Univ. of TX protests



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 but those suburbs are getting bluer as the millenials move in and the old ones die off.





  • @justanotherfan He wont change. He is incapable of it. He’s proven that to me already.

    I hate posting on this stuff. I really do. But, this is by far the worst direction this country could have taken. Its truly a sad and dark time.

    That being said, I give him one year, maybe two at most, at the most, until he gets booted from the White House.



  • @approxinfinity I agree, we shouldnt point fingers here. We are ALL a part of this embarrassment.

    But I really feel like it is up to Gen X ( my generation ) and younger to turn this around.



  • Hey, Folks, don’t we experience enough sports divisiveness on this site to keep everyone on edge and sometimes orgasmic? I had hoped we could stay away from this political bull hockey.



  • @Crimsonorblue22 I think i’m rather impressive. I’m a millennial getting my master’s while working for one of the largest healthcare IT companies in the world and have another work from home job just for tattoo, travel, video game and KU game money lol. Work hard, play harder!



  • @HawkInMizery Quite impressive! But with 2 jobs, can’t you get out of Mizery? Call 911 and say you were abducted? 😱



  • @mayjay HAHAHA! Well I would move out of Mizery if most of the cities right on the other side of the state line didn’t have pit bull bans.



  • @HawkInMizery I assume they are for protection since we know the Zombie (read: Meth) Apocalypse will begin nearby? Good luck!

    Incidentally, I have read your signature saying over a thousand times and still laugh every time. Thanks for that. Once in a while I try it on my wife–still works! Well, in that it makes her chuckle, too…



  • @HawkInMizery I think so too!



  • @mayjay My wife wanted to go someplace different to eat the other night, so I took her to the kitchen.



  • @brooksmd and since she works I’m assuming you are cooking for her!



  • @mayjay HAHA they’d make awful protection dogs. My biggest one is 80 pounds and she’d lick you to death before she’d bite you. Everyone that walks in the house she tries to make her new best friend. Glad you get a kick out of my signature! Still makes me smile too



  • @Crimsonorblue22 thank you!!!



  • @HawkInMizery I have a pit too and she is exactly the same. Sweetest thing ever.



  • @approxinfinity @Crimsonorblue22 Thanks for sticking up for us Millennials. We get a bad rap for what I feel like is no reason a lot of the time. Older generations see laziness, but I am lost as to what they are talking about. Our generation has had to work a lot harder to get a job than any other generation. You can’t even earn a decent living anymore without doing extremely skilled labor or getting an education. An education that puts the average student $30k in debt to start out in the “real world” and that is just at a state school. And in order to only be in debt that much many of us have to have a job that pays our rent, utilities and food WHILE going to school. I worked nearly 35 hours most of my college career just to be able to afford my living expenses and have some walking around money.

    If you look at the cost of school compared to the inflation of salaries, Tuition has risen 200% since 1990-1991 to today and salaries have only risen 63%.

    If you do just since 1980, than tuition has gone up 521% and salaries have increased by 175%.

    And then they wonder why there are a record number of people signed up for social programs… Imagine being a college dropout. 3 years into school you realize it’s not for you or you have a kid or something in your life happens and you just can’t finish. And all of a sudden you have $25k in loans. An insurmountable debt for someone without a degree.

    And then you have to think about how many private school kids that happens to. Or how many kids go out of state and they have over $100k in debt. Or medical school students who’s whole life has been dedicated to becoming a doctor and they have $200k+.

    In today’s world where getting a college education is so important AND so expensive, any mistake someone makes can literally cause them a lifetime of problems. It wasn’t the same just 25 years ago. So yes, when you raise the qualifications to earn a decent living and add a very large expense at the same time, welfare and social programs will increase. I can only hope my generation is the first to quit being the ones to “pass the buck” on the debt and can lower the cost barrier to be able to enjoy a good life.



  • @Kcmatt7 I’m with you man.



  • @Kcmatt7 Finally came back to this thread and going thru the posts certainly gives a nice reflection on the diversity of opinion we have in the country…right here amongst Jayhawk nation. @Kcmatt7 I wanted to thank you for breaking down exactly why the educational debt issue may have drove many, many millenials to Bernie’s message. Unfortunately, my understanding of that issue from a personal perspective was limited due to my graduating mostly prior to that “25yrs ago” timeframe you mentioned. I grad H.S. in 1984 at age 17, college in '88, and KU grad/prof school in 1995. Going thru on loans and scholarships is what we did, it was expected (back then). My son is looking to play small college tennis in central KS, and is a 3.8gpa in h.school, thus is getting athletic+academic offers–> which if he wasnt, would be very scary figures ($27k/yr tuition&dorm). So THANK you to @Kcmatt7 for showing us those stats. Its a real problem. I remember Hilary commenting on Bernie’s campaign that what he was promising “just isnt possible to promise so much free.” and “he’s promising them (millenials) something that will be almost impossible to deliver”. These are almost verbatim quotes.

    So I agree it is a terrible conundrum. A major issue. But I’m not sure the solution. Almost every aspect of life is privatized or run as a business, even most public universities. To totally “reform” (dismantle) any 1 system, like education or healthcare, one would be shutting down an entire industry, which would have repercussions throughout the economy. As a general idea, my thought is, since the American economy is a unique engine, any tuning and solution must come from within its own foundations, in order to mesh properly. What I mean is, that other experiments from Europe or the EastBloc may not be applicable to American society because of American systems, diverse society, and always the business principle of someone trying to out-do or outcompete someone else’s product or service. Competition is at the core of how many models operate. We get that as sports fans, or as anyone in the biz sector would get. But can that apply in the educational and healthcare sectors? So far, the attempts at it have not flourished.

    A lot to consider for sure. Again, thanks to ALL for contributing on this subject! All perspectives valued!



  • @ralster I’m not even complaining about it as much as just trying to defend millennials.

    But thank you for your kind words.

    It really is a huge problem. A good start would be a reduction in interest on student loans. They are roughly 5-6%, even from the feds. What other investment would you expect to pay 5% interest on? I am a 2016 grad and could get a car loan for 1-2% right now. Maybe even 0% if I bought at the right time. With that, I’d like to see a longer grace period than 6 months, and for loans to gather no interest while in school or during the grace period. Shit happens. Clunkers kids had from high school break down. Some people have kids. Some people get married. Some people can’t find a job right when they graduate. Giving everyone a solid 18 month grace period with no added interest would allow them to put real money in the bank before they started paying. Another helpful change would be for students to have their debt forgiven if they didn’t finish school. While that sounds crazy, again, shit happens. I work at a Med School. And I see students drop out after 3 years of Med school who definitely took out undergrad loans as well. They are literally $175k in debt with nothing but a biology degree. They have nowhere to go. Except maybe back to school to push off the inevitable debt that they will never be able to pay back. And finally, in order to make up for the lack of funds, I would just not give out any need based grants anymore. Just hold on to that money or loan it out and collect interest on it. These changes would make it more affordable to the masses and give EVERYONE a chance a college.

    But I am just a simpleton from a small town in Kansas. I could be very very wrong. I’d have to look at the financials much much closer in order to really do the math on this. I am just bringing up things that seem to be flaws in the current education system, and that would be reasonable changes.



  • @Kcmatt7 Very interesting. I like the idea of an extended grace period.

    I see several problems that need to be addressed, these being the high levels of debt, the high interest rate, the low rate of pay (and lack of jobs) available to new grads while facing high loan payments, and the high default rate. A bigger problem over time has been the ridiculously high rate of inflation of college costs.

    Addressing some of these in no particular order, I have a couple of ideas of the wild-hair variety:

    – reducing the next year’s payments by 5% if all payments in a year are made on time.

    –federal tax deduction of the interest paid, even if the payer does not otherwise deduct.

    –set up a program by which half of a student’s loan interest paid every year is credited to a health savings account, or maybe an education savings account for their future kids, or perhaps a restricted savings account that they receive only when the loan is paid…

    –prohibit any school receiving grants or federal money from increasing any educational costs (tuition, fees, housing, even freaking parking tickets) more than 3% or the rate of inflation, whichever is higher.

    –require any school paying more than one fired football coach to provide to graduating students funds for their loan payments totalling an amount equal to 5 times the combined salaries.

    That last one is just a fantasy…



  • @mayjay I like it!



  • @mayjay Absolutely fantastic ideas!!

    I couldn’t disagree with a single one of those points. There needs to be an incentive to pay the loans. Small reform over time will lead to big results…

    That is the big problem with Obamacare and Bernie’s education ideas. You can’t just snap and implement a complete overhaul on such a large scale without having major negative effects. A 20 year plan where making education affordable is the goal is something I would hope everyone would support.

    Start by extending the grace period. Then add incentives to make payments. The less defaults on loans the more revenue is generated without a negative effect. As revenue increases, the money can be allocated back to universities and tuition can stay at a constant level and as salary inflation continues, education can once again be affordable.

    Seriously love your ideas.



  • @Kcmatt7 Thanks! One goal hidden in some of those ideas is to give parents or others a sense of providing real long-term help and some stability by making a payment or two if needed. Anything to avoid a default, because that is what the banks use to justify the high rates. And when you miss one payment, gosh, it just seems so easy to miss another one.

    I was lucky. No undergrad loans because my parents saw it as a given to pay for college through a PhD or equivalent at KU. I borrowed Federally Guaranteed Student Loans to pay the difference for law school out of state. Payments were deferred automatically for 9 months after graduation, then deferred for my 3 years of Army service, then finally began coming due some 10 months after my discharge, so I started paying back my loans some 4 and 1/2 years into my career. Interest was deferred, too, and I think some of the current programs don’t have that feature during grace periods.



  • @mayjay Federal loans collect interest during school and the grace period… My mom was nice enough to make 1 or 2 payments while I was in school on the interest, but other than that it will be all me.

    I was also fortunate enough to only have two 8 am classes my last semester and so I started my Full-Time job in December. My employer was nice enough to let me start that early and was willing work around my school schedule. So I was lucky enough to be able to have money in the bank and even start making payments early.

    I do like the hidden gem as well! I mean really really good ideas. The current incentive for parents, unfortunately, is the fact that they are cosigners on all the loans. My Uncle that married into my family is paying student loans for his son from a previous marriage. They are $800 a month and the principle is barely moving. His son got an art degree at the Art Institute in Chicago, but has been a total burn out since. So he just quit paying on his loans and because my Uncle cosigned, he has to make the payments so that his credit score doesn’t get destroyed. Parents are definitely not immune to the current system either.

    Also, thank you for your service!



  • @Kcmatt7 So many things were in my generation’s favor but we didn’t have some basic modern necessities: smart phones, dvr’s, microwaves (most of us), Super Glue, remote car openers, massage shower heads, mulching lawn mowers…

    Plus, you will live long enough to see someone go to Mars. We had the moon for 3 years! Sigh–44 years has gone by in a flash.



  • @mayjay great ideas!


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