ENDING SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH INCLUDES THIS ...

David Cay Johnston has an excellent article at Mother Jones. I especially like his call to end "socialism for the rich" by "in effect, reverse engineering the debacle." I like the suggestion to retrace our legislative steps because, well, it mirrors what I wrote for the Bakersfield Californian at the beginning of the year (I know, I know ... I'm tooting my own horn here. But it is my blog).

As a professor who regularly watches students struggle and take on debt that they can't afford, I especially like what Johnston had to say about rewinding the legal subsidies congress has legislated for the credit industry here ...

Over the past 40 years, the cost of public colleges has doubled, and financing tuition is an $85 billion a year business for credit companies. Sallie Mae, the biggest of the private student loan companies, earns an average 48 percent annual return, three times the return of commercial banks. Students who sign up for loans with what appear to be low fixed rates may discover upon graduating that they face an 18 percent rate; if they make a single late payment, late fees will be tacked on every month until the debt is paid off. And the law makes no allowance for students who can't find a job in a bad economy, or can't work because of illness, or choose to serve their communities by, say, joining Teach for America. Albert Lord, Sallie Mae's chief executive, has become so rich from student lending that he built his own private golf course just outside the nation's capital.

Profiteering off students is not just an obscenity; it ultimately weakens the economy. The abuses at Sallie Mae and other student lenders deserve exposure via congressional hearings. Then perhaps lawmakers will find the spine to make the rules fairer. Indenturing the brightest young minds in an information society is the equivalent of eating your seed corn in an agrarian one. In the long run, you're doomed.

I couldn't have said this better. Reading this brought back bittersweet memories of when I finally got a full time job 13 years ago. I then began making payments on my student loans which were bigger than my car payment, and as big as my mortgage.

For those of you wondering, my first year as a full time university professor netted me a whopping $36,000 per year. Things were so bad I almost left the university for several lucrative offers in the private sector. I would have made mint. I also would have sold my soul. Selling your soul for an education should not be a choice imposed on anyone. Some time down the road we need to fix the legislated subsidies that we've worked out for the student loan & credit industry.

- Mark