Re: [AFMUG] OT good to be a boomer

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 14:37:33 -0700

It's because subsidies and pell grants have almost evaporated and college tuition costs have gone through the roof. These days, it's not unusual to see student loans well into 6 figures. A real go-getter can still probably generate a hand full of scholarships, but that is the rare student who knows how to work the system.


bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 10/11/2020 2:27 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:

Here’s one I don’t understand.  Not pointing a finger, I genuinely don’t understand.  Student loan debt.  Is that the huge issue that people say?  And if so, is that a new phenomenon?  Why?

 

I assume my dad went to college on the GI Bill after WWII.  I worked 20 hours a week all through college making pizzas and burgers, and had a coop job every third quarter or so until the coop jobs disappeared due to a recession.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1969%E2%80%931970

 

Plus my parents helped out.  I don’t remember my friends in college talking about student debt, but maybe they had it and it just wasn’t talked about.

 

I can speculate some possible reasons for a student debt crisis now:

 

- Tuition has gone up

- Part time jobs and coop jobs unavailable or don’t pay enough

- Less financial assistance available

- Predatory for-profit schools

- Lots of kids who couldn’t find jobs in the Great Recession went to school or pursued advanced degrees instead

 

None of these seem like adequate explanations.  College is too expensive, not sure how much it has gone up adjusted for inflation.  You’d think with online instruction and extensive use of low paid adjunct professors they could keep costs down.  Certainly dorms, food and other amenities are a lot fancier than when I was in college, maybe those costs have gotten out of hand.  You’d also think state schools and especially community colleges would be affordable options, Harvard and Yale aren’t the only places to get a good education.

 

But if there’s genuinely a huge student debt crisis, what is causing it, and how do we fix it?  Is “free college for all” really the only solution?

 

I understand with the pandemic, people out of work can’t pay their student debts, but supposedly this problem predates the pandemic.

 

From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Bill Prince
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2020 3:54 PM
To: af@af.afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT good to be a boomer

 

Yah. Even though I'm a boomer, I think attributing the current state of the economy entirely on boomers is missing the mark somewhat. There are a whole raft of issues that are squeezing millenials like globalization and extreme automation. You keep adding barriers, and getting or creating a good paying job just gets more difficult. If all you can do is flip burgers at Micky D's or pour coffee at Starbucks, maybe you need to think a bit more creatively.

 

bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>

On 10/11/2020 11:52 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote:

Obviously I’m prejudiced, but I don’t think this whole trope about all the problems young people today face being the fault of the baby boomers (and wishing they would die and stop hogging all the good jobs) is quite accurate.

 

Yes we had a long recession starting in 2008 (but of course there were recessions back in the 1970’s as well), but I saw a lot of parents dipping into their 401K savings and taking out loans on their paid-off houses so their adult children could live with them, or to pay for their kids to go to college instead of being unemployed.

 

Baby boomer 401K plans were a big cushion for millennials and the economy in general during the “Great Recession”.  I think what will actually hit the millennials is when the boomers do die, they won’t be inheriting as much money because those retirement funds got drained.  Also, don’t kid yourself that 70 year old boomer greeting people at Walmart or bagging groceries at Kroger is just continuing to work for the fun of it, or that a millennial wanted that job anyway.  As far as the “good” jobs, age discrimination kicks in around age 50.  I don’t think Google and Facebook have a lot of boomers writing code.  How many boomers does Elon Musk have designing Teslas and SpaceX rockets?

 

Still a funny skit, but I run into millennials who totally blame all their woes on boomers screwing their generation over.  And the “why don’t they die already” viewpoint spills over into Covid discussions.  Lots of anti-maskers say things like “if they don’t feel safe going out, they are free to not go out”.  Or there aren’t that many deaths if you ignore the old people who were going to die anyway.  People at least didn’t used to say stuff like that out loud.

 

 

From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Robert
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2020 12:25 PM
To: af@af.afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT good to be a boomer

 

very apropos...

On 10/11/20 10:04 AM, ch...@wbmfg.com wrote:




 







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