This past weekend, Barack Obama took his weekly radio address, whether or not anyone actually listens to it, to announce the release of a report from the ever-superfluous Department of Education. It categorizes colleges and universities according to the graduation rates and the loan repayment rates of those who get Federal financial aid (almost all college loans come from the Bank of the American Taxpayer anymore).
It should not be a surprise that the loan repayment rate is somewhere south of putrid. Fully 20% of student borrowers made no student loan repayments in the past year. If the American taxpayer were reasonably aware of that fact, we might stop electing representatives who keep lending our tax dollars to deadbeats and tolerating their non-repayment.
Now, there is a real problem here. It starts with the notion that Barack Obama actually wants high school graduates to go on to college (perfectly OK), and it ends with the fact that he thinks there is a role for the Federal government in making that happen (oh, so wrong). Obviously, I believe that it is a good thing if qualified, capable high school graduates go on to higher education. It is a good thing if the governmental level implicitly charged in the Constitution with facilitating that is, actually, the level that does.
And it is not the Federal government -- it is the states.
That, of course, clashes loudly with the Obamist notion that every child needs to go to college, which is so they can be indoctrinated into the far-left political notions that one gets if one spends enough time in academia. Having gotten to where the unions governing the K-12 teachers are now somewhat left of Bernie Sanders, it is time for the social engineers to move on to college, so it is a White House imperative that the "finishing school" for turning out shiny, new budding socialists be well-populated.
Now, as I scan the various Republican candidates on the dais for the debate Wednesday, I will be looking for an attitude that says this:
"College educations are wonderful things. But they are optional. It is not in its charter for the Federal government to do anything either to encourage American students to pursue education at any level, or to discourage them. Education is a state-chartered mandate from the Constitution.
"Therefore, I am moving today to work with Congress to dissolve the Department of Education and separate out the components which will be allowed to survive. My standard for which parts of the soon-to-be-former Department of Education can remain is twofold: (1) Is the function consistent with the constitutional mandate that education, as a "power not delegated", be the province of the states; and (2) Is the function worth borrowing money from China to pay for it."
Yes, I will be looking for that attitude. I'm betting I will see it in Ted Cruz. I'm hoping I will see it in a few of the others, particularly Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. I will not be worried about how Donald Trump feels, not because I question his commitment to disposing of unnecessary Federal entities, but because I want to see some of his more imminent specific proposals first, to see a coherent, consolidated strategy. To his credit, he is supposed to be laying out such things shortly.
It is telling that, at the same time, I'm quite anxious that we on the right (and in the right) nominate a candidate with the right approach to attacking needless Federal components, I worry about the feasibility of doing so. And it is not whether it can get snuck by the bought-and-paid-for-by-the-NEA Democrats in Congress, but whether the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have the moral fiber to fight for the American taxpayer.
How sad we have to think like that.
So please understand, I learned something in my five years in full-time studies after high school. Not all of it was in the classroom; in fact, with a B.S. in biology and time in med school, I have more capacity to translate complex medical jargon than the average guy. Of course, I write Federal proposals for a living, so the educational value of my education is pretty much nil. I've said for nearly forty years that my having a degree from M.I.T. has served me far more than anything I learned there.
I just think there is no way on earth that the American taxpayer should have been involved in subsidizing, in any way, the educational decisions I chose to make on my own behalf. Nor should the American taxpayer be funding anyone else's college. The Feds do not need to have a loan program (nor a grant program) when banks are a good alternative for those loans, anymore than there should be "Federal flood insurance" when there are perfectly good, greedy insurance companies crawling with actuaries who can do the same thing.
Dismantling Education will be a great start. Now which candidate will take the lead?
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There's a new post from Bob
at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving
new meaning to "prolific essayist." Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at
bsutton@alum.mit.edu.
No comments:
Post a Comment