Lee “Sprezzatura” Siegel’s Whiny, Condescending Screed About Defaulting on Student Loans
Many of you might remember Lee Siegel as the former New Republic writer who fulsomely praised himself using a sock puppet named “sprezzatura”:
Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.
Siegel is back today, regaling readers of the New York Times with a masterpiece of haughty rationalization titled Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans:
I defaulted on my student loans.
As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example.
It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. [Isn’t it reckless borrowing if you can’t pay it back? — Ed.] Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins. [Many of us came from modest origins and still paid back our loans, Siegel. — Ed.]
Am I a deadbeat? [Yes. — Ed.] In the eyes of the law I am. Indifferent to the claim that repaying student loans is the road to character? Yes. Blind to the reality of countless numbers of people struggling to repay their debts, no matter their circumstances, many worse than mine? My heart goes out to them. To my mind, they have learned to live with a social arrangement that is legal, but not moral.
Never was there a story of more woe, as Siegel describes narrowly escaping the unthinkable fate of ending up as a district manager of a shoe store:
Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. [That’s certainly part of the problem, yes. — Ed.] Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own [What’s a professional “reader”? — Ed.], without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.
Don’t flatter yourself, bub. Somehow I think you lack the people skills to make district manager.
Here’s the thing: there is indeed a problem with the price of higher education. One of the main problems is that the price results from a bubble caused in no small part by government subsidies. To economists, this is no surprise. When you subsidize something, the price goes up. But leftist writers think the cause is actually the solution, leading to unintentionally humorous headlines like this recent deck headline from the Atlantic:
Despite spiraling tuition, government subsidies for higher education are—contrary to popular belief—at an all-time high.
One is reminded of the famous New York Times headline: Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates. The amusing “Despite Predictable Result, The Cause of That Result Exists” headline pattern is fun to mock, of course — but the stupefying ignorance revealed by these sorts of headlines isn’t funny.
Tuition costs are out of control, and the reasons aren’t a big mystery to economists. As economist Andrew Gillen put it:
As higher financial aid pushes costs higher, it inevitably puts upward pressure on tuition. Higher tuition, of course, reduces college affordability, leading to calls for more financial aid, setting the vicious cycle in motion all over again.
This vicious spiral is what we always see when government acts to “save” us from the high costs of a good or service.
Although government is a big part of the problem, you can be sure that a chucklehead like Lee Siegel will advocate government as at least part of the solution. And you would be right — although the second plank of his platform may send you into giggling hysterics:
I am sharply aware of the strongest objection to my lapse into default. If everyone acted as I did, chaos would result. The entire structure of American higher education would change.
The collection agencies retained by the Department of Education would be exposed as the greedy vultures that they are. The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.
There would be a national shaming of colleges and universities for charging soaring tuition rates that are reaching lunatic levels.
I have listened carefully — with a furrowed brow and serious, thoughtful expression — to Siegel’s argument that college tuition can be lowered through a program of “national shaming of colleges and universities.” After a scrupulous and meticulous consideration of the merits of his argument, I present to you my response:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
But the point is, the fact that higher education costs are out of control — and the fact that these costs will never be reined in as long as we listen to the likes of Lee Siegel — does not mean Lee Siegel gets to default on his loans and expect us to say “there there” and give him a sympathetic pat on the back.
Like Lee Siegel, I came from a lower middle class background. So did my wife. Like many, many other Americans in our circumstances, we paid our student loan debts. Siegel doesn’t get to default on his and pretend his shameful abandonment of his obligations is justified.
The biographical note at the end of Siegel’s piece states: “Lee Siegel is the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money.” Good. I hope his memoir about money is successful, and that he makes a lot of cash from its sales.
And I hope Siegel’s creditors take every penny.
Ding.
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:28 pmi literally would sneak baloney sammiches into work and eat them in my office with the door closed when i decided to get rid of my student loans
i hate this siegelwhore
and I’m not a hater by nature
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:35 pmGreetings:
Two “From the Desk of” memos just in from dear departed Dad:
1) There’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. An excuse is a bad reason.
2) Next time you see your parents, tell them I said they still have some work to do.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 6/7/2015 @ 1:55 pmThis is a poor decision by Mr. Siegel. The consequences of a student loan default are not pleasant.
DRJ (e80d46) — 6/7/2015 @ 2:11 pmI was raised that your word was your bond. There was never any discussion on how to default.
steveg (fed1c9) — 6/7/2015 @ 2:40 pmThe discussion was always about how are we going to pay these bills.
Dad worked, Mom worked and we put cardboard in our shoes and ate the cupboards bare at the end of the month.
People often talked about living in cheaper cities and states, but we were taught how to afford living here.
First of all was pay your bills. Get a summer job mowing lawns, get a job after school, get a job working avocados.
It was always about getting jobs.
Like Lee Siegel, I came from a lower middle class background.
oh but no
nonononononono
Lee came from a trashy low-class background where you don’t pay back what you borrow
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 2:42 pm*
that old red dirt the first thing you learn
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 2:46 pmFrom his own article, most of his creditors are gone, out of business, including the bank that gave him those loans. He doesn’t comment on WHY the bank is gone, but the usual reason is “bad loans that don’t get repaid”…
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:16 pm> eat them in my office with the door closed
mostly off topic, but … office with the door closed? in many lines of work this isn’t a thing any more; it’s all open-office cubicle plans where you hear everything your neighbors say to everyone.
aphrael (69b4f7) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:33 pmwe all lose our offices next year sometime when we move
i had a good ride
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:38 pmIn the article, Mr. Siegel says his student loans are at least 30 years old. Maybe he thinks he has successfully skated on his liability, but maybe he hasn’t.
DRJ (e80d46) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:42 pmOK, this character is a jerk and probably a swine.
However;
The current generation of college grads, and the last several as well, have been sold a bill of goods and herded into a trap. And when (not if) they decide to kick the trap apart and stick society with the bill, I’m not all that sure I have it in me to blame them.
My Father was a college professor (History of Science and Technology). He was astonished at how much society was willing to pay him as early as the mid 1970’s. By the end of his life, he was simply stunned. He was baffled at the number of Liberal Arts majors the country apparently felt it needed. So far as he was concerned, what a BA in nearly anything qualified you to do was study for the MA. And, though he loved the life, he freely admitted that Professors of History were a luxury good. In fact he spent a number of years at the end of his career fighting with his fellow faculty member because he felt that the very least they owed society was to publish their results. And they didn’t even want to do THAT much.
Unless you are a REAL go getter, to get a white collar job (and all too many blue and pink collar ones0 you need a college degree. Not a college degree in anything relevant, mind. Just a college degree. And society has been telling high school kids for DECADES that going to college will guarantee a large salary. And it won’t. I seriously believe that all the fuss about the so-called “for profit” colleges is intended in large part to distract from the cold fact that the Ivy League isn’t that much better on the fraud front.
The whole edifice is rotten. Oh, come of the schools of engineering and the (hard) sciences are still not too bad, but the rot has been spreading for a long, LOOOOOONG time. And if the millenials decide that the debt they carry was loaded onto them by fraud and this they have little ethical obligation to pay it back. I’m not totally persuaded they are wrong.
Pity that this schmoo seems to have elected himself their spokesman, because HE has the moral stature of duck weed.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:44 pmduck weed is a thing?
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:50 pmDuckweeds, or water lens, are flowering aquatic plants which float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands.
and they are of notoriously low moral stature
>>>
the more you know
happyfeet (831175) — 6/7/2015 @ 3:51 pmAny options that don’t onvolve self-indulgent narcissism, Lee? I am pretty sure the world would survive without your writing. How about a job that pays better than what your writing is paying?
JD (3b5483) — 6/7/2015 @ 4:17 pmI suspect that this is part of his “therapy” or self-affirmation:
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 4:43 pmSay it out and say it loud
I’m a deadbeat and I’m proud
Two, four, six, eight
We won’t pay no interest rate
Silence is Debt!
Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.
Mr. Siegel reveals himself as not only dishonest and a class-conscious entitled snob, but more than that, one who does not believe in hard work and character. As many of us of a certain age know, a hard work and a good work ethic come from good training and result in character being developed in us. Siegel clearly completely lacks it in spades.
Yes, for a season you give up your vocation if it is not paying the bills you owe. Yes, you humbly go work at McDonalds or clean toilets somewhere – whatever it takes to maintain some character and credibility, to yourself and to others and pay off your debts.
“Wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society”??
Oh, please, you petulant thumb-sucking little twirp. No job is a waste if it’s paying you a wage for your efforts and you in turn are paying what you owe to others whose livelihood depends upon you fulfilling your part of the contract. Utter selfishness on every level! He didn’t care, he “never looked back”.
The man not grasp the fundamental purpose and definition of the word “work”, and does not care to. He has justified his actions and managed to live a life apart from even caring about the “little people” in the banks that funded his loans.
And this is what we have to look forward to with a huge portion of the younger population: I don’t want to waste my life washing dishes or cleaning toilets just to pay back money I borrowed because I am more special to the universe than that. And if it hurts other people down the line, too bad. They just aren’t as special as me.
Entitlement run amok.
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 4:49 pmEh, should be: As many of us of a certain age know, a good work ethic is developed in us from good parental training, and is evidenced by our hard work and commitment to completing the task at hand. Especially as others are depending on us seeing it through. The byproduct is becoming a person of good character and repute.
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:02 pmSiegel has been out of school for thirty years. He missed his chance to develop a good career or admirable personal qualities. Now he’s looking for a way to make his choices look like a cause, instead of a mistake.
DRJ (e80d46) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:05 pmThat’s part of the reason I don’t feel sorry for him. Colleges today are indeed ridiculously, absurdly overpriced. 30 years ago, not so much.
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:12 pmDana,
He rubs me the wrong way, too. But I grew up in the college subculture. They spent decades telling young people, “Come to us, we’ll prepare you for an exciting, lucrative, and worthy career!”. Not my dad, mind. He told his students, and prospective students “I’ll prepare you for a lifetime of scholarship, so that better be what you want.” But Father was a Crank, like me.
The entitlement he expresses is part of the con-job that was run on him. He was told he would have a fulfilling career. He wasn’t really told, “If you want a really deeply fulfilling career you should expect to work like a donkey to get it.”, which is the truth.
I don’t like him. i don’t like that schmuck who went $35k into debt to get a Masters in puppetry. But I can’t shake the feeling that they were set up and well and truely screwed by the system.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:14 pmI hope he hasn’t fathered children. Can you imagine having a father who is proud of beig a deabeat?
GKH (7de942) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:14 pmI was also intrigued by this passage, but the post was already too long to include this:
Wait, what? You mean you want to establish a “good record” of paying your rent “on time” so that landlords will believe you are reliable and agree to rent to you?
Why not just choose a place you can’t afford and then default? Then, when you can’t pay for the place you chose, you can blame it on society!
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:14 pmI wonder if he’d sing a different tune if NY Times et al. didn’t pay him for his writings. What a douc$e.
McDodd (ee52da) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:17 pmC.S.P. Schofield,
A lot of people around that time and earlier were told similar things, and yes, believed it. However, college is not mandatory for living a successful life, it is strictly voluntary; and, most people (at least back then, clearly now things are different what with “free” college, etc) were indeed willing to work their way through as well as honorably work their way through their debt afterward. To me, Speigel single-handedly diminishes the value of a college education in that he completely lacks any character. Fine if his wife and/or family can respect that while they live in a nice house. I just can’t.
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:19 pmHa, ha, ha, ha, ha. I can’t shake the feeling they tried to line up for a bunch of little work/high pay cushie jobs they actually believed existed all while wanting their hard working neighbor to pay the bill. Sadly, in some cases it worked. Hence the current crop of worthless educators, administrators and assorted bureaucrats with tenure , golden parachutes and lifetime retirement benefits paid for by …….others.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:31 pmThis punk should be a social outcast. If I ever saw him on a social occasion I would call him on this bullshit.
We need to brink back shame people, and use it.
gahrie (12cc0f) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:35 pmDana & Hogie,
You two, and I, are a great deal smarter then the average college student. Put it this way; the Liberal Intellectual Elite have been telling stories for most of a century which place a great mass of guilt on recruiters for the military who tell young men pretty stories of heroism and glory. But they do the same to the young people they lure into the College machine. To keep faculty numbers up and salaries high, they have sold the myth of college every bit as ethically as any Victorian recruiting sargent ever did.
I guess I’m saying; keep in mind who are the real enemies. And they are the entrenched Liberal Intellectual Establishment amd their tools and hangers on. And if the young people they parasitize decide to stuff the whole boiling, let’s make sure the Liberal Intellectual Parasites get it in the neck before we worry about punishing their cattle.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:46 pmI get it. Anyone who pays bills on time is “pribileged.”
felipe (56556d) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:53 pmC.S.P. Schofield,
I would agree, but only to a point. Your analysis leaves out parental influence and the training necessary to hold children accountable from the get-go. By the time college rolls around, those same kids ideally should understand the value of a dollar, have earned their own dollar or two, know what debt is and is not, what good character reveals, and what makes people honorable. The parental role should not be underestimated. My kids are not special butterflies, they understood if they took out college loans, they would be responsible to pay them back through their hard work.
Further, how many of the young people or even Siegel allow their credit cards to max out and default on paying the balance? I don’t imagine Siegel would ever do that. Nor do I think he would default on his mortgage payment or car payment. My point being, if it “costs” him too much to default, he won’t do it…if there’s no real hard consequence, who cares.
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 5:57 pmI think we’re being trolled i.e. it’s a subtle satirical piece. Like that guy who wrote that he did not want to smoke marijuana in front of his young children so he baked it into brownies, or the one with the paean of Huma Abeddin walking into a restaurant.
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:29 pmYou haven’t read much Lee Siegel, nk.
Which is a good thing, I hasten to add.
Patterico (3cc0c1) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:33 pmShame is a dying art form. From Spiegel’s Wiki page:
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:38 pmThat was added in the last couple hours and the footnote is to the NYT article. I think by somebody calling himself Mikedelsol.
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:42 pmFrom somewhere where it was already tomorrow. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Siegel_%28cultural_critic%29&action=history
nk (dbc370) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:46 pmHey, Seigel, Chris disagrees with you!
felipe (56556d) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:53 pmAccording to Wikipedia, Siegel has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Columbia. Which of the two was the one he couldn’t afford?
Not to let him off the hook in any way, but if memory serves it was fairly common to default on student loans in the 70s and 80s, because the program was generally so badly managed that it was hard to keep track of borrowers. I know a guy who claims to have walked away from his student loans and supposedly it has never come up on a credit report.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/7/2015 @ 6:56 pmThen again, Siegel allegedly coined the term “blogofacism” to describe the actions of Markos Moulitsas, so he can’t be all bad. This tidbit comes from Wikipedia, so it probably isn’t true.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:00 pmShame is a dying art form.
It’s pretty much already dead, borne out by an article and public poll linked at today’s Drudgereport.com. Majorities of Americans are now totally dumbed down (ie, in love with tolerance for tolerance’s sake) about the value of (previously) normative socio-cultural boundaries, including those pertaining to the idea of a homosexual president (ie, assuming we don’t really have one right now), single motherhood, same-sex marriage, drug usage, illegal immigration, etc. In general, the number of people identifying themselves as liberal is ascendant, the number defining themselves as conservative is descendant.
The US following in the pathway of Europe with its decades of decadence — with all its Euro-sclerosis — or the history of the fall of the Roman Empire, is going to be unfolding more and more right before our very own eyes, with a bit of modern-day Third-Worldism bringing up the rear.
Exciting!
Mark (a11af2) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:01 pmSiegel has been out of school for thirty years. He missed his chance to develop a good career or admirable personal qualities. Now he’s looking for a way to make his choices look like a cause, instead of a mistake.
Ah, DRJ, you are always so great at cutting to the heart of the matter. Excellent insight as usual.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:01 pmwell the link is real, so blind squirrel finds a nut,
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:02 pmNot to let him off the hook in any way, but if memory serves it was fairly common to default on student loans in the 70s and 80s, because the program was generally so badly managed that it was hard to keep track of borrowers. I know a guy who claims to have walked away from his student loans and supposedly it has never come up on a credit report.
Going full bumper sticker: character is what you do when no one is watching.
Dana (86e864) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:07 pmMy mom caught me “charactering” one day…
Gazzer (be559b) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:11 pmsiegel suffers from underwear gnome logic,
default
——–
profit,
in reality what would a significant default due to the banks that guaranteed the loans,
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:27 pmhere we go again:
http://twitchy.com/2015/06/07/spoiler-alert-tomorrows-game-of-thrones-outrage-tonight/
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/7/2015 @ 7:56 pmnarcisco, trigger warning?
Gazzer (be559b) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:02 pmI wouldn’t hire him. No self-control, no sense of responsibility for his word, can’t be trusted. NEXT!
mojo (a3d457) — 6/7/2015 @ 8:22 pmThey should repo the idiots degree. Or perhaps change the system to where one does not take full possession of one’s degree until it’s paid for. You know, like any other asset one borrows money against. Just sayin’, there is precedent as the lawyers love to say.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/8/2015 @ 1:45 amHoagie;
Who is this “They” of whom you speak? The “They” who assured this dink’s parents “Of, he’s doing so well in school! We’re giving him Top Marks, and we wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t getting educated!”? The “They” who told him “Look at our College’s placement rate!” and shaded it every which way? I could go on. Society has been winking at the Educational Establishment’s con game since the 1970’s, at the very LATEST. Oh, there are segments that have tried to break the pattern, but the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive left has fought them tooth and nail. The LIRPs are determined that the problem with the primary schools isn’t idiot teachers, slack curriculum, act, but lack of money (the one thing our public schools don’t have too till of is money. Accountability on how it gets spent is another matter). The LIRPs don’t see any problem with a system of colleges that produces an oversupply of ill-educated vaguely intellectual malcontents. That’s what THEY are, and they need the numbers to stuff their agenda down our throats.
Oh, this clown is miserable example of a human being. But if he and people like him decide that the whole sham needs to be defied, and decline to keep up their payments to the con-artists, then maybe the Public (boss their black, flabby hearts) will have to do something about it.
Hell, maybe you’re right. If the repossessed his degree, it might end up in court, and somebody might be able to force the establishment to admit that the degree was worthless.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 6/8/2015 @ 5:17 amTrouble is Mr. Schofield, “if he and people like him decide that the whole sham needs to be defied, and decline to keep up their payments to the con-artists”, what happens then is those con artists do what all modern American con artists do and lobby the government for another bail-out on our backs. I say take their homes, seize their bank accounts, impound their cars, revoke their diplomas and garnish their wages. Let’s do what their expensive schools didn’t; teach them to be adults!
You see, if they all or even systematically default these banks which we al know are “Too big to fail” will just rape us once again. The first time was rape. If we let them do it again it’s prostitution.
If anyone in this equation needs to decide the whole sham needs to be defied it’s not the deadbeat, it’s we who ultimately own the debt.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/8/2015 @ 5:51 amTuition costs are out of control, and the reasons aren’t a big mystery to economists. As economist Andrew Gillen put it:
As higher financial aid pushes costs higher, it inevitably puts upward pressure on tuition. Higher tuition, of course, reduces college affordability, leading to calls for more financial aid, setting the vicious cycle in motion all over again.
This vicious spiral is what we always see when government acts to “save” us from the high costs of a good or service.
The only beneficiaries are the college establishment – which vote overwhelmingly for the Dems.
joe (debac0) — 6/8/2015 @ 5:51 amOr perhaps being a sexually confused transsexual and a deadbeat who carries around a mattress and worries about traffic tickets owed by Republicans in now the New Normal. Somebody, please let me know when we finally do hit the Real New Normal cause every day they seem to move the goal posts.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/8/2015 @ 5:56 amSiegel’s a real ass.
Nice posting. Is he on Twitter? Send it to him, the loser.
Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) (89c4bb) — 6/8/2015 @ 6:19 amThe theme of this guy’s writing: Narcissist!
“Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own [What’s a professional “reader”? — Ed.], without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.”
Who reads this guy? You can’t invent enough sock-puppets to justify his salary.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:27 amFailure to repay student loans, failure to refill the coffers so other could borrow that money for their educations makes Siegel a parasite. Hope Siegel gets thoroughly shamed by readers and onerously pressured by collectors to repay in very short order.
LTMG (94c4c3) — 6/8/2015 @ 8:55 am“Failure to repay student loans, failure to refill the coffers so other could borrow that money for their educations makes Siegel a parasite. Hope Siegel gets thoroughly shamed by readers and onerously pressured by collectors to repay in very short order.”
Seigel is a jackass, but the real parasites are the Faculty and administrators who have been making nice livings turning out Liberal Arts majors that, let’s face it, society needs like a ship needs barnacles. AS I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my Father was a Professor. As far back as 1975 I remember hearing him wonder what on earth society needed with so many non-technical degrees. And he spent the latter half of his career trying to make sure that what students came to him for instruction did so in the expectation of being scholars. Maybe society didn’t NEED that many scholars, but it needed dabblers rather less.
And, yes, he was a Holy Terror, and the Usual Campus Suspects were scared to death of him.
Sometime after WWII, college education in America became a scam. This dink is a symptom. There are going to be more. A lot more.
If we are very lucky there may be a few colleges bestowing technical degrees when the smoke clears.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 6/8/2015 @ 7:43 pmSometime after WWII, college education in America became a scam.
Vietnam. Draft deferments. It’s still good for people who go there for more than to matriculate.
nk (dbc370) — 6/8/2015 @ 8:06 pmI think Obama is on board:
The Obama administration has announced it will forgive federal student loans owed by Americans who can prove their schools broke a state law, such as false advertising, fraudulent recruiting or other deception, to lure them to apply and borrow funds. The move, which could potentially involve billions of dollars, is designed to grant debt relief to former students of now-bankrupt Corinthian Colleges (OTCPK:COCOQ), which lied to prospective students about its graduates’ job success. The forgiveness push, though, will likely stretch far beyond the institution.
felipe (56556d) — 6/9/2015 @ 2:13 pmamericans do not like to take responsibility for their own stupidity
it’s who they are, as a people
happyfeet (a037ad) — 6/9/2015 @ 2:21 pmObama loves to spend our money.
DRJ (e80d46) — 6/9/2015 @ 3:19 pmhe’s like everyone’s tranny ex-wife who can’t stop smoking cause she’s a sleazy nicotine whore
happyfeet (a037ad) — 6/9/2015 @ 3:23 pmfelipe (56556d) — 6/9/2015 @ 2:13 pm
felipe, one of my favorite moments in the Obama hypocrisy sweepstakes is when he made some announcement letting the for-profit college sector know that his Justice Department would be gunning for them for encouraging students to take out loans to get mostly useless degrees, then within the same week or ten days headlined a celebration for Historically Black Colleges and Universities which include such illustrious institutions as Alabama State, where only 1 in 4 freshmen will receive a degree within six years’ time; Lemoyne-Owen College (1 in 5); Lincoln University (1 in 6); and, last and least, Texas Southern University (the school where Hillary! just pandered, er, spoke) where a pitiful 1 in 9 freshmen graduates in six years.
JVW (8278a3) — 6/9/2015 @ 4:47 pmSo, if I read that correctly, he was saying it’s not wise to give him a loan. Banks, take notice.
Kevin (cb807a) — 6/15/2015 @ 9:52 pmAnother reason for soaring tuition costs: high priced administrators that exist to fill out federally mandated paperwork. Those Title IX administrators aren’t going to pay themselves 6 figures for that work…
I R A Darth Aggie (9e9ecf) — 6/16/2015 @ 6:26 amSo this Siegel guy also apparently dropped out of a PhD program. He has an “M.Phil.” from Columbia. An M.Phil. from Columbia is exactly like being ABD any where else. It’s a nice bone they throw you — because you can add it to your list o’credentials, but no one by the bitter will add “ABD.” No one wants to advertise, “I couldn’t finish my dissertation…”
Lee (6ac58a) — 6/17/2015 @ 3:44 am