Until tonight, I thought the man was disingenuous. Now I have to wonder whether he's purely and simply delusional or whether he suffers some condition I'm not licensed to diagnose.
I'm talking about Barack Obama, the President of the United States. As you know by now, he gave the first State of the Union address of his second term. I always expect a lot of meaningless rhetoric, and more than a few lies, in any such speech from just about any politician. However, even by such dubious standards, Barack made a statement that is stunning in the dishonesty or cognitive dissonance it echoed. On top of that, it contradicted the sentence he uttered immediately before it.
Right in the middle of his speech, he claimed, "Through tax credits, grants and better loans, we have made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last four years." That, after he said, "But today, skyrocketing costs price way too many people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt."
Well, Barry, which is it? Perhaps my worldview has been warped by the people with whom this blog has brought me into contact, but I would put my money on the sentence you uttered first. People who can't attend college, or incur "unsustainable" debt by attending, are all around us. You yourself admitted that you wouldn't have been able to pay off your loans were it not for your books.
Perhaps the worst part of Obama's speech--or, at least the worst of the part in which he talks about education--is that everything he said was premised on every wrong assumption held by educators, and people in policy-making decisions. For example, he touted the importance of pre-K schooling and rued the fact that only wealthy families can afford it. Well, how does one explain the fact that in Sweden, kids don't start attending school until they're seven years old, and that they have some of the highest levels of academic skills and achievements among their worldwide peers?
Also, he says that, in essence, the more time you spend in school, the better-paying a job (or more lucrative a business) you will have. That, in turn, makes you more capable of paying taxes and creating jobs.
Now, I'm not saying that education isn't necessary. However, we have to wonder about the degree to which schools, particularly colleges, are responsible for their graduates' successes. While it's true that while in school, we learn some of the things we need to know in order to achieve our goals, we still have to wonder about how much the highly successful owe to their schools. Yes, I know that "not everybody is a Bill Gates". But about highly successful people who graduate, it's fair to ask how much going to School X made them Entrepreneur Y, or whether people like Entrepreneur Y were going to become who they were anyway and just happened to go to schools like School X along the way.
To be fair, though, Obama's understanding of the situation is no worse than that of most other people. In fact, he echoes everything that's accepted as "conventional wisdom". I can't really fault him for that, either: Highly ambitious people who aren't born into privilege so often do exactly that: They tell their teachers, professors, bosses and anyone else with influence exactly what they want to hear, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. I know I did the same thing and, on occasion, catch myself doing it. Perhaps he's been echoing "conventional wisdom" for so long that he doesn't even know--or think about the fact that--he is doing it.
I won't get into the rest of his speech, except to say that it's as much a product of his adherence to, and echoing of, "accepted wisdom" as what he says about education. I have just enough education to know that.
I'm talking about Barack Obama, the President of the United States. As you know by now, he gave the first State of the Union address of his second term. I always expect a lot of meaningless rhetoric, and more than a few lies, in any such speech from just about any politician. However, even by such dubious standards, Barack made a statement that is stunning in the dishonesty or cognitive dissonance it echoed. On top of that, it contradicted the sentence he uttered immediately before it.
Right in the middle of his speech, he claimed, "Through tax credits, grants and better loans, we have made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last four years." That, after he said, "But today, skyrocketing costs price way too many people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt."
Well, Barry, which is it? Perhaps my worldview has been warped by the people with whom this blog has brought me into contact, but I would put my money on the sentence you uttered first. People who can't attend college, or incur "unsustainable" debt by attending, are all around us. You yourself admitted that you wouldn't have been able to pay off your loans were it not for your books.
Perhaps the worst part of Obama's speech--or, at least the worst of the part in which he talks about education--is that everything he said was premised on every wrong assumption held by educators, and people in policy-making decisions. For example, he touted the importance of pre-K schooling and rued the fact that only wealthy families can afford it. Well, how does one explain the fact that in Sweden, kids don't start attending school until they're seven years old, and that they have some of the highest levels of academic skills and achievements among their worldwide peers?
Also, he says that, in essence, the more time you spend in school, the better-paying a job (or more lucrative a business) you will have. That, in turn, makes you more capable of paying taxes and creating jobs.
Now, I'm not saying that education isn't necessary. However, we have to wonder about the degree to which schools, particularly colleges, are responsible for their graduates' successes. While it's true that while in school, we learn some of the things we need to know in order to achieve our goals, we still have to wonder about how much the highly successful owe to their schools. Yes, I know that "not everybody is a Bill Gates". But about highly successful people who graduate, it's fair to ask how much going to School X made them Entrepreneur Y, or whether people like Entrepreneur Y were going to become who they were anyway and just happened to go to schools like School X along the way.
To be fair, though, Obama's understanding of the situation is no worse than that of most other people. In fact, he echoes everything that's accepted as "conventional wisdom". I can't really fault him for that, either: Highly ambitious people who aren't born into privilege so often do exactly that: They tell their teachers, professors, bosses and anyone else with influence exactly what they want to hear, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. I know I did the same thing and, on occasion, catch myself doing it. Perhaps he's been echoing "conventional wisdom" for so long that he doesn't even know--or think about the fact that--he is doing it.
I won't get into the rest of his speech, except to say that it's as much a product of his adherence to, and echoing of, "accepted wisdom" as what he says about education. I have just enough education to know that.
We admire the shark for being evolved for carnivorous ocean-life: fast, efficient, torpedo-shaped, intelligent, and incredibly good at noshing its way through fishies and seals.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we not, then, admire people like Obama? They're just as highly evolved at doing whatever it takes to eat up human lives. That's not just a rhetorical question. Think about it--we admire so many examples of evolutionary fitness in the natural world, then complain when we see these excellent posturing liars who are so very, very good at devouring people. Obviously there's a high form of evolution at work there, right?
I have finally figured it out after two election cycles.
ReplyDeleteThe Student Loan Debt situation will never be discussed much in public speeches or election speeches, because to do so would imply that Higher Ed. is not always the path to a better life, and then the public will have to rethink the American Dream for themselves or their children.
And so it makes sense that the financial aid needs (loans Grants etc)of younger ones that are pre college age or in college WILL be discussed openly and much more prominently.
The inevitable remedies will come, but gradually and maybe tucked into a bill or two or three here and there, and over time, or, more likely as a result of unsustainable economic policies (The bubble in other words). And media will tacitly cover the changes.
And the funny thing that I have observed about bubbles is that they seem to collapse all at once and without much warning.
2. I am getting a sense that with the Dept. of Ed. taking over the show, it is creating an unwieldy administrative burden.
And isn't that what they say about bureaucracy in general? That it is administratively inefficient?
Only time will tell how Obamacare will be administratively handled, and how it all be tweaked as a result.
Well what the hell do you expect him to say? This is one of the few presidents that has actually BEEN a law professor ("lecturer," sorry). An incompetent one, to be sure, but still. It's only natural that he would support the worst aspects of the scam.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought the story about the Obamas STILL carrying student loan debt was a lie. When did he graduate, like in 1990 or something? If they really allowed such a comparatively small debt to run for TWENTY years, then we may have finally untangled the mystery of how our national debt managed to go up by $6 trillion in just four years.
6:38 nailed the situation down perfectly. In the end, policyheads, elected puppets, appointed officials, teachers, "professors" and university admini$trator$ are simply seeking to instill the faith into young people. There is no political solution to the epidemic of crushing student debt. The banksters OWN Congress outright. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. student debt slaves will simply need to leave the damn country, before any of the pigs in Wa$hington takes notice.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nando! @6:38AM was me :0
ReplyDeleteBut please Donna if Mr. Infinity comes around here and starts crapping all over me or calling me a roach, can you do like Campos promised me, and delete his comments?
If you really wnat to know, that was the deal between me and Lawprof: I stop commenting on his blog and he deletes all reference to me.
We agreed on that because the anon Troll was getting into the habit of insulting the hell out of me and in reply to comments that I didn't even make.
Am I the only one that cringed when he said:
ReplyDelete"Colleges must do their part to keep costs down, and it's our job to make sure they do. Tonight, I ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act, so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid. And tomorrow, my Administration will release a new "College Scorecard" that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria: where you can get the most bang for your educational buck."
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned on College Misery. Yes, students and parents are stakeholders, but they alone cannot define a good educational experience. A good education does not mean you will get a job and yet that seems to be the only reason people say you should go to college. Education makes you a well-rounded, intelligent, capable citizen of your nation and the world. If colleges become more parent-and-student-centered, the standards will be forced lower and lower to accommodate the whims and demands of college students and their parents. It's already happening now and it's only going to get worse if President Obama's suggestion comes to fruition. Ironically, my state's Republican leaders are fighting for this kind of plan while the Democrats have been opposed to it.
I know the U.S. education system was designed to make managers and workers, for the most part, but I thought we were heading beyond that. Now, it appears we are going backwards.
John--I'll delete any comment that insults or defames you.
ReplyDeleteRip--I, too, cringed when I heard that. I thought, "He wants to make education even more of a commodity than it's already become."
Although I think students should understand what their job prospects are, and aren't, before taking out debt, I don't think that jobs are the only reason to go to college. I think--No, forget that, I know--there's intrinsic value in getting an education, whether in the arts, sciences, or any other area. Education not only makes us more well-rounded humans, it makes us human, period.
What most parents, students and other people don't realize is that by subscribing to the mentality that school is a means to an end (job), they are actually helping to erode standards and to make their degrees less meaningful to would-be employers.