Stephen Lendman

Education is a fundamental human right. In America, it’s commodified for profit.

Most college students become debt entrapped. For many it’s longterm or permanent, escape by default prohibited, a crushing burden to service and try repaying, state-approved usury by any standard.

College was once affordable, many state ones tuition-free. In 1952, when I entered Harvard College, full-year tuition was $600 - with room, board and fees, around twice this amount.

In 1956, I graduated debt free, later from graduate school owing around $200, easily repaid quickly once remuneratively employed. Today, Harvard’s tuition, room, board and fees cost $63,025, unaffordable for most students without financial help, most becoming debt entrapped.

The cost of higher education is high and unaffordable for most students at virtually all US private and state schools without some form of financial aid.

Hillary’s so-called higher education reform is another political pledge to be broken or manipulated to be much less than what she claims if elected in November.

Saying she’ll “help millions of Americans with their debt right now, and a plan to make college debt-free for future generations” is hyperbole, not reality or honesty.

She addresses tuition only in state schools, initially for families earning $85,000 annually or less, rising by $10,000 a year to a maximum $125,000 in 2021.

Tuition is half the cost for live-in students. Accumulated debt entrapment is ignored. Her refinancing scheme leaves it in place, pushing the cart down the road for takers.

It’s unclear how she intends paying for her plan. It involves federal/state burden sharing under a formula yet to be determined.

Will revenue-strapped states opt out, lost federal matching funds a small price to pay? Her “free” college tuition plan isn’t free. Somebody has to pay.

Will taxpayers get stuck? Will public colleges and universities feel free to hike costs unrestrained? Will students be no better off under HillaryEd than before?

America spends an inordinate amount on militarism and imperial wars - despite no credible threats since WW II ended.

Meaningful war budget cuts could free up enough funds to provide universal healthcare for all Americans, free higher education for students covering all costs, affordable housing for the poor, and subsidized help for other essential needs.

If Hillary succeeds Obama, her rage for unbridled militarism and imperial wars may sacrifice social justice entirely to finance them.

She’s no populist, promises made to be broken if elected - serving Wall Street, war-profiteers and other privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.

A Final Comment

When I finished school and entered the workforce in 1960, career opportunities were plentiful, notably for newly minted MBAs.

Today things are entirely different. Most good jobs were offshored to low-wage countries. Opportunities I had are gone.

Debt entrapped graduates face the dismal prospect of degrees not worth the parchment they’re printed on, rotten jobs awaiting them, if any at all.

Industrial America was thirdworldized, a deplorable shadow of the nation I grew up in.

Neither duopoly governance wing proposes credible changes. Global conquest and colonization take precedence.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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