The front page of the Internet showed Elizabeth Warren’s student loan bill the back door.
In what’s been a constructive discussion about Warren’s remarks at the Make Progress National Summit, multiple redditors and supposed student loan debtors have placed their square focus on the cost of college as the higher education problem that needs fixing, not simply a tweak to student loan interest rates — particularly one financed with a political gimmick.
“I’m pretty sure the student loan debate boils down to ‘Stop making college so ridiculously expensive while at the same time telling everyone they have to go if they want to get a job that isn’t washing dishes,’ ” the most up-voted comment on a thread about Warren’s speech Wednesday reads. The thread spent the majority of Friday leading Reddit’s politics subreddit, helping prompt in excess of 1,500 comments.
“I am normally 100% with [W]arren, but she’s so wrong here it’s not funny,” another highly up-voted comment reads. “This has nothing to do with billionaires, and everything to do with education affordability. We need ways to combat the cost, not the interest rate.”
With the word “reform” attached mostly to immigration and tax issues nowadays, a comprehensive strategy to reduce the cost of higher education isn’t close to appearing on Washington, D.C.’s radar. But some lawmakers have nibbled around the edges — on the outside of the box.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), for instance, introduced a measure that would expand the college accreditation system, allowing students to receive credit for coursework and programs outside the confines of traditional four-year schools.
“Our higher education system — and especially the federal policies that govern access to it — is failing the two-thirds of Americans who never get a B.A., and the large minority of Americans who never set foot on a college campus,” Lee’s website states. “Those Americans need access to skills that current colleges aren’t teaching, at prices that four-year residential institutions can’t afford, on timelines the academic calendar can’t accommodate. And the lower a student’s income, the greater the need.”
For example: “Imagine having access to credit and student aid for a program in computer science accredited by Apple or in music accredited by the New York Philharmonic,” he said at the Heritage Foundation in October.
And on a bipartisan basis, Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) have focused their efforts on revamping the nation’s job training and workforce development programs and policies.
None of these ideas qualify as broad “overhauls” to higher education. But they are substantive ideas, far superior to an election-year talking point poorly disguised as legislation.
“We need someone who can take complex issues and make them understandable, not a new bumper-sticker factory,” another redditor wrote.
A typically pro-Warren redditor, at that.
