There should be no barriers to getting an education - Pleasanton Weekly

By Monith Ilavarasan
E-mail Monith Ilavarasan

About this blog: My parents, brother, and I moved to Pleasanton when I was in the seventh grade. I then graduated from Amador Valley High School, went to college at UC Davis and started out a career in tech. After several years working in large co… (More)

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Your thoughts on the challenges of the high cost education and graduating with student are understandable.

I would like to hear more about why you think it is ok to take out student loans and expect the people that did not go to college, for whatever reason, to pay for your partner’s education. Also, why is it fair for people who paid off their student loans, like myself, to pay for your partner’s education?

Loan forgiveness is not “free money”. Someone has to pay for it.

Thank you

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Sorry for confusion – glad you and your partner paid off loans.

Let me modify my question to be more general. How is it ok for people in general to not pay off their loans at the expense of the two groups I note in my original post?

How do you explain to the grocery store clerks, landscape workers, fast food workers, waiters, waitresses, cooks, and other working class low wage people (the ones who make less than college grads) that people making up to $150k / couples making $250k are going to get loans forgiven at their expense?

Maybe you can go around town and interview them and share their comments in a future posting?

Instead of spending $250B to $1T (whatever the true cost is) to forgive loans of many people who don’t need it, how about doing something to actually solve the problem. Educate the college bound to go to lower cost colleges instead of the high cost ones, to choose degrees that actually will pay an amount that will support paying off loans taken out, hold colleges accountable (and responsible) if degrees given don’t pay a living wage, etc. Let the rich colleges that are in many cases highly over rated to pay for the loans. Have guidance counselors mandatory for borrowers to go through to get loans approved where anyone planning to borrow money that their chosen degree won’t support.

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I have ignored your blogs because I know you are an ultra-progressive bleeding-heart liberal, far more so than Tom Cushing ever was. When you ran for mayor, you informed me you wanted to change Pleasanton to a Sancturary city.

I am responding here because I am adamantly against handouts. You are promoting free ride for everyone.

If one is not happy, not achieving comfortable life in one’s environment, one must change that environment to an environment where a comfortable life is achievable.
Hard work builds character, hard work provides success. Hard work earns respect.

Going around with your hand out is disgusting.
Expecting, demanding, government bail you out are disgusting.

Monith Ilavarasan, you are disgusting.

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I believe in forgiveness, but not student loan forgiveness. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. Period. If you can’t afford to pay it back – don’t borrow the money.

I agree that everyone is entitled to a college education, and that’s what student loans are for. The opportunity for everyone doesn’t mean a free education.

I wasn’t eligible for student loans – parental income. Our kids weren’t eligible.

Not everyone should go to college. Not all kids are ready, or perhaps they can’t get accepted. And not all careers/jobs require a college degree. Most college educated people do make more money, but police officers, firefighters, blue collar skilled workers make pretty darn good money these days. Thanks to unions.

With all due respect, you’re painting everybody with a broad brush. Everyone should go to college, and if mom and dad had a little extra money in their pocket, and yours didn’t… you deserve a free ride. That doesn’t make any sense.

If you can’t afford to live in the Bay Area there are so many cheaper places to live.

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Monith,

I guess you feel the government should pay for everything, right? If that’s the case, you might want to learn a little history.

When JFK visited the former Soviet Union, he said he saw a dirty, desolate, so-called communist utopia. What he saw was disheveled people from all walks of life, standing in long food lines for hours, just to get milk. Yup, everything was free – including sub-par medical coverage.

When Nikita Khrushchev, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, visited the United States, he was shown one of our supermarkets. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He became so angry, and said the store was staged. He couldn’t believe that Americans had access to such a variety of foods. But one thing Khrushchev learned very quickly, was that our free-market system (capitalism) worked, and was vastly superior to communism. And least I leave out the eventual collapse of the former Soviet Union.

Besides forgiving student debt, I guess the U.S. government should buy food, homes, and cars for its citizens too? I wonder how far you would go, Monith. Take a look around. How do communist and socialist nations fare against the United States?

America is the greatest nation on earth. And this nation did not become the greatest nation on earth by giving free handouts. People worked hard, very hard, to make America the best.

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“With all due respect, you’re painting everybody with a broad brush. Everyone should go to college, and if mom and dad had a little extra money in their pocket, and yours didn’t… you deserve a free ride. That doesn’t make any sense.”

It makes sense to so called progressives who think that income/wealth is “collectively” owned.

Everything you need and/or want becomes a “right” that the government (taxpayers) have to provide for you so it’s “fair”. If someone has accomplished/earned/invested/saved more, it’s “unfair”. You have “ripped off” and/or “cheated” the less fortunate. The government needs to step in and shame you while taking a majority of the outcomes to redistribute accordingly.

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Monith:

Education is a great tool in ending the cycle of poverty for families. That is why there exist so many college scholarships and grants(not loans) for poor students who have achieved success despite their obstacles. But to simply let students take out loans and incur contractual debts and then walk away from those obligations and expect us tax payers to pick up the debt is absolutely wrong and sends the wrong message to these students about the “education” of responsibility. Many people of your generation really need an “education” on personal responsibility, on living within your means, and not looking for the taxpayers to fund your lifestyle and wants.

When my child was born I immediately opened a college savings account and automatically put in $250 each paycheck, so there was money available for a public state college after graduation from high school without needing loans. For 18 years, while my co-workers drove better cars, took better vacations, I valued education over my wants, and valued personal responsibility, not looking for the government to bail me and my child out. So many people of your generation spend money every day at Starbucks, need the latest I-phones and computer equipment, and fail to learn the education of personal savings, and living within your means.

For those students whose parents lacked the personal discipline to save for a state college education, the students have other options besides looking for the government to bail them out. Students can join ROTC, and get a free college education, and pay back the education by serving their country for a few years. One very real consequence of liberals making taxpayers pick up the tab for college loans is a big drop in those who join ROTC and join the military after graduation. With a big drop in ROTC, do not be surprised if in the future we face a need to consider instituting a draft again as our military numbers drop drastically.

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