From Reddit User rednoise: Hillary went after Bernie's education plan again, and lied about hers.

[LiberalArkie]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/3usgwg/hillary_went_after_bernies_education_plan_again/

Clinton's plan is a tax on the middle class; in terms of time and money.
From her page:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/college/

Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week. ... Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.

In return for all of this (as well as additional points on her page); students will still have to take out loans. They'll be burdened, up to 10% of their income, until the loan is paid off. They will not be allowed to put Pell Grants toward their tuition, according to her plan; it's for living expenses only (and I'm not sure if anyone here has gotten a Pell Grant, but their income requirements are strict and they are not a lot of money to be putting toward living expenses.) Oh, and we get an extended tax credit out of it. Whoopty-do.

In terms of a student's time, 10 hours a week, especially with course-loads for certain degree programs, is not entirely feasible for full-time students to do plus make good grades. When my wife was going to college, we calculated that the time expected of her, in a full-time course load, exceeded 48 hours, outside of class. And we were both working while she was going to college. We got no time to do anything else but work and school. That's not to say that college should be easy, but it is to say that putting an extra time-burden on students isn't going to help, while they're going to school (and not only that, according to her page all of the earnings that the student makes goes back to the government.)

Then we have the "reasonable contribution" from families. But this is never spelled out. What is considered "reasonable" and how are families expected to make that contribution when they can't do it currently? This assumes that families are just falling down on the job in saving for their kid's education.

She's placing the cost and time burden of her education plan squarely on middle class families, all the while proclaiming that she's going to give "a raise" (what paternalistic bullshit -- "Y'all have done so well for me...I think it's time you get a little back in return&quot to the middle class. Rich folks won't be burdened with either of these issues.

And I don't give a shit how you frame debt -- debt will always hold you back. That's 10% less of your income, which is a lot of money to us in the working class, that won't go toward food, recreation or saving for a home.

And, we arrive to Sanders plan:

The high-frequency traders in Wall Street are the ones who are going to pick up the tab for higher education. Not the working class, in any form or manner. Instead of the above, he's going to implement taxes on these people, and raise money to not only cover the cost of tuition, but to expand work-study programs (so if students do find time to work, they can keep their money) and refinance student debt.

I'd prefer Sanders come up with some way to frame how just cancelling the debt would be better. I think in real terms, it's feasible and necessary. But, what he's proposed is better than continuing to add on to the pile of debt that people currently hold.

In turn, with these modest taxes, tuition is paid for, which is by and far the biggest cost. Living expenses can be sussed out in other ways, as can the cost of books (I'd like to see, for example, a federal effort to make public colleges adopt open standards for textbooks -- that is, free and freely distributed textbooks, like available here.) They're not the biggest issue in this equation.

Sanders' education plan is oft-talked about, but Clinton's rarely is, even when she levels ridiculous sound bites like "I don't want to pay for Trump's kids to go to college!" Instead of making him pay for it, too, and just accepting the fact that a.) he may not even send his kids to public colleges, and b.) even if he does, so fucking what?, she would rather see the middle class take on the burden in her "compact."
As an addendum, Hillary also had to say this about kids who go to college:

"I'm not going to give free college to kids who don't work some hours to try to put their own effort into their education," says Hillary Clinton.

As if doing the workload at school isn't putting "effort into their own education."


This is from a post on Reddit from Reddit user rednoise
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/3usgwg/hillary_went_after_bernies_education_plan_again/

[tularetom]

1. OMFG, can't let anybody get "free stuff"!

Gotta make sure those lazy students "earn" the few bucks her "plan" will provide for them.

I wonder how much of her "own effort" she put into her education.

[cascadiance]

7. The only free stuff elites like is what a transaction tax would take away from Wall Street...

All of that FREE STUFF money that they are allowed to get by manipulating stock prices for speculators, that Americans and their representatives PROPERLY want to be taxed to stop that wealth redistribution scheme upward that the corporatists love so much for themselves.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Isn't 10% the amount God wants?

[Enthusiast]

3. Kicked and recommended!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. And too,

In terms of a student's time, 10 hours a week, especially with course-loads for certain degree programs, is not entirely feasible for full-time students to do plus make good grades.

even getting 'good grades' doesn't necessarily mean fully learning the subject matter in depth. That takes even MORE time. The more you burden students in terms of time, the less they are actually prepared for their fields after college. I know during my nursing degree, when I was full-time, I was routinely spending upwards of 80 hours a week between classes, clinicals, and studying.

[starroute]

5. Where are all these 10-hour-a-week jobs supposed to come from?

Colleges currently have a limited number of slots for work-study students to check out books in the libraries or assist the building-and-grounds crews. They certainly don't have enough work for everyone.

So are students supposed to compete with the townies for part-time burger-flipping opportunities? Are they supposed to apply to the big-box stores with the caveat that they can only work from 2-4 pm every Monday through Friday and can't be on call at any other time? Are students at colleges out in the countryside expected to drive or take the bus or bicycle into the nearest town every day?

Whoever came up with this seems to be severely out of touch with reality.

[Fawke Em]

6. "Whoever came up with this seems to be severely out of touch with reality."

...if the show fits...

[Bernin4U]

8. That line at the first debate got my attention too.

If you're paying the typical university tuition and yearly expenses of $12-15k each, how much is that $400/mo job at Starbucks really going to help? That's 40-50 hrs that could have gone towards studies and/or extra-curriculars.

Otoh, students should have chances to gain some actual work experience. Too many kids graduate without having learned basic office etiquette, let alone their primary job skills. There should be more internship programs in place that result in a win/win for the student and the employer, rather than the fairly exploitative situations often seen today.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I think most of the office experience comes during the probationary period.

Where I used to work it was 6 months. After 6 months, the company decided who they would keep. Generally it was about 80%. Most of the kids seemed to take to it right off the bat pretty easily. Of course most of these were programmers. But most departments did it close to the same way.

That 6 month period allowed the managers to cull out the kids that partied too much as there were able to be at work on time or to be able to keep up.

[Bernin4U]

10. Sure, maybe 20 years ago?

These days most co's seem to hate the idea of hiring employees at all. Let alone ever having to train them anything.

We're moving head first into a gig economy. Crowdsourcing as the new outsourcing. It's projected that half the US workforce will be "freelancers" by 2020.

Therefore, today's college and high school kids' chances of securing actual employment will depend tremendously on their ability to bring their A game and really hit the ground running.

[LiberalArkie]

11. A lot of companies have to be located here in the US for security reasons. But otherwise

unless something changes it will be bad. Financial programing like COBOL is still out there. And usually not farmed out overseas as financial institutions do not like someone in another country having access to their code. They don't mind call centers and such, that is different.

[Bernin4U]

12. Not farming out overseas, "Uber-izing."

Just to make sure we're on the same page...

Everybody wants to be the next Uber. That is, having thousands if not millions of "virtual employees", none of which costs you a dime in HR or payroll expenses, because none of them are on the payroll.

Personally, I'd like to see it go the way of Napster. But what are the chances? So, being equipped to be a great (actual, not virtual) employee the minute you enter the starting gate, becomes more critical by the day.