Tuesday, October 28, 2008

That's Just $600 a Month

I don't know why I love the Right Wing Professor, but I do. I am insanely jealous he gets way more comments than we do, but then I also realize that 50% or so of his comments are from people who disagree with him. I am a bit of a troll over there, although I like to think my trollery is more of the ass-kicking nature than the random spewing nature.

Anywho... I thought I'd replicate his latest post in whole, as I love every last bit of it. Note, please, the lack of link to the alleged call for school and work skipping [I swear it wasn't there the first time I read the post] and his complete lack of understanding of how the "investment" in education works. His implicit call for higher wages for graduate assistants must, however, be applauded.

Skip class to work for the Obamessiah!

Barack Obama is asking students to skip class (ask your professors first!) in order to volunteer for him on election day. Just yet another example of a man whose ego seems to know no bounds.

Heck why not skip class!? Consider it an investment in your future. Under the Obama-Biden plan anyone can get a fully refundable $4000 tax credit, i.e. the first $4000 of your tuition every year can be wealth confiscated from someone else and handed to you in the form of a check. Can someone please explain to me, if a college education is supposed to be such a wonderful investment, why liberals think it needs to be so heavily subsidized by the government.

At the state colleges in New York, tuition is $4350 a year, with room and board expect $13,000/year. Even if a student borrows every penny of this money he leaves with a debt of $52,000. For a 10-year loan this works out to around $600/month in payments. Annoying, sure? Affordable for someone with a college degree? Absolutely! Even with a starting salary of only $30K this leaves $23K to live on in the first year, way more than our Ph.D. students are living on and way more than I lived on for 5 years of graduate school. And this assumes the student doesn't work during the year or in the summers, which can easily cut that debt figure in half.
Love him.

6 comments:

S said...

Thanks for posting this, Dave! Now I know I was so silly to fret over the debt I've incurred with my two master's degrees.

OF COURSE I should be able to afford a measly $600 a month. I make mucho bucks working in public education as a school counselor with my grad degrees. And I learned I should get off my lazy ass in the summer if I want to take care of that shit.

They should put this guy in charge of the bailout details. He's a genius.

wobblie said...

I should show him my student loan bill, which is enough to buy a nice size house in some small midwestern town.

dr said...

In RWP's world, nobody pays any taxes.

gabbagabbahey said...

this guy would love Ireland, where everybody gets their (undergrad) tuition fees paid for by the government. yay for European socialism! (and the Labour party)

Anonymous said...

God, this guy really gives math professors a bad name. I'm hereby disowning him.

Anyway, no live-blogging the infomercial?

Anonymous said...

Does he even understand that student loan principal is not paid with pre-tax dollars?

AP