you know, mitt at least LOOKS presidential

he also has a pretty nice vocabulary and speaks at times with eloquence

yet he seems at times even more a moron the bush himself

Willard forgot to mention the ancillary benefit. The parents can charge interest on the loans and live off of the earnings when they’re in their, ya know, twilight years. So it’s a win-win, right?

Sometimes we might forget that Willard is just like us. A regular Man of the People.

The solution must involve lowering education costs – not just being able to borrow from the feds. Some people have ended up a debt slave for life, it is insanity.

I stopped at a BA instead of going on to J-School or the sciences because I’d already leaned on my parents for far too much money as it was and I sure as hell wasn’t going to throw myself into indentured servitude with student loans.

Turns out it was the wisest move I ever made.

Mitt said this yesterday? Again? I know I’ve heard the same quote from him before, possibly the time a student asked him about student assistance..or was that the time he told the student to shop around and find a less expensive school?

But then, of course, Mitt is so scripted, he invariably repeats himself in exactly the same words.

When I read some Villager piece about how Mitt’s riches don’t mean he doesn’t understand how the rest of live…invariably hauling in JFK and RFK and Roosevelt (who wasn’t nearly as rich as the Kennedys or Romney) as examples, I think of statements like this. He ain’t no Kennedy nor Roosevelt. And from the bios I’ve read of FDR, he was pretty clueless himself until he was stricken with polio and his days as the energetic golden boy were over. Plus, his mother continued to control the family money, and he actually had to ask for funds, which she sometimes denied him.
Borrow from your parents. How can he be so stupid as not to realize how that comes off?
He isn’t even as smart as people think he is.

Yep. Too true.

FDL worked to do just that with the Students Not Banks program. And actually succeeded to a large extent.

Well, this approach must have worked fine for Mittens. But then again, his dad was a self made man. Mittens was born and raised with the benefits of the very wealthy, or as someone else put it, he was born on third base, but thinks he hit a triple. Sorta reminds me of this guy:

Ann Richards-Bush Born with Silver Foot in his Mouth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgeQ_y7LMRI

I don’t know the stats, but I think that college tuition has risen much faster and higher than inflation. I’m not entirely clear why tuition has gotten so egegriously expensive.

I can say that, in CA, the 1%ers Trustees “running” the UC/CSU systems have made sure that they get sky high salaries, along with many of the individual Univ Chancellors tend to get sky high salaries & perks, too. Like corporate, bank & Wall Street CEOs, these fat cats keep raising tuition for students, while giving themselves huge raises, bonuses, etc. It’s outrageous, but somehow they always manage to get away with it.

Don’t know if this is part of the issue of rising tuition costs, but it certainly is a factor in the CA tertiary public school system.

Mitt Romney couldn’t be any further out of touch if you cut both his arms off.

Willard’s a .00001%er. He and his incredibly entitled wife aren’t interested in the serfs getting a higher education.

I’m guessing they think it’s cheaper if Team USA outsources just about everything to third world countries. Right now it’s my understanding that the vast majority of scientific and engineering jobs are going to Asians.

More money for Mr & Mrs Let-Them-Eat-Cake.

Willard truly doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. If any conservative, who’s not in at least the 1%, thinks otherwise, they are only kidding themselves. Ma & Pa Rmoney have clearly demonstrated how sociopathic, greedy & self-centered they are. Ain’t gonna change, only get worse, should Willard “win” the election.

Rmoney is VERY in touch… with the 1%, who will count the votes. You can count on that.

Let’s present the converse:

Suppose you were born to a wealthy, connected, supportive family. You always had good health care, good nutrition, the best schools, and people offering you lucrative opportunities at every turn. Who could fail to succeed? People who are utterly lazy, shiftless, have drug and alcohol problems, gambling problems, people who go out clubbing and miss their exams, etc. Yes, there are such people in the upper class, and they are looked down upon. The rest of them consider themselves “self-made people” and “hard workers”.

We can’t really call the privileged few “isolated” or “disconnected”, they travel more, socialize with more people, and generally have more rich life experiences than most of us. They are, however, isolated and disconnected from the lives that the 99.8% live.

They think their environment is the norm, that is the American way. They don’t see the advantages of privilege any more than a fish sees water.

The thing that makes me a social democrat is that I think we need to provide the greatest opportunity to everyone in society, not allow opportunity to be concentrated in successful families.

The vast majority of people aren’t failures. The system is failing them.

Remember, kids. The most important decision you’ll ever make is your choice of parents. Willard Romney chose well, and has become immensely rich and powerful.

Paris Hilton gets paid a million bucks to show up at parties, and another notable drink and drug addled 1%er was recently President. If this is being a “failure” in the 1%, you can put me down as available for parties, but alas, I was not born into the 1%.

Our country really suffers when it’s not a true meritocracy. We are flushing our youth, our very future, down the drain just when we need them the most.

I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips, but you are right, tuition has far outpaced regular inflation, by a large percentage. Salaries for presidents and other administrators, not teaching or even researching professors, has risen astsronomicallly, so that’s definitely part of it.

Part of it is also because states have sharply and deeply cut their support to state-supported schools, but that doesn’t explain private schools.
There was a discussion on this subject on one of npr’s call-in shows in the last week or so; probalby Diane Rehm or On Point, can’t remember.

Continued education throughout life is important. But there’s a difference between formal and informal educations. I think we place too much emphasis on university-based education and not enough on vocations / trades.

To me, journalism epitomizes the problem we face. The MSM asks kids to get a Bachelor’s and Master’s before they’re “qualified” for an entry-level job making in the mid-20′s (in southern New England). And those kids get jobs in a new place where they have never lived.

Yet what are the most important strengths for a reporter? Contacts and trust.

Where do you get contacts and trust? The town where you were raised… not in some new place. IMO, journalism has — to an extent — indulged in university degrees. And the result has not been only to put kids in debt… it’s also hurt the entire country as investigative journalism has been hurt.

University-based education is important. But in journalism — and I presume in other topics — we’ve not only overeducated ourselves, but we’ve hurt ourselves. I love Jane, DDay and others here for their efforts. But frankly, they’re the real reporters in America. Most of the “reporting” is fluff… not necessarily because journalists avoid hard-hitting stories… but they’re dependent on their jobs… and their editors spike the important stories for fear of lost advertising dollars.

You just brought up another major problem with our society–namely, the worship of celebrities. That, in turn, has aggravated the winner-take-all phenomenon in most fields of endeavor. Case in point: Justin Bieber, who makes tens of millions of dollars a year even though there’s little if any difference in talent between him and the top high school graduates who will major in theater, dance, or music in college. Bieber has a publicity machine behind him, the vast majority of kids his age don’t.

That’s an interesting point. You’re so right, all the journalism majors I knew had to start at small-town papers, usually in another state where they’d never lived. Typical career arc, moving up to bigger cities (that is, before the newspaper business crashed).

Up through what, maybe the late sixties?, reporters often started as teen-age copy boys (and yeah, usually boys) and worked their way up, so obviously, they were in their hometowns where they already knew folks, as you say.

I had never thought of that before. But one of the things that most annoys me about my local paper these days, since the paper laid off or enticed into retirement the long-time reporters, is the ignorance of local affairs of the current crop of writers. It isn’t bad enough that they clearly went to schools that didn’t teach grammar, but they either reinvent the wheel on long-running stories, or they don’t know background that might give their reporting a whole different slant, or even place to start. I’ve lived here long enough that I’m constantly thinking, “why doesn’t this piece mention what happened x years ago that led directly to the events described here?”

And they wonder why even old-ish, loyal newspaper readers for decades no longer bother.

And don’t forget ladies, if you choose your parentage poorly you’ll always get a second chance by choosing your wallet – er I mean spouse carefully.

This message brought to you by SE Cupp.

Why yes. Just view Pretty Woman as if it is a documentary, and you’ll be in the lap of luxury in no time! Works like a charm, it does.

Getting a university degree has great value, but I *suspect* that journalism is not the only degree that — on balance — hurts America.

Just thinking now, but… how many poli-sci degrees cost $100k… yet many of the minds here at FDL are sooo much better than many of the “best & brightest” among The Beltway Intelligentsia. Perhaps some firepups have gotten poli-sci degrees, but I’m sure many haven’t.

I think some people are attracted to the political world for the fame and / or power… yet many firepups — perhaps with no college degree — have a far better understanding of the political process, including making it work. So there’s two degrees — journalism & poli-sci — that are almost certainly increasing the overall debt burden of America… with insufficient demonstrable benefit to the country… or probably to many of the kids who are getting or have gotten those degrees.

It’s also harder to attain tenure track, much less become a full tenured professor. Some college, even university teachers are working several part time jobs, with no or few benefits, trying to stitch together a livable income. And to pay for the gas or other transporations costs driving between the different jobs.

Precarious existence for those near the bottom rungs of academe.