Email Of The Day

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Black & Right

Let the whining continue.

Dear Bob,

I don’t think I could be any more outraged right now: Congresswoman Virginia Foxx told a radio interviewer last week that she has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that.”

Oh really? So it’s my fault if I have student debt?

Seeing how you CHOSE to take out a loan to go to an institution you couldn’t afford at a time when you couldn’t afford it… yes!

But Foxx isn’t just any member of Congress. She’s the CHAIR of the Higher Education & Workforce Training Subcommittee in the House. That’s right, she controls policy on the issue of student debt, and she thinks you’re a loser and a whiner if you have student loans.

Someone with Foxx’s extreme views has no business setting education policy. Speaker Boehner and the rest of Congress need to publicly denounce her remarks.

Click here to tell Speaker Boehner and members of Congress to denounce Rep. Foxx for her absurd remarks.

Foxx went on to say: “I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money.” This was in 1968 at UNC Chapel Hill, when seven years of college cost about $46,100 TOTAL (adjusted for inflation). How much would her education cost now? $141,820. An in-state student at UNC Chapel Hill now pays triple what it cost when Foxx went to school. And, by the way, the minimum wage was 38% higher in 1968 than it is now, in inflation-adjusted dollars.

What’s even worse is that Foxx sponsored the “Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act,” a bill to strip away federal regulation of for-profit colleges — colleges that notoriously prey on lower-income students, have disturbingly low graduation rates, and leave their students with higher-than-average levels of debt. And no wonder: Foxx’s top campaign contributors are the for-profit colleges themselves.4 Foxx needs to be put in check.

If you think that Rep. Foxx shouldn’t get away with her absurd remarks, add your name here.

We can’t let elected officials go scot-free with such ridiculous, out-of-touch views.

Be well,
Molly and the Rebuild the Dream team

I have little tolerance for students in debt with worthless majors, or liberals bitching about corporations who raise prices and rip off The People, while never mentioning the greed of Big Education.


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  • Uncle Rick

    The reason college costs so much more now than it used to is that there are so many loans available. This creates a toxic relationship between the colleges, who get easy money by attracting students who take out the loans, and the government, who encourages the loans.

    There is no limit on the demand for a free good. While the loans aren’t free, their easy availability and attractive terms makes them free for the time being.

    I got scholarships, worked and took out a Hinson-Hazelwood loan (Texas, not fed), which was easy to pay back. I also spent two years on an aircraft carrier, which made a big difference when I went back to school. However, I finished my degree with what is now Excelsior College (at the time was the Regents Program with the University of the State of New York), which cost about $200/year in record maintenance fees. Unless you’re an engineering or science major, there is really no reason to waste your time or money in classes. Even then, get all the non-major requirements out of the way in community college or correspondence (or the web nowadays), then take only the classes you need for your major.

    Or join the Navy.

    Richard “The Professor” White
    Austin, Texas

    • Igor

      Sage advice, my good man.  I went to Community College for two years to get my AAS and pre-BS requirements out of the way, then went to a 4-year for my Computer Science degree with a side of Electrical Engineering.

      After I spent 4 years in Uncle Sam’s Flying Air Circus working in a hole in the ground on Minuteman Missiles.  The GI bill really helped defray the costs!

      • Uncle Rick

        We home-schooled almost all the way for our three kids. The youngest spent four, maybe five years in public schools, but the oldest hardly any. We enrolled them in a “home-school support” program in which they spent the day in a class with a public school teacher supervising while a parent did the work. Washington State also had Running Start, which allowed qualified high school students to take classes at the community college without paying tuition, and get credit in both the CC and the high school (if the course was in a corresponding subject). We made sure that Owen was one course shy of graduating so that he qualified for two years. Books were pricey, though. Punch line is that he got his AAS a week before his HS diploma.

        He’s now a nuke on an aircraft carrier. I didn’t do everything right for my family (some bad financial and employment decisions), but all three kids got launched OK.

  • Tallyman

    Attention lawyers and victims:  A class action suit against the over-priced college for enticing students to borrow money which the college knew and/or should have known and/or recklessly without regard for the incoming students’ welfare provided fraudulent college finance assistance.   The college financial advice offered was not given in good faith, but was rather a fraud meant to enrich the college at the expense of the naive incoming student.    They, the college, cheated, lied and said that the herein named victims would greatly benefit from their over-priced product.    The victims of this scheme demand compensatory and punitive damages against the college, its greedy faculty and administrators, individually and collectively and a declarative judgement that the education offered by this college is not worth anywhere needs its price.

  • aelfheld

    [...] she thinks you’re a loser and a whiner if you have student loans.

    No Molly.

    She thinks you’re a loser and a whiner if you’ve accumulated $80,000 or more in student debt and still have the reading comprehension of a not-overly-bright third-grader.

    And I agree with her wholeheartedly.

    • Mommy RN

      I’ll admit, I have student loans. When my first husband walked out I had four kids to support and I worked full time PLUS as a CNA in order to do that and made the CHOICE to take out student loans so that I could cover what scholarships and grants did not… I knew the faster I got that RN the faster I could take better care of my kids. I also looked for jobs that offered money towards my education and made sure I had straight As all through my pre-reqs and nursing school.

      I don’t regret it in the least and I certainly don’t whine about it or expect someone else to pay them off. I ran the numbers and decided it was well worth it. However, part of those numbers were looking at the payoff at the end… how any of these liberal arts or art history majors expect to pay back gigantic loans for name-brand schools I simply cannot fathom.

      • Igor

        They are math- and critical-thinking challenged, that’s why.  They can’t/won’t look beyond the end of their nose, much less 5-10-15 years down the road.

  • http://www.jewelsjungle.com Jewels

    Oh for the love of taco sauce. Ok, here’s a little lesson in cause and effect for liberals.

    CAUSE: You want to pay teachers to teach you something. But not just any teachers, you want these teachers, specifically. Since you don’t have any money to purchase their services, you’re going to borrow some!

    EFFECT: Because those teachers did, in fact, perform that service; and that bank did, in fact, give you money that you gave your word and even signed contracts stating you would eventually pay back, YOU NOW HAVE TO PAY BACK YOUR LOANS.

    Why is this so hard to understand. If you CHOSE to do all of this, then yes, YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THIS SITUATION. Republicans didn’t MAKE you sign those loan contracts. Your Mommy didn’t MAKE you sign those loan contracts. It’s time to put on your big boy/ girl pants and take responsibility for yourself.

  • RightSide

    This is a big bunch of bunk; a Van Jones leftist scam. Of course it’s your fault if you have student debt! Nobody put a government gun to your head and forced you to take out a loan. You borrowed the money and got your education. Now honor your load agreement and start paying off YOUR loan. You contracted for it; take individual responsibility and pay it off. This isn’t a socialist country — idiot!

    Is anyone falling for this crap?!

  • n.n

    There is an argument which claims that schools and loan providers possess superior knowledge and that they are responsible for improperly lending to an individual pursuing an education with little or insufficient value (e.g. liberal education) to the economy.  While that may be true, I do not accept that responsibility shifts from the borrower to the loan provider during a voluntary transaction.  The premise for our society is that individuals are responsible for consequences that follow from voluntary behavior.

    As for the progressive costs, well, that is a side-effect which follows from promising to fulfill dreams of instant gratification (e.g. DREAM Act) in exchange for a vote.