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What is The Salty Professor?
Follow Virgil Henry as he shares tales from his 30 years of experience as a professor in America's higher education system. Listen as he comments on the good, bad, and ugly aspects of doing time in the "Ivory Tower."The Salty Professor aims at the state of Higher Education and fires away with abandon. All the tea shall be spilled.
July 19th 2024
The Big Grift
There is growing concern about student loan debt in America. It is a real concern. We should be fucking concerned. The current number being bandied about is 1.7 trillion dollars. Yeah. With a fucking T. Which rhymes with B which stands for bullshit.
It isn’t bullshit that this is the amount of money that is owed. That is the reported number. I believe it. I believe in math. However, it is hard to know exactly how much of that money is interest and how many people who racked up that debt actually earned a degree. We do know that students who don’t graduate end up defaulting on the student loans at triple the rate of those who did graduate AND we know that unless you die, student debt is forever.
You could take out billions in loans and default, declare bankruptcy, fuck all the small businesses who did the work for you and only pay them pennies on the dollars they are owed even though they paid their employees the full amount, walk away, and then do it over and over again. And again. And AGAIN. AND you could be rewarded for all of that by becoming the president. BUT, if you take out 20K in student loans for a degree you didn’t earn, you will have to have your wages garnished, your tax returned seized, all while the interest racks up and that 20K becomes 50 or 60 in no time.
I do think that people who take out loans should pay them back. I do. I think if you take out loans for a business, or for a degree, you owe that money back. I am OK with that. There is some nuance to it thought and that needs to be considered.
Some of those people who took out loans for degrees they didn’t earn, actually didn’t even go to class and yet, they still owe the money. That is like applying for a car loan but you never finalize the loan, sign your name, or pick it up from the dealership but still somehow you owe the money even though they sold that car to someone else.
When I first started teaching, professors could, have students removed from classes if they didn’t participate after two consecutive weeks. Now, the rule is, and this is a federal rule, not just the rule at my school, if the student doesn’t participate in week one, the student is dropped. There is no financial aid distributed and it is a no harm no foul situation.
However, if the student shows up and naps in the back row of class OR posts one word to one discussion in an online course, that student is “active” and is enrolled for the rest of the term. The money is distributed and that is that. Even if the student never shows up again, the student can’t be dropped.
It is different if a student shows up for half the classes, doesn’t put in effort and doesn’t pass. That is an object lesson. The student needed to get kicked in the wallet on that one. However, if I student ghosts after day one, the student isn’t really enrolled in the class and the money should be returned. We are not required to marry the people we ghost after one bad date, so why do we make sure the student suffers this pain?
It could be that the student is scamming the system by collecting student loan checks for two years and fucking off with the money without knowing that the money will be owed back no matter what. Some students do get cost of living loans and some students get refunds. I get it. Some of them steal. That is a scam. Fuck those fuckers. Still, it is more likely that the student assumed by not showing up, there would be a drop and so the student didn't do anything. If you stopped showing up to work, you would expect to be fired. Same principle here.
The real insidious thing about it is that the schools collect the money but don’t have to do any of the work and THAT is the main reason why this law isn’t changing. Colleges and universities rake in tons of money from the federal government in financial aid. Some schools survive on tuition money alone. If they drop a student who quit attending after one third of the class was complete and had to give back 66 percent of the money, that would be bad for bottom lines. So, instead of doing the ethical thing, they do nothing. Fucking NOTHING.
Last term I had six students who didn’t pass the course. Five of them submitted two assignments total. One of them only submitted one. The college collected that money and even though I’ve pushed and begged to have the students dropped, I was told, “not to get too worked up about it.”
Really? Fuck you. Fuck that. I am worked up about it because in 10 years, that student is going to plan on using a tax refund for something, but there will be no joy at that person’s house, because that money will be taken to repay for a class, he probably thought he dropped. AND if he wants to take out a loan to help cover the costs of anything, or buy a car, or a house, that will not happen because his credit is ruined.
Education should not be a fucking business built on the back of predatory loans.
It is a fucking right.
FUCK!