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GOP frenzied response to limited student loan forgiveness

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Their inside voices are now public.

Overlooked in the frenzied rhetoric objecting to President Joe Biden’s move to forgive some student loan debt is this: public education isn’t, anymore.

In other words, students are paying more of the freight than the public does through state and federal appropriations.

state funding for higher ed quote

On average two factors are at play: Students carry far more of the cost of a college degree than boomers. The cost of that education has far exceeded inflation. You’d be forgiven for not knowing either fact, as news stories focus on the screaming match rather than the underlying systemic problem.

Cost at UGA

An exception in reporting from TIME:

McConnell graduated from the University of Louisville in 1964, annual tuition cost $330 (or roughly $2,500 when adjusted for inflation); today, it costs more than $12,000, a 380% increase. When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who called the policy a “debt transfer scam,” graduated from California State University, Bakersfield in 1989, tuition was less than $800; today, it’s more than $7,500, a 400% increase when adjusted for inflation.
[…]
And don’t forget Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who called the policy “UNFAIR” on Twitter. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 1955, when annual tuition cost roughly $159, or between $40 and $53 per quarter. Today, it costs more than $8,300, a nearly 500% increase even when adjusted for inflation.
[…]
Colorado lawmakers cut state funding for education 70% between 1980 and 2011, according to a report from the American Council on Education; South Carolina cut more than 66% of education funding during that same time, and Arizona cut 62%. More than half of Michigan State’s revenue came from state funding in 1987— by 2012, less than 20% did.
[…]
Those calling Biden’s new policy “socialism” would do well to remember this: In 1987, a student at the University of Kansas could pay her tuition with a part-time minimum wage job and still have some left over for books and food. In 2016, a student working a minimum wage job would come up $38,000 short.

Then there’s the issue of bankruptcy, which has roots in the 1970s but went nuclear, so to speak, when Bush the Younger was president.

Major private lenders claimed they needed Congress to stop their customers from filing opportunistic bankruptcies. Despite the notable lack of evidence that this was actually happening, lawmakers listened, and inserted a clause into the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill making private student loans nondischargeable unless someone could demonstrate they posed an “undue burden” on their finances—a vague standard which the courts have subsequently interpreted as an incredibly high bar.

And interest rates:

The White House has made it clear that most of the loan forgiveness plan (9-in-10) is for borrowers making less than $75,000.

Most loan forgiveness is for middle class

Great examples of out-of-touch or hypocritical GOP rhetoric follow. (Ends with good news!) Not embedding those tweets! Click the screen cap to see it on Twitter.

Inside voice oops

Jim Banks

Hypocrisy FTW!

House Judiciary Committee

Responses to the hypocrisy were classic:

Trump bankruptcies

Walt on Trump

Context for the next tweets: the average debt forgiveness to businesses receiving PPP loans was $95,700. And a lot of folks got a LOT more:

Finally, false GOP claims about inflation:

Fun fact that should have the GOP wondering if attack ads will be enough in November: more women are registering to vote than men.

Remember this: for strict Constitutionalists, women don’t have the right to vote. That’s a 20th century amendment.