Why Not a Jubilee?The dispossession of the American people is a crime that demands justice.
Declan Leary
Aug 27, 2022
The American government exists to serve the American people. The purposes of its foundation are laid out more clearly than those of any other regime in human history: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
It has not done a stellar job at any of that in the last few generations. A list of examples would be endless and, at this point, tired. But one that is too little remarked upon is the federal government’s creation of a higher-education system that undermines the foundations of American order, impoverishes the middle class materially and spiritually, and concentrates capital in the coffers of anti-American institutions while shoring up the social and economic dominance of a transnational elite.
State complicity in the university cartel is broad and deep, but (like most political problems) it centers on money. Operating on the absurd and socially corrosive assumption that all people should have the opportunity to go to college, the federal government has been backing loans open to virtually any American—regardless of merit or post-graduation earning potential—to finance the cost of a college education. This blanket guarantee has enabled universities to raise tuition and other fees at rates exponentially outstripping the actual cost of providing an education. At the same time, the availability of government-backed loans has encouraged virtually everyone to seek a college degree, devaluing the product in terms of actual education as much as in post-grad earnings.
Anybody will tell you one half of this story, but few will give you both. The people who admit that college is useless won’t concede that graduates have been given a bum deal, and the people who know that graduates have been given a bum deal (and thus support government action on student debt) can’t admit that the deal is bad because most college degrees are useless.
But the fact is, both are true. Young Americans were sold a bill of goods. None of the economic advantages promised to them when they took out those five-figure loans at the ripe age of 17 have survived the college craze. They were lied to.
The most urgent cause on student debt, then, is to stop its growth. Cut off the government dole to universities as fully and quickly as possible. Where federal involvement must be left in place, tie it clearly and inextricably to merit. Subject higher education to the forces of the market and move the American economy a little bit closer to its natural, proper state.
This is only part of the solution, though. Even if we can prevent further problems down the road, the fact remains that millions of Americans each hold thousands of dollars of debt incurred at the government’s urging to purchase a product not worth anything near what they were told it would be. Particularly affected are middle-class college graduates, who are discouraged (if not outright prevented) by their debt burdens from purchasing homes, having children, and partaking in all sorts of other activities necessary for the healthy function of a society. Something must be done for them.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/why-not-a-jubilee/
