I’m extremely curious what state you are in if you don’t mind sharing. Your world and the one I see are really incredibly different from each other.
I see the gamut of political thought among students, from pretty darn conservative on all counts to super liberal on all counts with everything in between. The one more common denominator I really appreciate seeing is far less racism or sexism, but even that is there with a few.
Some can’t wait to vote, others will say, “why bother, it doesn’t matter.” Of those who can’t wait to vote, it’s both sides and some in the other parties like Green.
By bellwether, do you mean people who are fiscally illiterate and have no idea how economies actually function? That would be a bad sign for the country.
While that used to be the case it is no longer. Like in many other western countries, parents can no longer be assured that their children will do better than they did and competition to give their kids any advantages that will give them a leg up starts young. With regards to university admissions, while it tends to be more major dependent than school dependent, in Ontario I can tell you that top students and their parents are stressing just as hard as many in the US wanting to attend T20/Ivy’s for:
Engineering
Waterloo & U of T
McMaster, Queen’s, Western
Computer Science
Waterloo & Toronto
Business
Western, Queen’s, U of T
Math/Finance
Waterloo & U of T
Pre-Med
McMaster & Queen’s
These may all be large public universities, but these programs are absolutely highly competitive and holistic for admissions. The average high school applicant is not getting admitted to them and the students applying to them are very much focused on perceived prestige. Apart from specific programs there is very much a stigma (at least on the part of high school and university students) attached to attending the schools that are less selective for admissions.
With regards to commuter vs residential living, there is just as much desire by Canadian students as there is by American students for a residential university experience. It may not be as lavish as what is available at the top US private colleges, but most Canadian university campuses provide sufficient space in their on campus dorms to accommodate the vast majority of the entering first year class. That’s not to say that there aren’t many many commuter students, but the vast majority would like the opportunity to live on campus if they could.
The “squad” is seen as the type of hypocrites I spoke of in my post (want to defund the police, yet use taxpayers funding to pay for personal security/ faking photo -ops for social media/ funneling donations to family member/yet arguing for “equality” ect, ect). The young people I know are not in awe - they are not blind to the corruption that is consuming our ruling class. They are not even considering living in high tax states once they look for jobs . They are much more politically aware - & no one is “sticking their fingers in their ears.”
By “Ontario”, do we mean here Toronto and suburbs?
Yes, I know, Canada’s been moving in the US’s direction in this regard – you had a long time under Harper (gosh, I’d almost forgotten his name). I don’t think it’d be fair to say the whole country’s been moving at a uniform rate, or that the school panics are on the whole like what you see here, even now, unless you’re certain parents desperate to get your kid into U of T.
There are residential, American-style colleges. Mount Allison comes first to mind. But nothing I know of Canada or friends there young or old says to me that people are anxious to run off and spend 4 years and a boodle for rah rah sis boom bah.
This is the thing that’s most interesting to me. We have tons of very conservative students here. And yet their politics and sense of economics are, in ways very weird to me, shaking loose from what you’d expect. None of them seem to think market forces, as still described in AP econ, are some given fact of life. Conservative does not marry to supply-demand curves in any way I’d have assumed till now. Social justice comes through different groups of kids in very different ways, but I’m seeing evangelical (and not) kids in hard sciences who – in any of my prior experience – would never have gone near politics behaving like it’s Berkeley, and demanding that their science have societal relevance. (We are not, I assure you, Berkeley.) And it’s happening on a mass scale, because holy crap, there are a lot of these kids. I’m not kidding when I say I’m in awe. I feel their force even though they’re still not out of school.
They are very vigorously questioning everything (though not so good at the researching-and-finding-answers part) and finding quite a lot wanting, and while they’re doing it in many ways and many directions, one thing I find almost universally is that they’re not interested in protecting rich people’s riches. I have to go pretty deep into the business college to find that.
I go around a lot talking with older people about this and it’s also super interesting how hard people don’t want to hear the news. Enough people didn’t want to hear it up above to hide one of the posts I wrote earlier. But not hearing it don’t mean it ain’t happening.
Someone up above said the money won’t let go without a fight. Sure. It never does. But money in this country skews old, and is in fewer and fewer hands. If this country manages to remain a democracy, I’d be expecting some very significant redistribution.
The interesting thing is that I don’t hear the kids demanding universal free tuition (and I haven’t advocated for it above). And I seldom hear anyone advocating for giving out money to people for nothing. What they do want is fairness. Regardless of who or where you come from, work hard with what’s available to you – not like a lunatic, just hard – and see reasonably broad opportunity for reward and a better, more prosperous life. Not “work like a lunatic for chances that don’t actually exist for you, then work like a lunatic more to find out that no one thinks your degree’s worth much, then try to make your way while dragging debt that rivals what you pay in rent for the next decade, or two, or forever, and find you’re still sinking further into debt because you have the ordinary expenses and research/haggling powers of a human being and you can’t find work that pays enough to get you out. Pray that you never get sick and that no one in your family needs you to take care of them, because if you or they do, it’s game over.”
Some study recently said that over half of millennials said that college hadn’t been worth it. They weren’t talking about the time spent or the course content. They were talking about the debt they’d accrued, assured by grownups that it was a great idea and signing for it at 18-22, usually, that had damaged their lives. They’re saying to you, “We have been damaged badly by how you set this up.” I don’t know how they can say it more plainly, or why anyone older than they would think that this would not have consequences for older people with wealth. Again, it might not be what you want to hear, but the news is sitting right there.
I’m not sure what you’re asking here. If you’re asking whether they’re selfish, most of them are not. This is another thing I don’t know that older, very well-off people recognize about the kids: a lot of them are used to having nothing, they don’t see themselves as future wealthy people, and thinking communally is a thing they’ve learned since early childhood. They’ve done things in groups all the way through school, and they’re really good at looking around to see if anyone’s been left out, then swiftly fixing that and moving on. They’ll fight amongst themselves about who’s in charge of that process – whether it’s small communities or a government – but do they think everyone ought to have the opportunity to go to college and get aid if it’s not affordable for them…I can’t think of a student I’ve spoken with who doesn’t. Nor does the idea of more tax if they’re making decent money so that other people can get some help seem to bother them.
Think of it this way: by the late '90s, iirc, about 20% of the kids in this country were growing up in federally-defined poverty. That’s incredibly poor. We’re not nice about how we define poverty, and you have to be a long way from getting by to be federally poor here. Some larger chunk was near poverty. Fewer than half of all households can cover an emergency out of savings. It’s now a normal experience (again) in America to grow up seeing your parents struggling and working themselves into bits, and still not making it, and not being able to provide you with things. I hear kids describe their families as well-off, and on inspection they mean they’re not poor; they know a lot of poor people, but they themselves have always had food on the table, never worried about having what they needed. That, to them, is flush.
So they feel it. They don’t want other people to feel it. Sharing, for them, is an obvious thing to do. Yes, they want the money to go to people who’ll make use of it, but I can’t recall the last time I heard a rousing Atlas-Shrugged chorus against government pickpockets.
Except the time I had a long conversation with a Turning Point guy, who was in our student union trying to engage people with the usual lies about how things work at universities, so after I debated him and made him concede on a bunch of those he went for the one about lazy rich professors, and I told him what I made. He was so shocked that his whole demeanor changed, and he said, “Can I ask you a question?” and I said yeah, and he said, “Why do you do it?” It was a whole different conversation after that, and one of the things I realized was that he was bored with the shtick they’d sent him out to sell. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the corners didn’t join up. And I think in the end this is where a lot of Friedmanesque and evangelical conservatism will fall apart – they’re movements of another age, they see these things are tired and don’t accord with what they actually see, and the ones with brains just get bored and start picking away at the edges. Not unlike the end of Communism. It’ll be very interesting to see where the kids brought up in these things go.
I’m thinking of Henry Olsen’s a-HA! bit in the Post today about how if you want to fix the tax code, start with Harvard. He seems to think that that one’ll get the libs shouting no, no, we take it all back, not Harvard, a university full of our leaders! But I cannot think of a single student I’ve ever met here, in a decade, who wouldn’t (after learning about massive university endowments) shrug and say something like: definitely, go for it, if they’re not spending that money on helping kids afford school there, come get it, because what’s it for?
This is reassuring because the numbers in this group each year isn’t enough to win the mayoral election in my suburban town.
You do know that people in this thread with different views than you have kids who recently graduated college, are in college, will be soon, and know a lot of kids who are are all of those as well, right?
Well, your students should be happy. Harvard’s endowment returned 7.3% in FY2020. And distributions were 5.2%, in line with recent years. After accounting for inflation, real growth in the endowment was close to zero.
Your students were able to figure that out, right?
I do, but from the stories they’re telling about their lives and what they see around them, the average person in this forum is far wealthier than the average American is. I’m not surprised that what you’re seeing around you differs from what I’m talking about, but on the American scene, I’d say your experience is an outlier. Anyway – if you don’t want to take the advice, that’s your business. I’m saying don’t be surprised as the politics tilt and a lot of the rules change.
I think (and I think you know) that the issue here isn’t that they want Harvard to do badly. It’s that they don’t see a reason for any university to amass a pile of billions of dollars and then charge obscene tuition to anyone. Or for anyone to stack up that kind of cash with preferential tax treatment. (That’s assuming they know about any of this at all, and I’m guessing the vast majority do not. I’m telling you what I expect their reactions would be, given what I know of them, if they did know.)
I do find it weird when people don’t seem to think in terms of anything but “mine”, revenge, and fear of what others might do. I’m reminded of online discussions about prison years ago where you’d always get some contingent absolutely fixated on punishment. No matter what, the first thing they worried about was whether people were getting adequately punished.
I’ve been around university budgets for a long time now, and I have real trouble thinking why any school needs that kind of treasury. I understand a rainy day fund, capital-projects funds attached to specific projects, fin-aid funds. But fundraising for the hell of it and amassing a hedge fund in your backyard, or becoming a real-estate speculator – no, I don’t see a reason for a university to be doing this at all if it’s a public institution, and if it’s private, I suppose it can do as it will, but it’s no longer a nonprofit organization and should lose its tax-exempt status.
There was a story a few days ago about a rich woman who called the University of South Carolina and absolutely froke at their leadership because they hadn’t come calling and kissed her hand when her daddy died. Apparently she thought she was owed this because she gave them lots of money. USC is a very large public university, and we’re in the middle of pandemic. Lots of people’s parents have died. It’s a terrible thing. Her daddy, while I’m sure very important to her, is not more important than a student’s daddy, and his death doesn’t warrant differential treatment. But when you have this sort of reliance of public institutions on individual wealthy donors, rather than everyone’s taxes, you do get this corruption in which the wealthy donors believe they’re owed more by those public institutions. Just one reason why I don’t think public institutions should be growing endowments, and why I thought it was just one more sign of serious trouble when the lavish development centers started springing up.
I just saw the newest proposal that will be announced in a prime-time speech tonight by the President. Here is the most important part of the proposal in relation to the recent topics mentioned in the thread via WSJ:
“The White House said the proposal includes $1 trillion in new spending over 10 years and $800 billion in tax cuts, largely extensions of breaks created or expanded in this year’s Covid-19 relief law. Mr. Biden will call for a universal preschool program for 3- and 4-year-olds and two years of tuition-free community college for all Americans, including the young immigrants known as Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children and have lived in the country illegally. Those programs would be available to Americans at all income levels, officials said, and would be funded in partnership with states”.
So there is no mention of any cancelling of student loan debt, which I have always believed would be “punted” at least 10 years down the road (not enough clamoring for this by the overall electorate) and I still believe the student loan debt “bubble” will burst before any action is taken. But I personally like an universal pre-k program (it will close some gaps in overall readiness between the “haves and the have nots”) and 2 years of tuition free at community colleges seems like a more economical and sustainable program to try and hold down overall higher education costs.
So how are they going to pay for this:
Raising the top income-tax rate to 39.6% from 37%.
Raising the top rate on capital-gains and dividends to 39.6% from 20% for households making more than 1 million dollars.
Expanding the types of income that will be taxed under the 3.8% payroll and investment income.
Capital Gains taxed at death. Unrealized gains would be treated as sold and taxable, with an exemption of $1 million a person, in addition to the existing exclusion of up to $500,000 for a married couple’s primary residence. Today, gains are only taxed after death and only when they are sold.
Increasing the size of the IRS (doubling staffing and requiring more info from banks) expected to bring in 700 billion
Most of the tax cuts revolve around permanently extend the expanded tax credit for child care and the expanded earned-income tax credit for childless workers. The proposal would also make the child tax credit permanently fully refundable, which means low-income households could get the money even if they don’t have earned income.
There will be many battles for this proposal to become law and I am at least partially skeptical that this will actually happen.
Here is the thing. They are the people that are taking on this debt. It’s not coming out of current revenues it will be coming out of revenues for decades to come. To commit to programs like this is not hurting the Boomers it’s will hurt the millennials and the gen z and their children. Instead of being responsible for their own debt they will be responsible for every students debt from here to bankruptcy.
Seems like a very sensible proposal by Biden. Free community college will help many people and is a good alternative for some. How often on this page do we see the “should I attend my dream school or my affordable school” queries.? The consensus is almost always choose the affordable option, but kids don’t always make that choice. We should encourage better choices thru public policy, and that includes community college.
I have a child at Harvard today, and I am full-pay. He could have gone other places for free, so this was a choice we made.
Note that Harvard is free for families with less than about $60k in annual income, and for families with up to $150k in annual income, Harvard expects them to pay no more than 10% of annual income. This is enabled by the endowment.
Backing up, tuition provides 9% of the annual budget, whereas the endowment provides 37%. Which 37% would you cut?
Never mind. You don’t get to choose. You see, it is Radcliffe, the Divinity School, and Arts and Sciences that require the most subsidies. In contrast the professional schools like HBS have other sources of funding and therefore don’t need much endowment support.
I suppose Harvard could eliminate its study of religion, gender equality, racial equality, and Classics. It could eliminate the required writing class that most freshmen would rather skip, allowing it to get rid of more professors. It could also try to cut back on math, sciences, and engineering, but those professors could get private or federal contracts to sustain themselves. Then Harvard wouldn’t need that much from its endowment. But it would be a very different Harvard.
For someone who claims such expertise, you seem light on the details on which groups actually benefit.
Everyone has a different definition of “decent”. However, once they are the ones actually paying those taxes - most of them will have a change of mindset as they view their pay stubs with shock at the amounts they actually pay in taxes in a real rather than theoretical situation. Also, because this is the real world - often it is not simply the one who “works the hardest” that will make the most money. Rather, the most common path to financial success is to do what others don’t want to do (ex, become a mortician, or take financial risks as an entrepreneur). This also includes those who complete more difficult majors in college. This is just the facts. This is not injustice. Often those who complain, would not do many well paying jobs either because they feel they are “below” them, or they don’t like some aspect required of the job. I for one would not be a flight attendant for a million a year, as I hate flying. This does not mean the system is rigged against people
Yes, some people are financially successful because they are able to do what others cannot (ex they are born with extreme vocal talent, or are over 7 ft tall so excels in NBA) often combined with a degree of luck - but those cases are exceedingly rare.
You’ve also got schools/programs like Chan (public health) and the graduate school of Ed. Chan was heavily subsidized (that’s what an endowment is for) until it got its own funding streams in place. Nice to have actual academic centers training the next generation of public health, education leaders…
We make roughly 100K per year and just came up to that level a couple of years ago. That’s more than the median around us and in the US, but less than what I expect many on this board make. Where we live, most make less (roughly 40% qualify for free lunch), so I’d expect I’d be in a similar demographics than you are when it comes to students, but your world and what you claim to be seeing as the majority (vs a few students) is not at all what I see.
I’m still wondering where you live. I come on this board to get a sense of what others think along with looking for college advice to pass on to the students I see or offering some based upon my own kids’ experiences in undergrad or med school coupled with what I’ve seen via students at school who have graduated.
I will freely agree that every student I hear back from who took on big loans (upper 5 digits or more) when they had other college choices has regretted it. Those without choices usually didn’t, but definitely could use help paying it back as it takes a long time.
The vast, vast majority of those who pick their lesser choice due to finances come back saying they are glad they did and in hindsight it would have been their top choice. They love their school. The exceptions to that is when their lesser choice was way beneath them in caliber (they had an SAT of 1400+ and chose a free school where the average SAT was 1000 with few, if any, academic peers). Then they wish they had paid more or chosen to apply to different schools.
Politics hit the whole range here as I said before - kids flying MAGA flags to kids supporting Sanders. There’s also a large contingent who just doesn’t give a hoot.
And through it all, most are fairly content with life and their options in it. They graduate high school, go to college or not (cc counts), get employed, start families, and are fun to talk with. Some move away. Others stay in the area.
Those hooked on drugs are the exception and there are three ways that seems to happen. The largest seems to be they want to belong to a group and the druggie group accepts everyone. “Here, try this. You look great,” or “I’ll listen” and “want to feel really good?” (The dealers and other users woo them in.) The second are those who had an injury and got addicted - not necessarily from prescriptions, but from people giving them access. The third group, unfortunately, lost the birth lottery. It runs in their family line.
The one thing I rarely see is all the negativity and hostility you mention in large numbers. What state are you in?
I can’t help but think those are thoughts you have (esp after reading a couple of your posts in that closed thread) and you assume everyone around you agrees with you.
They, um…already work. Most have been working since at least high school. My student tenants often come from families with family businesses, and they’re very chatty about their families’ tax situations and how they’re paying for college. Well-acquainted with Mr. FICA and income taxes.
And they’re still fine with sharing more. Think it’s the obvious thing to do.
By “Ontario”, do we mean here Toronto and suburbs?
Except the time I had a long conversation with a Turning Point guy, who was in our student union trying to engage people with the usual lies about how things work at universities, so after I debated him and made him concede on a bunch of those he went for the one about lazy rich professors, and I told him what I made. He was so shocked that his whole demeanor changed, and he said, “Can I ask you a question?” and I said yeah, and he said, “Why do you do it?” It was a whole different conversation after that, and one of the things I realized was that he was bored with the shtick they’d sent him out to sell. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the corners didn’t join up. And I think in the end this is where a lot of Friedmanesque and evangelical conservatism will fall apart – they’re movements of another age, they see these things are tired and don’t accord with what they actually see, and the ones with brains just get bored and start picking away at the edges. Not unlike the end of Communism. It’ll be very interesting to see where the kids brought up in these things go.