Fox News really, really doesn’t care that 45 million Americans are burdened with debt they took on to get a higher education.
Biden’s plan is fairly modest given the scope of the problem. The New York Times reports:
President Biden announced on Wednesday that he would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year, with an additional $10,000 for those who had received Pell grants for low-income students, providing economic relief for tens of millions of Americans.
A White House Fact Sheet notes:
Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up: Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third. That has left many students from low- and middle-income families with no choice but to borrow if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analysis, the typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt.
More from the Times:
Across the United States, 45 million people owe $1.6 trillion for federal loans taken out for college — more than they owe on car loans, credit cards or any consumer debt other than mortgages. Current students are also eligible for the debt relief; if they are dependents they will be assessed based on their parents’ income.
But, as we noted yesterday, Fox would prefer Americans be burdened with debt. On the “news” program, America Reports, today, you didn’t need to have the TV sound on to get the propaganda message.
You didn’t even need to be watching TV at all. Fox sent its propaganda out via push notification:
If you want more of the Fox News hit job, you can watch the anchors join Sen. Tom Cotton, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, in attacking the plan.
I was an indirect beneficiary of that policy because one of the best teachers I ever had was a former Marine (whuddathunkit possible?) who inspired the children of a very backward rural area of Central Florida to go to university. Within the space of a single generation, our town jumped from Civil-War-era ignorance to take up jobs that the parents had never thought they could hope for for their kids.
It is, to my mind, unfortunate, albeit (perhaps) inevitable, that not all of those who started life as “po’ white trash” overcame their deep-rooted hatred of others (“the n******” of course, but also non-evangelical religion, and certain ethnic groups like Italians, Cubans and other Hispanics. You name it, they hated it.)
During the early ‘60s tuition levels at state institutions were truly affordable and students who could not even afford that could get their degree by promising to work in civil service (teaching, social work, local services, etc.) for five years. Those who didn’t want to do that could decide pay off the objectively modest cost after they graduated.
Methinks the USA needs that sort of investment today.
