Biden's Short List

I would say the US has shifted pretty far to the right in the last several decades. Today’s GOP would think Eisenhower was a socialist leftist libtard.

Well, I was speaking generally about every election.  Having only two parties feels like a choice between two radical options for me.  I agree that Biden is more moderate than Trump, for sure.  My primary beefs with Biden from a policy perspective have to do with Health Care - I don't want to just lower the Medicare age or try to cobble together ACA.  We need a new plan.  I don't need the plan outlined for me but I want to hear a strong commitment to STUDY and employ experts to FIX it.  Not just bandage it.  I also don't love his free two year college plan as THE plan for secondary education reform.  I'd like see limits on student loans and their interest rates which would force colleges and universities to delivery high quality education for less.  The ease of student loans and the competition for more amenities drives up the prices, IMO.  Fix those things and we could see a decrease in costs.  So, are those dealbreakers for me?  Maybe not.  But, I'm still undecided.

To me that is cognitively dissonant and I agree with you.  That is not a part of my faith and its view on abortion.

Or being told they're RINOs by other Republicans.  

In Canada he’d be the same! When I’m reading about US politics I have to constantly remind myself that left/right is relative. Mind you, when the socialist and communist name calling starts, I give up - there’s no hope for those people.

For me, it's not so much about "free" - we have something called the Pell Grant for low income people to subsidize the cost of education and I fully support that.  I think the real problem is the rapidly escalating cost of tuition (out of line with normal inflation) and that is driven on the fact that we have very easily accessible (but high cost) debt for college and a culture where "everyone needs to go to college to get the American Dream".  Colleges CAN charge more because students "can just borrow the money they need!" and "there is a guaranteed return on the money!".  We have to fix the COST of education while also supporting people who desire to get an education.  Just flooding more money into the system won't force the colleges and universities to fix the problem.  So, I don't hate the idea of giving people two years of community college - I just don't think it fixes the root of the problem.  Your system sounds perfectly reasonable, but I also don't think that the cost of education is as high in Canada.  I could be wrong on that, though!  

I worked very hard to pay off my student loans for both undergrad and grad school as quickly as possible, but I'm in a position of privilege and it was still a lot of work and sacrifice to do that.  Had I not paid them off quickly, they would just continue to grow exponentially as the interest compounds DAILY.  I think that people are really starting to see the impact of that now that we have the interest suspended due to COVID.  Kids taking out these loans have no idea the impact that the payments will have on their lives after they graduate.  And, many of those kids don't have someone at home to guide them into making reasonable decisions about college debt.    

University tuition in the US is insane. My kids can study in Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, etc for around €3000 plus room and board, at some excellent schools. Meanwhile, my husband’s friend in Texas said by the time both his kids graduate, he will have spent close to $500k. There is no way the actual value is that much greater for your typical US school; it’s just more expensive. I don’t know what the solution is, but the cost and the resulting student loan debt are out of control.

Of my 4 kids, only 1 went to university. She had student loans which she paid off as quickly as she could. Our sons either have or are going through the apprenticeship program to get their red seal in a trade. (One of our son-in-laws did that too). I don’t know if that’s an option in the US but it’s a very practical way of getting a career in trades here without a lot of debt. (None of them wanted desk jobs, they prefer working with their hands.)

It absolutely is an option here.  But, there is a cultural myth that "you have to go to college" for the vast majority of kids.  My husband skipped college and went into the Navy, for example.  He did end up doing college later and now has three college degrees (a BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology, an Associates in Nursing and a Bachelors in Nursing).  His GI Bill (money you get for college after military service) paid for the first BS and Associates.  We paid around $11,000 for the Bachelors in Nursing from an online completion program.  So, he did well.  I think that schools need to invest more in helping students plan for their careers instead of college.  Sometimes that will include college and sometimes it won't.  I also think that gap years, when done really well, are something that a lot of US kids could benefit from.

While I agree that tuition is insane and needs to be addressed, $250k for one kid is probably far more than necessary.  (I know that parts of the following options might not be available to everyone.)  If one goes to an in-state school, lives at home, buys used books when possible,  and gets it done in 4 or 4.5 years, it probably won't cost that much.  If they go to a community college for the first two years, even less so.  

So it's kind of a combination of factors, especially for kids who actually have families and options.  Some of the responsibility is with the buyers of education, not the sellers.  If I buy Jimmy Choos and then complain that shoes are too expensive, it's missing part of the picture.  Maybe shoes are too expensive.  And lots of people can't afford them, and that's a real problem.  But there was a way for me to cover my feet without spending $500.  

My Dd paid about $5500 a year for her degree. Lived at home for free, worked almost full time, paid for most of it herself, and finished without any student loans. We have two universities here that were an option for her - she picked the one that was a 10 minute bus ride from home (and the bus pass was included in the school fees).

We couldn’t have afforded to pay for her to go away, so she would have had to take on mass debt to do that. She really didn’t care where she went, so it worked out great.