got up at 5 a.m. before school to do so for six weeks.
I was prouder of that than his GPA, which in another era might have earned him additional scholarship monies. But, now that there are 40 to 50 Valedictorians in a class of a few hundred kids, the scholarship monies are tight.
I recommend a little shit shoveling for all teenagers who think they are really smart.
‘magine that. Faced with the spectre of paying one’s own college loan debt, the forward thinking student just might get a degree with which he/her can acquire gainful employment. Who knew?
Sounds like a good plan. So no way it will ever be embraced by the left.
Millennial’s are taking over the larger population from baby boomers, they will vote themselves prosperity.
I’ve talked to employees, younger relatives and friends kids and it’s astounding to listen to their anger about their personal debt situations towards everyone, but themselves. Politicians see this and will tap into this anger.
I told one young woman she should vote for Warren, she is promising $50k to each person with student loan debt.
The response? “Fuck that! I want all my loan debt to go away!”
I could go into a long story about how I worked three jobs so my wife could stay home to raise our family, how we went without so many things like cable, large screen tv’s, eating out, vacations, new cars, big house, new furniture, etc.
We all have stories like that, somehow these kids grew up believing in socialism and that others should pay their way, because it’s not fair.
You’re playing the new socialist/democrat version of Monopoly.
After every trip around the board you pass GO. If you’re the leader you must give one piece of property to one player with the least property. Instead of collecting $200 you must pay 35% in taxes to be split between the other players.
Soon no one is buying property. Eventually everyone quits trying to better themselves with hard work, and sit back and waits for their handout when the next fool passes GO.
Kurt hit a 550 ft home run with this one. To bad his team is behind 18 to 1. Student loans will be just one more rock sliding down the mountain into the Venezuela River.
According to his Facebook page, Schlichter was in the Army from 1987 to 2015. Which means he has had a guaranteed regular income provided to him by Uncle Sam for most of his working life. And after being in the military for 20+ years he now has a lavish pension and healthcare coverage for life. Easy to throw stones from that position. What an arrogant S.O.B.
Great comment Todd.
Read my comment, above.
Sure let’s have 18 different sets of debt standards. That ought to make everyone happy. Some can write off or default on debt and others. ..fuck you. Ain’t America great?
The truth (if it even exists):
America is a game. A skim, a scam. Fraudulent. Some commentors sound envious and filled with hate that a student may get an education paid for. And by who? You? Laughable. America is how deep in debt? For what…welfare ghetto queens, endless BANKERS WARS, bailouts and tax cuts for who? 18 year olds are at quite a disadvantage imo. Almost as much as a baby in a 17 year olds uterus (admittedly hyperbolic). Some time ago student loans were dischargable. Why would we guarantee a loan for stupid ass lenders? Ever think of that? At least these young adults spent time and effort. I’m not saying all of them took the “right” classes but they did listen to people who they trusted. “Experts”? Laughable.
You want to fix this or just preen around with your endless judgements?
America could use lots of smart educated young people. Do everything possible to encourage the doers and achievers to go into the fields that will help Make America Grest Again and make it so even a Ben Carson type can afford to go. If it be FREEEEEEEEE, so be it. All the stupid shit classes and majors should require the schools to fund these students. If loans, so be it. But make it so the loans are backed by…wait for it…wait for it…NOTHING just like CC debt. BUT, SEE, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. No, the point is to goose GDP in any and all ways possible.
We have a country where we support 3rd world shitstains. We kill people all over the world for the benefit of corporations. We fuck over the middle class who make just enough where they don’t get any FREEEEEBIES but support all the others who do get FREEEEBIES. Healthcare forced up your ass by a fraudulent healthcare cartel. Fuck it, I don’t have time for this shit.
Let’s look at how the Russians do college education and take a lesson from them. They have some of the best engineers in the world and do it all on a relatively shoestring budget. Their institutions actually educate their students in hard technical subjects.
Thoughts.
Great post.
Great comments by HSF, A, Anarchyst, and Card802.
Further, the young engineer wannabe’s where I work, typically all come from the same technical trade school.
Their feasible plan, as dictated by the school:
6 months in the classroom, then
6 months as a co-op, working at our Co. or similar, gaining working world experience.
Repeat.
If they stay with it, we make sure they get their hands dirty, working w/ the men on the shop floor. Experience.
Force them to take on responsibility. Absorb mistakes. Learn.
Another thought. I’ve suggested it numerous times here.
The Richest Man in Babylon. A simple read, about debt avoidance, and habits that help one master
the art and talent of money management, which is sorely lacking in all who struggle with it.
Ought to be mandatory reading as a high school senior, as part of an Accounting class.
Without a budget, and learning how to master one, your university master’s degree is almost useless.
Slavery, to debts, or a mundane job in order to deal with it, is to be avoided at all costs.
Carry on.
Good luck teaching responsibility to early 20 somethings who have been enabled, spoiled, and entitlements indoctrinated their whole lives by their parent’s, the public school system and modern universities, Hollywood, the MSM and the government.
Good luck.
And shame on the institutions that hand out massive student loans to unproven, lazy, young people with ridiculous majors that often have no intention or reasonable ability to pay them off.
Ever wonder how that debt load was created? Thank Obama and Obamacare.
What the Obama administration did do was great for the federal government, not the students. Obama federalized the system to where the government now profits immensely from both interest on loans it makes directly to students, and defaults. To say that the federal government now sits atop the most predatory lending system in our nation’s history is not an understatement.
Sell a kidney.
Was I smart, or was I lucky? You decide: I was in the Army in Europe in 1956/1957 and fell in love with the sports-car shtick. So, via the GI Bill I majored in Mechanical Engineering. My first job out of college was with the Chevrolet Test Lab in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, in engine development on “dyno row”. Sorta like throwing a hog into a corn crib. Worked with folks like Zora “Zorro” Arkus-Duntov and Mauri Rose.
Okay, time went on, things changed, but I never have had to look back with regret at what might have been.
GM Tech Center.
It’s still there, with quite a few direct hire employees, and Generous Motors is still saddled w their legacy costs.
Many current workers there, however are now sub-contracted hires, expected to use their personal cell phone for work related communication.
Not sure if GM provides a stipend for that usage, though.
No legacy costs to them, for insurance, pensions, or paid vacation.
It’s a trend.
Ford HQ is following it, too.
Automotive isn’t what it used to be, in the way of plenty, regarding good middle class paying careers.
Things are changing too damn fast, and not for the better.
Challenging, interesting times.
Hoping you had nothing to do with the HT-4100.
The only rational solution to this issue is to rewrite or litigate the bankruptcy laws on student loans. The non-dischargeability of student debt in bankruptcy is quite clearly unconstitutional and basically amounts to modern slavery or indentured servitude. Mass bankruptcies on student debt and the resulting collapse of the college industry would be a yuuuge steroid shot into the ass of the economy. Asking someone to pay $100s of thousands with interest on meager incomes over decades that they signed up for as financially-ignorant 17 year olds is just plain stupid.
Todd,
Thank you for your wise comment.
Duress, Coercion, and Fraud in the Representation (fraud in the factum), and Fraud in the Inducement (that last by k-12 “educators”, colleges & universities, the lenders, and the parents).
The value of a college degree when 25% of Americans have one is NOT the same as the value of a college degree when 40% of Americans have one.
There is no reason why a 17 year old — or 18, or even 19 — should (or could) fully comprehend the terms or consequences of the contract (especially when they were led to believe otherwise by ignorant, lazy, or greedy “adults” — including parents).
May as well go around to the Old Folks’ Homes & grab the signatures of the Dementia and Alzheimer’s sufferers. Ignorance is generally not a defense. However, when you’re a high school senior and have no experience of (and no education regarding) the real costs and benefits of a college degree, or the serious nature of the contract you’re entering into — that is, when your ignorance is essentially due to someone else’s negligence in teaching — you’re being taken advantage of. There’s no mutuality to this contract, there is no “meeting of the minds” regarding the promises exchanged because the 17 year old cannot be expected to understand them fully, and that is the fault of educators and parents, along with the influence of the colleges and universities.
It’s fraud, pure & simple, and it’s fraud perpetrated upon minors by their own parents.
More to the point, though, no one is giving these kids loans, because no lender is that stupid.
Of course, because of this, if there is default by the principal (despite it being unconscionable to consider a teenager the “principal”), the co-signer must pay and cannot evade payment via bankruptcy.
I advise that the kids default and stiff their co-signers.
You could join the military and they’ll help pay off those pesky loans. Sure, you have to spend time in boot camp, but seeing as it’s for commissioned officers, it’s probably less rigorous than “real” boot camp. Then you get to pin butter bars on your collar and people will salute you and call you sir, how cool is that? You even get to play boss, at least until someone with a different metal pin on their collar shows up, then you have to kiss their ass and call them sir. But it beats serving coffee or managing a Burger King.
And then you get to go around the world and blow people’s heads off for corporate profit.
How cool is that?
You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you don’t.
How about this…YOU DON’T GET TO GO TO COLLEGE UNTIL YOU SERVE TWO (2) YEARS IN THE MILITARY…and NOT the military that exists, today…NO Social Engineering in THIS old/new military. Nope. You’re IN for the full 2 years, and while there, you don’t get to dress like a woman (or man), you learn discipline, (enforced by DI’s who know WHY your training is important), and you ALSO read, learn, and are TESTED on the Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution…Then, you’ll qualify for college, and IF you’re not a total idiot, you may have the discipline to actually make it through one of these institutions in four (4) years, rather than the standard six (6).
Wait, you say, your parents can pay your way…too bad…you don’t get in until you’ve served the nation. “We don’t want to babysit…” says those in the military, TOO BAD. You’re in the military for 20 years and you get 80% of pay in the form of a pension, regardless as to the type of service you’ve completed, and NOW you’re going to “fix” this current crop of useless spoiled children who think that adolescence can last forever. It does not. Finally, after a few generations of this process, perhaps we can claim our nation back from the Collectivists who have said, “Free…free…free…free…”
Hmm, forced military service? Fuck you.
It used to be very common; my Draft # was 125 and it got called. Don’t have a lot of sympathy for these kids complaining about having to pay their bills. What if you had to get 25% of your college credits on track per year or be drafted?
Robert jr.
And back then there was the G.I. Bill. Not only that but back then you could write off student loans so no sympathy for you either. What was your point.
The GI Bill didn’t apply until you served; it still exist. My point is kids have it easy now (no draft), college is easier (I know because I returned after my service), if you make a bill or a baby, you should shut up and pay up.
Yeah, invest your kids in bankers wars….great idea….not
Personal responsibility is so 20th century.
The world needs ditch diggers too
And if you are going to end up as a ditchdigger anyway, why is anyone encouraging (and subsidizing) you to go to college?????
THERE IS THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL.