tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42627259408696591922024-03-05T04:10:13.809-05:00Free Education for Free PeopleFreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-38550874845915516192012-01-20T21:52:00.002-05:002012-01-20T21:57:22.481-05:00Why All Public Higher Education Should Be Freeby Bob Samuels"In his book The Price of Civilization, Jeffrey Sachs argues that<b> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-samuels/why-all-public-higher-edu_b_1099437.html?ref=college">the cost of making all public higher education free in America would be between 15-30 billion dollars</a></b>. While this may sound like a large sum, it could actually save money." <br /><br />"First of all, the government is currently spending billions of dollars on for-profit schools and other colleges and universities that have very low graduation rates. In fact, what is going on in the state of California is that as students get priced out of the University of California, they either drop out or go to community colleges. Meanwhile as community colleges are defunded, they are forced to cut their enrollments and raise their fees, and the result is that students end up going to high-cost for-profit schools that have a very low graduate rate.<b> In other words, in the current system, everyone pays more, and we produce fewer graduates</b>."<br /><br />"Currently, only 30% of Americans who start college or university <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_008.asp">end up graduating</a>, and this represents a huge waste of time and money. <b>If students did not have to work while in school, the graduation rate would improve drastically, and students at universities could graduate in four years instead of six or more years.</b> In fact, the biggest reason why students drop out of higher education is that they cannot afford the high cost of tuition."<br /><br />"Not only is higher education seen as a key to economic advancement, but <b>if all 18-24 year olds were in college, we would reduce the unemployment rate by 2 million people, and fewer people would be in need of governmental assistance.</b> Moreover, a federal program to fund higher education would relieve states of having to fund these institutions, which would free up money for other needed services."<br /><br />"<b>While the US has a free K-12 public education, its failure to fund higher education means that America's economy is unable to compete with other developed nations that have free universities.</b>"<br /><br />"<b>Furthermore, by removing the need for students to go into debt, the government would allow graduates to be more productive, and they would have more money to spend, which in turn would act as a stimulus for the economy</b>."<br /><br />"Of course, there are reasons beyond economics to provide free higher education. Not only do we need a more educated workforce, but we also need more educated citizens. It is also important to point out that people with higher education degrees report a higher level of health and happiness. In fact, societies with a high rate of degree attainment have lower crime rates and higher rates of social welfare."<br /><br />"<b>While few people would now reject the idea of compulsory K-12 education, it is now time to make college universal and free.</b>"FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-26708091438231645072012-01-11T22:09:00.004-05:002012-01-11T22:10:30.691-05:00NYT: Fatal Stampede in South Africa Points Up University Crisis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKpbEQDPiOGdLV0EIH5fmudk3iOnYT3GxBpNbecIPaFk7W0bf4exdTjCv9IOfYuxyhyOw18aS9LwA12IZCud2L8zUxNrJ6PHOcQ4eH0nXQOsvwXS21ElO29w6J2A1M3y_8zKBPOHTa_Bk/s1600/south+africa+uni+stampede.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKpbEQDPiOGdLV0EIH5fmudk3iOnYT3GxBpNbecIPaFk7W0bf4exdTjCv9IOfYuxyhyOw18aS9LwA12IZCud2L8zUxNrJ6PHOcQ4eH0nXQOsvwXS21ElO29w6J2A1M3y_8zKBPOHTa_Bk/s400/south+africa+uni+stampede.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"<b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/africa/stampede-highlights-crisis-at-south-african-universities.html" target="_blank">They hoped for a shot at a coveted spot at one of South Africa’s public universities</a></b>, and with it a chance to escape the indignity of joblessness that afflicts more than a third of the nation."</div>
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"The stampede embodied the broad crisis in South Africa’s overstretched higher education system as it struggles to extend opportunities once reserved for whites to all South Africans. It is a problem of grade school mathematics: Too many students are seeking too few seats at the country’s public universities, which turn away more than half of their applicants, leaving few options for most high school graduates."</div>
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"<b>Not only that, the squeeze plays into a wider problem of unemployment among young people. The jobless rate among youths is nearly 70 percent, a staggering problem that even a college degree does not promise to solve.</b>"</div>
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"Access to higher education for all South Africans was one of the most cherished goals of the struggle against white minority rule."</div>
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"<b>Under apartheid, higher education for black South Africans was tightly controlled, and blacks were restricted from many forms of skilled employment.</b> The University of Johannesburg was formed in 2005, when the once all-white Rand Afrikaans University was merged with two other schools."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-22699145347472438602012-01-11T19:45:00.002-05:002012-01-11T19:45:47.931-05:00Student Loan Countdown:Beyoncé "Countdown" Parody<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/96KiSEMHy7Y?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<i>"went off to school to get my education</i></div>
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<i>little did i know debt was part of the equation</i></div>
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<i>could of dropped out but that's a bad situation</i></div>
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<i>if you don't pay up they'll garnish your wages"</i></div>
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<i>"sallie mae and the government make bank</i></div>
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<i>if i default</i></div>
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<i>but i can't find a job</i></div>
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<i>so that's not my fault"</i></div>
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<i>"me and my boo yeah we wanna get married</i></div>
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<i>my debt is a load that we both gotta carry</i></div>
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<i>didn't know my interest rate would be 12%</i></div>
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<i>payments just high as New York City rent"</i></div>
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Visit Franchesca Leigh Ramsey </div>
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on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/chescaleigh" target="_blank">Facebook </a></b>or at her <b><a href="http://blog.franchesca.net/" target="_blank">blog</a>!</b></div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-15817390514070747312012-01-09T17:11:00.002-05:002012-01-09T17:35:15.305-05:00How to Film a Demonstration: A Tutorial<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/q63GXB8KygA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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"An introductory tutorial for aspiring citizen journalists to consider before next entering the field. You are needed more than ever, to bring the people direct truth, taking out the middle man in the archaic mainstream media. Each camera is a new set of eyes we all share in near real time - no one can take this from us, so it is imperative we refine and develop new skills<br />
and strategies to capture the missteps of power. "</div>
<b></b><br />
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<b><b><a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/OccupyTheMovie%E2%80%AC" target="_blank">Join us!</a></b></b></div>
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</b>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-82146938808776442302012-01-05T18:46:00.001-05:002012-01-05T18:50:19.959-05:00The Chronicle: California’s Higher-Education DisasterJanuary 3, 2012<br />
By Kevin Carey<br />
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There’s no doubt that the ongoing crisis of governance in California and resulting disinvestment in the University of California system is deplorable. But <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/uc-berkeley-and-other-public-ivies-in-fiscal-peril/2011/12/14/gIQAfu4YJP_story_1.html">this</a> recent Washington Post dispatch from UC-Berkeley doesn’t exactly paint a picture of a campus in deep crisis: <br />
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Star faculty take mandatory furloughs. Classes grow perceptibly larger each year. Roofs leak; e-mail crashes. One employee mows the entire campus. Wastebaskets are emptied once a week. Some professors lack telephones. … The state share of Berkeley’s operating budget has slipped since 1991 from 47 percent to 11 percent. Tuition has doubled in six years, and the university is admitting more students from out of state willing to pay a premium for a Berkeley degree … the number of students for every faculty member has risen from 15 to 17 in five years. Many classes are oversubscribed, leaving students to scramble for alternatives or postpone graduation, a dilemma more commonly associated with community college. … Berkeley’s overall budget continues to rise modestly from year to year. Total university revenue rose from $1.7-billion in fiscal 2007 to $2-billion in 2010.<br />
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Reliable email is free and I assume Berkeley professors own cell phones like everyone else. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that small increases in class size negatively affect learning for the kind of cream-of-the-crop college students who attend Berkeley. Over 90 percent of Berkeley students graduate from the university. If Berkeley’s star professors are lured away to Stanford, it’s bad for the university but not necessarily bad for America, particularly if (as is frequently the case) those professors teach few if any undergraduates. They’ll be the same people doing the same thing at another university an hour away. <br />
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Again, none of this changes the fact that if California were governed in a remotely competent or rational fashion it would be investing more money in UC, not less. I don’t mean to minimize the issue. But this and similar articles like Tad Friend’s New Yorker piece suggest, in Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgenau’s words, a university that is “threatened” but “not in decline.” If wastebaskets and lawn mowing are big problems, your problems aren’t that big. <br />
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Meanwhile, this chart shows the annual number of students transferring from California community colleges to the California State University system over the last five years: <br />
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<a href="http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/blogs/brainstorm/?attachment_id=23636"><img src="http://www.quickanded.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chart_1-1-475x293.png" /></a> <br />
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The California public higher education system is built like a three-layer ziggurat with a wide base and narrow top. In round numbers, every year about 400,000 students graduate from high school in California and half of them immediately go to college in-state. 30,000 top students are allowed to go to a UC campus. Another 50,000 or so enroll in the middle-tier California State University campus. The remaining 120,000 go to community college. In other words, the system is designed such that the median California high school graduate looking to enroll in a public higher education institution is obligated to start at a community college. There is no place for her, at first, in a four-year in-state public university. <br />
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For the system to function effectively, therefore, students who start at community colleges need to be able to transfer into four-year universities to complete a bachelor’s degree. Usually, that means California State, which has historically taken more than four community college transfers for every one who is admitted to the more selective UC. As the chart shows, as recently as three years ago, CSU was taking 55,000 community college transfers a year. Two years ago, that number dropped by 2,000. In 2010, it dropped by another 12,000 students. <br />
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It is not the case that there were suddenly 12,000 fewer community college students who needed to pursue a four-year degree, or wanted to, or were qualified to. The CSU system did not shut down any of its campuses or shrink in size. What happened was that the system was buffeted by budget cuts and so began to clamp down on transfer admissions in all kinds of ways like restricting Spring semester transfers and raising GPA requirements and changing geographic criteria for which students are allowed to enroll in which campuses. <br />
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As a result, even as the President of the United States is making college completion a national priority and imploring people to go to college, and the economy continues to stagnate and good jobs remain scarce and good jobs that don’t require a college degree remain even scarcer, 12,000 mostly low-income or minority students—that’s three times the size of the entire Berkeley freshman class—didn’t have the luxury of being unhappy about un-mown lawns and un-emptied wastebaskets and marginally larger small classes taught by somewhat disgruntled brilliant professors at a four-year public university because they weren’t allowed to attend those universities at all. <br />
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What did they do instead? Nobody knows, exactly. But consider that transfers from California community colleges to the University of Phoenix have increased by over 300 percent in the last ten years. <br />
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Meanwhile, things in the community-colleges system are even worse. To transfer from a community college to a university (or to be denied such a transfer), you have to be able to enroll in a community college in the first place. The chart below shows enrollment in California community colleges since 2004: <br />
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<a href="http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/blogs/brainstorm/?attachment_id=23643"><img src="http://www.quickanded.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/CCC-enrollment-475x293.png" /></a> <br />
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From 2004 – 05 to the 2008 – 09 academic year, enrollment in California community colleges rose steadily. At that point, officials projected more healthy increases on the order of five percent a year, which was reasonable given that the population of California was growing and four-year colleges were becoming more expensive and also there was a gigantic terrible recession underway that was throwing people out of jobs by the millions. Under those circumstances, its absolutely crucial to maintain access to affordable two-year colleges that help displaced workers retrain for new jobs and give economically vulnerable students a chance to earn a degree.<br />
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Instead, budget cuts caused enrollment in California community colleges to decline by over 400,000 students. That’s more than the total number of undergraduates enrolled in the entire California State University system. <br />
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This is, in short, a completely avoidable public-policy catastrophe that will have lasting negative effects on California and the nation as a whole. Yet the lion’s share of national media coverage of California higher education budget cuts has focused on marginal problems among the most privileged people.FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-24351225842345876502012-01-05T07:43:00.001-05:002012-01-05T07:44:05.493-05:00For-Profit Colleges’ Mostly Black and Latino Students Face Higher Debt and Unemployment"Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest growing part of the U.S. higher education sector for decades now, but a new Harvard study finds<b><a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/for-profit_colleges_mostly_black_and_latino_students_face_higher_debt_and_unemployment.html" target="_blank"> students attending for-profit colleges end up with much higher student-loan debts</a></b>, are less likely to be employed after graduation and generally earn less than similar students at public or private nonprofit schools."<br />
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"<b>The for-profit sector disproportionately serves older students, women, African-Americans, Latinos, and those with low incomes</b>, according to the report <a href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/forprofitpaper.pdf">“The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?”</a> published by Harvard’s<a href="http://www.nber.org/"> National Bureau of Economic Research. </a>"<br />
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"African Americans account for 13 percent of all students in higher education, but they are 22 percent of those in the for-profit sector. Latinos are 15 percent of those in the for-profit sector, yet 11.5 percent of all students. Women are 65 percent of those in the for-profit sector. For profit students are older, about 65 percent are 25 years and older, whereas just 31 percent of those at four-year public colleges are and 40 percent of those at two-year colleges are."<br />
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"“[For-profit colleges] do better in terms of first-year retention and the completion of shorter certificate and degree programs,” according to the report. “<b>But their first-time postsecondary students wind up with higher debt burdens, experience greater unemployment after leaving school and, if anything, have lower earnings six years after starting college</b> than observationally similar students from public and non-profit institutions."<br />
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“Not surprisingly, for-profit students end up with higher student loan default rates and are less satisfied with their college experiences. <b>The report also found for-profit students have substantially higher default rates even when comparing students across school types with similar cumulative debt burdens.</b>"FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-17053699068774632522012-01-04T06:34:00.003-05:002012-01-04T18:21:22.543-05:00Fault Lines: Chile rising<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Chilean students have taken over schools and city streets</div>
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in the largest protests the country has seen in decades."</div>
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"These actions are causing a political crisis</div>
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for the country's billionaire President, Sebastian Piñera."</div>
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<b>"The students are demanding free education, and an end to the privatization of their schools and universities. The free-market based approach to education was implemented by the military dictator Augusto Pinochet in his last days in power."</b></div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-4698579861028236102012-01-04T06:05:00.002-05:002012-01-04T06:29:53.479-05:00Unfettered Capitalism: Chris Hedges & Michael Moore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"I think it comes from being an imperial power...<br />
and all imperial societies end as we end."<br />
<b>"The tyranny they impose on others </b><br />
<b>they finally impose on themselves</b>."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-55912602134362044602012-01-01T22:52:00.002-05:002012-01-01T22:52:27.670-05:00Michael Moore on Student Debt "Debtor's Prison"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/pp2yXAcRGNQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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"Michael Moore is talking about student loans,</div>
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and how students start their lives with a financial handicap."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-43624931307911127152012-01-01T22:41:00.000-05:002012-01-01T22:47:09.507-05:00"Education a way to talk about class and labor"by Malcom Harris"At the core of contemporary liberal ideology is the idea that education, done right, could solve all the nation’s major economic problems. <b><a href="http://thenewinquiry.com/post/6554763880/schools-out-forever" target="_blank">Education is supposed to remedy the nation’s sundry inequalities and prepare a generation to become involved citizens.</a></b> This is one of the few areas where the center-left has won over the wider public. "<br />
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"But if education really were the silver bullet, we would have hit something by now. Instead, as Penn State professor John Marsh argues in his forthcoming book Class Dismissed, we have an increasingly unequal country hiding behind the flimsy twin excuses of equal opportunity and personal responsibility. Marsh makes a convincing case that no amount of reformist tinkering can make higher education an engine of egalitarianism, because schools were never meant to reduce inequality in the first place. <b>As long as we credit the education system with the ability to fix labor problems, Marsh argues, it is doomed to failure.</b>"<br />
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"Marsh, who comes from a union household, sees the decline of labor organizing as the central source of high and rising inequality.<b> As workers have lost bargaining power, he insists, the gap between classes has increased.</b> Through a series of statistical correlations, he traces the “great divergence” between rich and poor incomes to the early ’80s and President Reagan’s union busting and supply-side tax cuts, and uses data from economist Emmanuel Saez, to show how the U.S. has become less and less equal ever since."<br />
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"Unlike union organizing, which by its nature distributes benefits, the education cure functions through exclusivity. <b>A diploma may offer a better place in line, but it doesn’t guarantee anyone a job commensurate with their skills</b>."<br />
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"<b>Education has become the way to talk about class and labor in an American political system that is profoundly uncomfortable with both. </b>In the hands of reformist technocrats, inequality is a matter of nuanced social engineering rather than a conflict between two unequal and opposed sides – those who profit and those who only work.<br />
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"<b>If society wanted to reduce the growing discrepancy between rich and poor, we would worry less about tweaking the educational system and simply pay or give the poor more money. </b>Marsh writes, “Given the political will, whether through redistributive tax rates, massive public works projects, a living wage law, or a renaissance of labor unions, we could decrease poverty and inequality tomorrow regardless of the market or the number of educated and uneducated workers.”"</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-27030001716941169362011-12-31T21:06:00.001-05:002012-01-03T22:14:09.043-05:00EDU Debtors Union: "Walk Away From Student Debt"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Come together! And refuse to participate in a system</div>
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that is making it impossible to get out of debt."</div>
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<b><a href="http://edudebtorsunion.org/" target="_blank">EDU Debtors Union</a></b></div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-60159214507786890482011-12-30T00:55:00.001-05:002011-12-30T01:13:31.720-05:00The Debtor & The Union: Life After Education by Monica Johnson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Presently, <b><a href="http://edudebtorsunion.org/wp/" target="_blank">EDU Debtors Union</a></b> is a proposition<br />
and a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EDUdebt" target="_blank">website </a>focused on this question:<br />
“<b>Who are student debtors and do they want to create a union?</b>”</div>
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"Further, what would that union do?<br />
How might it benefit and support debtors?<br />
What are the goals of that union?"</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-55562116883478996742011-12-30T00:49:00.000-05:002011-12-30T01:24:47.340-05:00Arise, Students of California ! by Ralph Nader"<b><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/29/arise-students-of-california/" target="_blank">Students of California, arise, you have nothing to lose but a crushing debt!</a></b>"<br />
<br />
"The corporate state of California, ever ready to seize its ideological and commercial hour during a recession, has a chokehold on California’s public universities. With its tax-coddled plutocracy and a nod to further corporatization, the state government has taken the lid off tuition increases big time."<br />
<br />
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"<b>Before and right after World War II the idea of a public university included a then-called “educational fee” close to zero, from city college of New York to UC Berkeley. </b>Old timers now look back at those days as economic life-savers toward a degree and a productive life for them and the American economy."<br />
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<div>
"No more. Those gates of opportunity are crumbling at an accelerating pace. <b>More street protests by students are focusing on relentless tuition hikes and years of repaying student debt loans while the rich get richer and the tax cuts for the rich are extended.</b> As Mike Konzcal writes, “One of the Occupy movements’ major objectives is combating the privatization of public higher education and its replacement with a debt-fueled economy of indenture.”"<br />
<br />
"But the students have a very powerful unused tool of direct democracy – they can qualify an initiative on the ballot that would set tuition at affordable levels or even become like some leading European countries where free schooling extends through the university years."<br />
<br />
"<b>There are other states where students can establish a legal protection for publically accessible universities by enacting statewide initiatives. </b>All these tools of democracy should be obvious to any high school student were functional civics and democratic practices taught with the same fervor devoted to computer training."<br />
<br />
"So let’s see if California’s deteriorating public university systems can be rescued by their undergraduate and graduate students who place the priority of accessible, adequate public higher education where it belongs for the longer run."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-2158241079421723442011-12-29T21:51:00.003-05:002011-12-29T22:25:24.864-05:00Occupy Student Debt #1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"We are the 99%! We could not all be mythical bootstraps college students. <b>Tuition costs have risen 600% between 1980 and 2010. Wages, of course, did not keep up. </b>The predatory for-profit student loan industry has lobbied Congress to strip away necessary consumer protections, allowing our debt to snowball out of control."</div>
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</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-26179856610818843792011-12-29T21:43:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:31:22.385-05:00Insolvent Workers of the World: Interview with Andrew Ross"Spontaneous political events are always “possible,” it’s just not easy to predict when and where they will get traction. I myself have been in the US for 30 years and have never seen anything like the momentum or sense of destiny that this movement now has. Those 30 years have belonged to Wall Street,<b> <a href="http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/insolvent-workers-of-the-world/" target="_blank">the next 30 years could and should belong to us if Occupy maintains its energy and creativity</a></b>."<br />
<br />
"<b>There are many tributaries that have flowed into the Occupy river – the global justice movement being the most important</b>. On the labor side, I think the capacity of the urban unions to embrace the academic labor movement has been a significant backdrop. As for the new elements, surely the burgeoning consciousness about debt is a primary factor. <b>Responding to debt bondage has been a way of life in the global South countries for the last 30 years. In the last few years, the consequences of living in a debt trap has hit the countries of the North.</b> It’s an example of the chickens coming home to roost, as Malcolm X once put it."<br />
<br />
"For example, some of the city’s high schools have replaced their representative forms of student government with the horizontal mode of the GA. It’s proven to be an infectious set of cultural norms. And, since any group can generate its own GA (there are many throughout New York City), it is an organizational structure that encourages and generates autonomy. So, too, the face-to-face nature of this form of decision-making complements the widespread use of social media to disseminate information.<b> In fact, I’d say that the balance between the face-to-face meetings and use of social media is a key element</b>."<br />
<br />
"From the outset, the agony of student debt has been a constant refrain at OWS and other Occupy locations... <b>The central recognition was that U.S. colleges and universities are increasingly dependent on the debt bondage of the people they are supposed to serve.</b> So we crafted a campaign that resonated with our political principles (the act of refusal, the threat of a debt strike, and the justice of a debt jubilee) that was designed to <b>give debtors an opportunity to act collectively rather than suffer the torment and humiliation of debt and default in private.</b>"<br />
<br />
"<b>Our campaign is framed as an action initiative, not a set of demands, since we share the Occupy ethos that demands cannot be adequately addressed by the current political system, not when it is under the baleful influence of corporate dollars."</b><br />
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<b>"Actions taken to re-appropriate wealth and power are not only empowering in themselves, they are also constituent, as you put it, of a new kind of political culture. </b>Most Occupy participants will testify about their feelings of personal transformation–the language is often one of radical innocence, a manifest symptom of the birth of a new “structure of feeling” as Raymond Williams once put it. For sure, the political class will try to co-opt some of this, and, unlike some folks, I don’t see that as an unwelcome response–you cannot erect a nonporous boundary between a movement and the political establishment."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-9374256044096011592011-12-29T05:22:00.002-05:002011-12-29T22:27:23.176-05:00College Debt? Where is your Sugar Daddy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Back in 2006, <a href="http://rt.com/usa/news/college-debt-sugar-daddy-561/" target="_blank"><b>when the website first started</b></a>, 25 percent of the sugar babies were college students, we have seen that number increase to about 35-40 percent just in the last few years alone"</div>
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"An anonymous Ivy League college grad RT spoke with, is facing tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt. With no job and financial aid, she wants a sugar daddy."</div>
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“Given hikes in tuition, and the current state of the economy, more and more people are looking for alternative ways to finance their educations. There are plenty of young men looking to date older women."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-84656291063719515892011-12-27T19:17:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:30:47.800-05:00Mike Konczal on the Submerged StateSurrounding Student Debt"<b><a href="http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/could-dismantling-the-submerged-state-surrounding-student-debt-pay-for-free-colleges/" target="_blank">One of the Occupy movement’s major objectives</a></b> is combating the privatization of public higher education and its replacement with a debt-fueled economy of indenture."<br />
<br />
"This is an example of what Suzanne Mettler calls <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo12244559.html">“the submerged state,”</a> a pattern where the government has, as she says, “shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. <b>These submerged policies…obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market.” Instead of directly providing public options, we subsidize the purchasing of private goods, often using the tax code.</b>"<br />
<br />
"Let’s take the case of student debt and the tax code. How much would it cost to make public colleges and universities free? Rough estimates (<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-samuels/why-all-public-higher-edu_b_1099437.html?ref=college">quoting</a> Jeffrey Sach’s latest book) put<b> the price of free public higher education at $15-$30 billion</b>, which fits other estimates I’ve seen.<br />
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"$22.75 billion we are paying through the tax code to make college tuition and student debt more manageable. This amount is in the middle the range of the cost of just making public high education free. Now these aren’t equivalent — much of what is spent through the tax code will be biased more towards private and professional schools, which are more expensive. But this also isn’t anywhere near the full extent we subsidize student debt (a government creation from 1965)."<br />
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"But there is a choice in how to provide mass higher education. We can either use resources to reduce the price of the good upfront — make college free — or to subsidize the purchase of the good — here through the numerous hoops of the tax code. <b>The amount of money we take from the tax code to try and make student debts and runaway tuition more bearable could be used instead to just provide free public colleges.</b>"<br />
<br />
"There are winners and losers in each case. <b>When we subsidize through the tax code, people who are well off and pay more taxes benefit more.</b> People who can afford support staff, such as accountants and lawyers, are also more likely to understand how to take maximum advantage of these benefits. <b>These subsidies benefit private educational institutions over public ones, as they’ll make private education feel more “natural” while obscuring the role of the government in setting up these markets. They give public college a nudge towards corporatization and privatization.</b>"<br />
<br />
"<b>Much of these subsidies are likely captured either by the higher education institutions themselves or the debt lenders.</b> These subsidies will make tuition and debt easier to deal with, but providing colleges free as a public option <a href="http://slackwire.blogspot.com/2010/09/public-options-general-case.html">would likely do far more to contain costs</a> (also <a href="http://theamericanscene.com/2011/06/02/matt-yglesias-is-not-a-left-winger">here</a>)."<br />
<br />
"<b>Most importantly, it breaks the link between citizenship and education. The subsidy approach replaces the claim of a citizen to a necessary good to be full, participating person in our market economy with the claim of a consumer, whose claim is ultimately one of willingness to pay either through wealth or debt, with a “nudge” from the government. </b>The first kind is the place where progressives have the stronger argument about freedom, as opposed to those who see the market as the only source of freedom available."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-53294748521564268782011-12-27T17:33:00.000-05:002011-12-30T01:39:25.372-05:00Chile: Student Protests Spread Throughout Region<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"José Barrera, a civil engineering student at the Catholic University, said that what is happening in Chile "is an example of<b><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/chile-student-protests-spread-throughout-region/1322417402" target="_blank"> what education is like when it's privatised</a></b>, when it is no longer defended as a right of everyone.""<br />
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"<b>An education law enacted by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet set off a process of decentralisation and privatisation </b>that gave private schools free rein to pursue profit and use entrance exams to select their students. The Chilean system is not just divided into paid private education and tuition-free public education, but is split into three: municipal schools run by local governments, which are publicly funded and free, state-subsidised private schools, and private schools that charge tuition. Within the sphere of state-subsidised private education, students get free tuition at some schools, while at others families pay monthly fees, an arrangement known as "shared financing.""<br />
<br />
"<b>The protest movement is calling for an end to the freedom of private schools receiving state subsidies to levy fees at will.</b> Instead of the current system, under which administrators of these institutions rack up profits, the demonstrators want school fees to be invested in under-funded public schools."<br />
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"They also want public primary and secondary schools to be directly managed by the Education Ministry, instead of by local governments, because<b> the decentralisation accentuated the inequality in education quality between rich and poor districts.</b>"<br />
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"Countries that see the Chilean model as an example, and that are moving towards privatisation, have to realise how harmful this kind of system can be for education in general," he argued."<br />
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"<b>Capitalism is profits, business, buying and selling, and that is not what educators are about</b>," said Garrido. He added that the movement in which teachers and students have come together is demanding a "social transformation.""<br />
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"<b>[T]he student protests have become a broader social movement that will continue to fight for structural changes above and beyond the educational system, such as reforms to the free-market, neoliberal economic system inherited from the dictatorship.</b>"<br />
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"We need a more democratic country, where the voices of society are really heard. It can't just be the same old political class reaching decisions between four walls."FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-42321473312277359692011-12-25T04:08:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:36:57.209-05:00Michael Moore on Student Debt: 'The Boot on Your Neck'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Filmmaker Michael Moore argues in support of Occupy Wall Street protestors angry about high student loan payments. "What a wonderful thing to do to twenty-two-year-olds," says Moore, sarcastically. "Send them out into the world with crushing debt.""</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-80195867586323281752011-12-19T04:19:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:36:04.561-05:00George Carlin on American Owners and Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"I'll you what they don't want... They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking... Well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking... that's against their interests."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-41087780729297152872011-12-18T16:01:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:36:23.753-05:00BBC: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies"Greater numbers of <b><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16157522" target="_blank">students in England are turning to prostitution to fund their education</a></b>, the National Union of Students (NUS) claims. <b>The NUS also says students are turning to gambling and taking part in medical experiments to fund their studies</b>."<br />
<br />
"In an economic climate where there are very few jobs, where student support has been massively cut, people are taking more work in the informal economy, such as sex work. It's all dangerous unregulated work, simply so people can stay in education."<br />
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"The English Collective of Prostitutes, which runs a helpline from its base in London, says the number of calls it receives from students had at least doubled in the past year. "<b>They [ministers] know that the cuts they're making are driving women into things like sex work.</b> It's a survival strategy so we would hold the government responsible for that.""<br />
<br />
"Eighteen-year-old Clare - not her real name - turned to escorting during her A-levels when she found out her education maintenance allowance (EMA) was in danger of being cut. "I had a friend who'd been trying to get me to join his escort agency since I was 16. He was telling me stories about how much I could earn, how the hours would fit around me, that I could control who I saw, when I saw them and how often. It just sounded more desirable. I couldn't see any other option. Clare, who has now left the adult industry to continue her studies, warns against working in the sex industry. "I did this so I could go to college, go to university, for it to have a positive effect on the rest of my life.<br />
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"<b>But I'm a different person to how I was when I started out. I've lost a lot of my confidence and I've lost trust in a lot of people</b>.FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-29376170444979399572011-12-18T13:57:00.002-05:002011-12-29T22:37:20.049-05:00Is the Real Unemployment Rate 22.6%?"Jobless claims are down and hiring is up by recent measures, but some economists say the American <b><a href="http://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2011/12/08/is-the-real-unemployment-rate-22-6/" target="_blank">unemployment picture is far bleaker</a></b> than those numbers indicate. "<br />
<br />
"As reported Friday, U.S. unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in 32 months in November with unemployment hitting 8.6%, falling below 9% for the first time in six months, the Labor Department said."<br />
<br />
"But if all discouraged workers are included, the 8.6% figure rises. Including “marginally attached workers” – those who are discouraged – was 15.6% in November, according to government data. John Williams, a statistician and economist, says<b> the real unemployment figure including all discouraged workers who stopped looking for work is closer to </b><a href="http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts" target="_blank"><b>a </b>staggering 22.6%</a> — nearly a quarter of the potential workforce. Since 1994, the government data defines discouraged workers as those who have been looking for work within the last year."<br />
<br />
"The supply/demand rate stands at 3.53, indicating there were 3.5 unemployed people for every online job opening in October. Nationally, there are 10 million more unemployed than there are advertised openings, according to the Conference Board."FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-62669889531928937772011-12-18T13:42:00.000-05:002011-12-29T22:38:16.287-05:00Who's Most Likely To Be In Debt In 2012?"There can be little doubt that the U.S. is hovering on the edge of a recession as we head into 2012. This is forcing many social demographics to grapple with significant levels of debt, but who is most likely to suffer financial hardship as we head into a brand new year?"<br />
<br />
"Household debt burdens have continued to fall through the last financial quarter. <b>That said, there remains a significant level of household debt within the U.S., and this situation is unlikely to improve with unemployment expected to remain high throughout 2012."</b><br />
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<b>"The issue facing families and homeowners in the U.S. is one of <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/05/investopedia67563.DTL" target="_blank">multiple debts</a></b> and the prospect of having to prioritize what gets paid as a matter of urgency. When you consider that the average debt per household in the U.S. (not including mortgage repayments) stands at approximately $14,500, then you begin to understand the amount of repayments that may be missed in order to maintain a family home."<br />
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<b>"It is all too easy to forget about student debt as the year draws to a close, but the fact remains that this is potentially even more of a threat to the U.S. economy in 2012.</b> Mortgages can be sourced with an interest rate of as little as 5% in some instances. However, student loans are often available at rates of anywhere between 6.8% and 7.9%. This makes them considerably more expensive in comparison, especially given the fact that they do not secure a tangible assets or boast a specific value."<br />
<br />
"This is not to say that education is not valuable. It is just that it does not offer the same level of financial security that a house or an automobile does.<b> Student loans can live with graduates for an entire lifetime, and certainly hinder them as they enter an economy where unemployment is high and job creation is low.</b> With student loans set to top the $1,000 billion mark for 2011, it is clear that an increasing number of students are attending college and therefore taking on an enormous amount of debt and financial liability. Considering the rising cost of loans bills and exaggerated rates of repayment, 2012 could be a worrying year for graduates and college students."<br />
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<b>"An increasing number of U.S. citizens aged 60 and over are approaching retirement age heavily burdened by debt. Mortgages remain the most significant problem for this demographic.</b> Thirty-nine percent of home-owners aged between 60 and 64 held primary mortgages in 2010, with a further 20% owning secondary mortgages. These figures had nearly doubled those recorded in 1994, revealing that an increasing number of citizens were still burdened with significant repayments well into their twilight years. This problem has only been exacerbated by the steep drop in housing value, which has left many with <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negativeequity.asp?partner=sfgate">negative equity</a> and facing difficult times ahead in 2012 and beyond."FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-15096593078239593022011-12-14T06:19:00.001-05:002011-12-29T22:38:07.732-05:00Richard Wolff on the Euro Crisis with Thom Hartmann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Professor Richard Wolff, New School University NYC joins Thom Hartmann. The Eurozone is creeping closer and closer to spiraling into an economic abyss. And the biggest economy in Europe has reservations about riding in on a white horse to save the day."</div>FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262725940869659192.post-53508984053691059592011-12-12T21:56:00.003-05:002011-12-29T22:38:38.934-05:00Student Loan Debt in 1990, 2000, and 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/12/387823/student-loan-debt-has-ballooned-since-1990/" target="_blank">Student loan debt has ballooned since 1990</a></b></div>
<br />FreeEdPeepshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05508899205777003706noreply@blogger.com0