Some Initial Thoughts On Biden’s Student Loan ‘Forgiveness’ Scheme

The day after President Biden announced his student loan "forgiveness" scheme, the Associated Press ran a piece highlighting criticism of the program. In Student loan crisis awaits new generation despite Biden plan, Collin Binckley reported:

For millions of Americans, President Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation offers a life-changing chance to escape the burden of debt. But for future generations of students, it doesn't fix the underlying reason for the crisis: the rising cost of college.

The specter of heavy debt will still loom over current high school seniors — and everyone after them — since the debt cancellation only applies to those who took out federal student loans before July 1.

Among the main causes is rising college tuition: Today's four-year universities charge an average of nearly $17,000 a year in tuition and mandatory fees, more than double the inflation-adjusted average from 30 years ago, according to federal data.

The rising cost of college is not the “underlying” reason. It is actually the effect. This doesn’t bode well for anyone looking for a solution. 

Anticipating criticism, Biden’s plan came with a separate proposal that aims to lower federal student debt payments in the future. The proposed regulation would create a new repayment plan with monthly payments capped at no more than 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income, down from 10% in similar existing plans.

It would also forgive any remaining balance after 10 years — down from 20 years in existing options — and it would raise the floor for repayments, meaning no one earning less than 225% of the federal poverty level would need to make monthly payments.

The underlying cause of the student loan crisis is the Federal student loan program itself. Since the federal student loan program ramped up, the cost of college over the past 45 years far outstripped inflation. Through various mechanisms, colleges were able to pump up tuition almost with abandon. This is exactly what you’d expect from an ever-growing flood of taxpayer money into an industry, which destroyed market restraints.

Not surprisingly, coming from a Democratic Party Administration, the "solution" turns out to be to expand borrowing by making it easier to make payments and ultimately easier to avoid paying it off. It’s a perpetual “forgiveness” scheme. 

Of course, actually fixing the problem is not the goal. Expanding government control of higher education and buying a whole new reliable block of Democrat voters is what it's really about. If they really were interested in a solution, they would end the student loan program, and all federal involvement in paying for college. But no “critic” quoted in the article even hinted at that as the only genuine practical and moral solution. It was more about how to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Related Reading:

Forgiving Student Debt Without Abolishing the Federal Loan Program Is Morally Wrong by Robby Soave for Reason

Student Loans Should Be Repaid

On "Nightmare" College Debt

End, Don't Reduce, Federal Student Higher Education Funding

Rather Than quibble Over Federal Student Loan Interest Rates, the Feds Should Get Out of the Student Loan Business

Federal Student Loans and the GI Bill

Will Biden's Student Loan Debt Cancellation Plan Hold Up in Court? By Damon Root for Reason

Star-Ledger's Double Standard on Student Loan ‘Forgiveness’ and For-Profit Colleges

In Wiping out student loans isn’t progressive, it’s a gift to the affluent, the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial board (SLEB) made some surprisingly good arguments against federal government student loan “forgiveness”, given its Leftist orientation.

True, the SLEB isn’t fully consistent. It makes an exception to its “no loan forgiveness” premise for “people in need”. The lowest earning quarter of Americans, the SLEB observes, holds only 12% of all student debt, so across the board forgiveness would bail out mostly upper middle class borrowers, which it says is unprogressive and unfair. Pushing back against “Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” who are “are urging President Biden to wipe away all student loan debt,” the SLEB makes a pretty good statement against the Progressive demand, citing the moral hazard involved in such a scheme: 

First, how can we give a broad handout and exclude people who didn’t go to college, those in the most difficult financial circumstances?

Look at it from the perspective of someone who took out loans and just finished paying them off, too. Now the government announces it’s going to pay off all remaining student debt? You’d be livid [That’s for sure!].

And it dishonors the sacrifices of people who worked hard and organized their lives around not taking out huge loans. They may have wanted to go to college but decided against it, precisely because they didn’t want to take on the debt; or worked multiple jobs, lived at home and gone to great lengths not to borrow while in college.

“You’d say, why didn’t I borrow that money? I turned down a gift – but I didn’t know it was going to be a gift,” says Sandy Baum, an expert on higher education at the Urban Institute. Those people would understandably feel ripped off, and Republicans would have a field day with that.

Consider, too, that if we broadly wiped away student debt, the people who would get the biggest subsidy are those who took out the largest loans to pay for costly graduate degrees. This, in turn, helps them earn higher salaries so they don’t struggle as much to pay off their debt.

If loan forgiveness is so unfair, how is it any less unfair if only “people in need” are bailed out? Such is the contradiction inherent in need-based welfare schemes. Still, it’s nice to read a Leftist voice expound this argument. It’s also nice that the SLEB acknowledges the individual responsibility of those who take out these loans to begin with, rather than simple-mindedly blame “predatory lenders”. That’s progress. 

True, the SLEB doesn’t address the unfairness and violation of individual rights of using taxpayer money to fund (or guarantee) these loans. The SLEB also channels the Egalitarian red herring, saying undiscriminating loan forgiveness is not only “costly” to the taxpayers but an “ineffective way to reduce economic gaps”—as if wealth gaps are actually a problem (government coercion to reduce economic inequality is actually very unfair).  

Then the SLEB pivots to a favorite whipping boy:

A blanket loan forgiveness program is not sensible, but targeted action would be. He could start with victims of sleazy for-profit schools that exploit the poor and deliver useless degrees after taking out federal loans – they shouldn’t have to spend their whole lives in debt. Neither should low-income parents who borrowed beyond their means to give their kids a better head start.

What about the vastly greatest number of victims of sleazy non-profit or public schools and colleges? The so-called student loan crisis is across the board. Why pick on a tiny subset of higher education, the for-profit or career college sector? If some are guilty of misleading students and their families, they’re not alone. Why single them out? Because the Left hates private education.

The SLEB dilutes its own point by swinging to anti-for-profit propaganda. Nonetheless, it’s right in principle, if not consistency, to note the basic unfairness of federal student loan forgiveness. 

Related Reading:

Is 'I didn't get it, so others shouldn't either" a Valid Argument Against 'Free' College]

Student Loans Should Be Repaid

On "Nightmare" College Debt

Hillary Picks Up Obama’s Attack on For-Profit Colleges

Congress Should Abolish Obama’s Discriminatory “Gainful Employment” Regulations Against For-Profit Colleges

Stamato's For-Profit College Hatchet Job

Some Relief, and Fairness, to For-Profit Colleges, Thanks to DeVos

Equality and the American Dream by C. Bradley Thompson

Why Can’t Tom Moran Acknowledge the Common Collectivist Base of Affirmative Action and 20th Century Atrocities?

A recent op-ed posted by New Jersey Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran rightfully praised Princeton University for inviting a speaker who was “canceled” by another major university. In At Princeton, an inspiring defense of free speech, Moran writes:

Princeton University just came to the rescue of free speech by inviting a conservative speaker to campus after he was cancelled at MIT by progressives who couldn’t stand his views on affirmative action. 

MIT’s canceled speaker is University of Chicago Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot. It’s very inspiring to see slow but growing pushback against “cancel culture,” including by Leftists (or “progressives,” as Moran would probably prefer). It’s inspiring to see prominent intellectuals who understand that cancel culture is more than rude -- it’s a major threat to free speech. But I want to focus on an equally important sidebar, Moran’s view of the speaker’s take on Affirmative Action. Moran continues:

The story starts when MIT invited an expert on climate change from the University of Chicago, Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot, to speak at an event sponsored by MIT and open to the public in Boston. Abbot, as it happens, is an aggressive opponent of affirmative action and has spoken and written about the damage he believes it’s causing to academia.

Americans believe, by a 3-1 margin, that race and ethnicity should play no role in hiring and promotions, and last year even blue California voted against affirmative action by a whopping 12-point margin. So his views are well within the mainstream, at least outside college campuses.

But Abbot expresses them in caustic language that seems intended to provoke. Here’s how he described affirmative action in an article he co-authored in Newsweek in August:

“It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant, ‘I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group.’”

To be clear, I think that’s nuts. You can make a reasonable argument against affirmative action, but that’s not it. Like it or not, affirmative action is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege. Hitler and Stalin had something entirely different in mind.

In fact, Abbot is spot-on, and we ignore his point at our, and America’s, peril. Abbot is referring, of course, to collectivism, the premise that the focus of moral, political, and cultural concern is the group, rather than the individual. Given that America’s foundation is built on collectivism’s opposite, individualism, why can’t Tom Moran acknowledge the common collectivist base that affirmative action and 20th century atrocities obviously share?

True, Hitler and Stalin (and other 20th Century monsters) didn’t have increased educational opportunities for members of minority groups in mind. But Hitler’s racist fascist imperialist dictatorship and Stalin’s imperialistic communist “workers paradise” couldn’t have happened without collectivist rationalizations. And neither could Affirmative Action. 

Moran claims the collectivist argument is not “a reasonable argument against affirmative action.” Apparently, he thinks it’s fine to ignore individual merits and qualifications in order to favor one racial group over another. I think that’s unreasonable -- and immoral. I think Affirmative Action’s racist orientation toward individuals’ immutable group characteristics (skin pigmentation) is grossly unfair. I believe it’s monstrous to penalize today’s non-racial minority students for injustices perpetrated by their racial ancestors against the ancestors of the intended racial minority beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. None of today’s college-aspiring students are either guilty of or victims of historical injustices. To paraphrase the great Thomas Sowell, no one is born with pre-packaged guilt or pre-packaged grievances. To say otherwise is to embrace collectivism.

Moran never explains why he believes Abbot’s argument is “nuts”. But the very next sentence tells it all. Affirmative Action, he says, “is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege [my emphasis].” Closed to whom? To a collection of ancestors, that’s who. That is the exact collectivist justification advanced by Hitler against the Jews—that individual living Jews are guilty because the Jews as a group have always been a plague on humanity. Stalin advanced a similar argument against the bourgeoisie to justify their extermination.

Yes, there are strong reasonable arguments against affirmative action, like its practical failures. But moral fundamentals trump the practical arguments, because bad morals lead to bad practical results. Affirmative Action programs fail because they ignore individual merits and qualifications and focus on group identity—or at least prioritize group identities. That’s the common denominator uniting “the atrocities of the 20th century” and Affirmative Action. Note that Moran places racial diversity over individual merit.

Why can’t Moran see the obvious? Because to acknowledge the evil of collectivism would explode the collectivist essence of his diversity worldview. 

Judging people as members of a group. That’s precisely what Affirmative Action does. And that’s exactly what Hitler and Stalin did. True, as degrees of evil, the Nazis and the Communists were far worse than Affirmative Action, and I don’t believe Abbot intended to say Affirmative Action and its advocates are modern day 20th Century monsters. But ideas are the primary drivers of history. Affirmative Action rests on a philosophical premise that travels a road that, in the distant future, ends with the Hitlers and Stalins of the world.

Philosophy is the engine of history. America was Founded on the individualist philosophic ideals of The Enlightenment. With that beacon of justice shining forward, we got the abolition of slavery, the equality of property rights for women, the end of marriage inequality, the universal voting rights for woman and blacks, the end of Jim crow and legalized segregation, and the receding of racism in America, the reactionary efforts of the neo-racists of the woke “anti-racist” movement notwithstanding. Collectivism is the ideology of and for savages, and the collectivist group diversity movements, like Affirmative Action, is indeed to “repeat the [philosophic] mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century.” Collectivism is always dangerous whenever and wherever it surfaces. Given its terrible track record, it should be called out. Kudos to Abbot for his moral courage in calling out these dangerous ideas. Moran is wrong to poo-poo Abbot’s brilliant observations. It’s his revulsion at Abbot that’s nuts.

Related Reading:

MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me. Let’s make sure my cancellation is the last. That begins by standing up and saying no to the mob.By Darian Abott

Politics 2012: Can “American Individualism” Save the GOP – and America?

Individualism vs. Collectivism and the Neglected False Moral Dichotomy

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

E.J. Dionne Answers the Call With Assault on "Extreme Individualism"

Pope Francis’ Critics Fail to Appreciate the Fundamental Motives Behind His Anti-Individualism

Collectivism Generates Irrational Hatred

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Related Viewing:

Individualism vs Collectivism - Dr. Yaron Brook

Is 'I didn't get it, so others shouldn't either" a Valid Argument Against 'Free' College

 QUORA: ‘Many say that because "no one paid for their college education, current people should not have their student loans forgiven either". Is "I didn't get it, so others shouldn't either" a valid argument?’

I posted this answer:

In the context of government student loans, yes, it’s a valid argument. But it’s not fundamental. And it’ll never win the argument. 

The reason student loans should not be “forgiven” is that a loan carries a moral obligation for the borrower to repay it. The money borrowed was loaned in good faith that the borrower would repay. Therefore, the only people qualified to “forgive” a loan are those who loaned the money in the first place. Since government loans are financed by taxpayers, only taxpayers can forgive the student loans. Since no one asked for my consent, and I haven’t given it, the government has no right to “forgive” student loans that my tax dollars helped finance. 

Of course, the government should not be taking taxpayer money to extend student loans to begin with. But that is a broader issue.

PS: 

(Please don’t remind me that some taxpayers consent to “forgiveness.” That line of argument points to the fundamental moral and practical problems of democracy and socialism. Democracy is majoritarian tyranny. Socialism is the legal (coercive) chaining together of everyone into a collectivized system that obliterates individual choice: Forced collective action, whether instituted by dictatorial fiat or the vote, always violates someone’s rights to make their own choices and exercise individual responsibility. My right not to “forgive” is just as valid as others’ right to forgive. Government loans make those differences irreconcilable, requiring one side’s rights to be trashed. Socialism, the political implementation of collectivism, necessarily creates conflict. In a private student loan system, no such conflict exists. 

(Since we have a collectivized student loan system, my view is that no student loans should be forgiven unless you can get every taxpayer’s unanimous consent, not just a majority’s consent via elected officials. On the personal level, having put two daughters through college, including with student loans, and having paid back every dollar of the loans, I resent having to now pay for others’ college. It’s a slap in the face. I don’t consent to forgiving today’s student borrower, so their loans should not be forgiven. The fact that other taxpayers consent does not justify screwing me over.)

Related Reading:

Student Loans Should Be Repaid

Federal Student Loans and the GI Bill

End, Don't Reduce, Federal Student Higher Education Funding

On "Nightmare" College Debt

Rather Than quibble Over Federal Student Loan Interest Rates, the Feds Should Get Out of the Student Loan Business

America; Democracy or Republic or Both--Why it Matters

AOC’s Deceptive Retort to Betsy DeVos

Speaking at the 2020 Federal Student Aid Training Conference on December 1, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos warned of the insidious hidden effects of government-funded higher education. As Market Watch reports:

We’ve heard shrill calls to ‘cancel,’ to ‘forgive,’ to ‘make it all free.’ Any innocuous label out there can’t obfuscate what it really is: wrong.

The campaign for ‘free college’ is a matter of total government control. Make no mistake: it is a socialist takeover of higher education. 

DeVos speaks the truth. 

It’s not an overt takeover, of course. And that’s not what she meant. Government agents are not going to come in, kick the administrators out, and literally install government administrators in their place. It’s actually much more insidious than that, because the control takes place largely behind the scenes. But make no mistake. It’s government control. Making college “free” means the government will have to pay colleges directly. With the responsibility to pay comes the responsibility, and power, to set conditions for both the college and the student. “Who pays the piper, calls the tune.” 

So, how does DeVos’s opponents respond? One opponent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, fires back with:

“Tuition-free public college is a dangerous socialist takeover of higher ed, as opposed to the far superior capitalist takeover of higher ed, which reliably buries millions of Americans in trillions of dollars in debt & graduates them into low paying jobs without good healthcare.”

This self-described socialist is apparently ignorant of the difference between socialism and capitalism—or wants deliberately to deceive us on the true natures of both. 

Capitalism logically cannot "take over" higher education, or any other industry, because its government is limited in the scope of its power. Capitalism is by definition individual self-governance and determination under a government limited to protecting the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property of all individuals. The government under capitalism—there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a “capitalist government”—does not have aggressive coercive power. In particular, it does not have any role in financing education, whether through direct or subsidized loans, grants, gifts, or scholarships, or of administering education.  

Socialism, on the other hand, is by definition government control. The socialist government respects no individual rights, including the right to individual self-government. So, when the state pays for higher education, with money taken by force of taxation from its citizens, it sets the terms. And the power doesn’t have any limits beyond what government officials can get away with at any given time. When the government sets the terms, it decides who goes to what college, what courses must be taken, and so on. Ultimately the career path of the graduate is controlled. Just ask the Cuban Doctors who are "tired of being a slave": "You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price? You wind up paying for it your whole life," one Cuban Doctor put it. When the government pays your education tab, it has that to hang over your head for life. When the likes of AOC push for "free college," they know full well that the “price” college graduates will pay will likely be far more insidious than monetary debt. What can the graduate answer when the state says, "We paid for your education. Now you must do your social duty," which means, duty to the state.

Under capitalism, the individual sets the terms: If he likes the school's offering, and is accepted, he attends that school and is responsible for paying the tab. Whether he is "buried in debt & graduates into a low paying job" or goes on to a successful career while paying off a reasonable level of debt will be determined by his own choices and work ethics. To the socialist, this is a "capitalist takeover of higher ed" because the entitlement mentality it appeals to believes that "the world owes me a living," including "free college." 

Of course, the government is already heavily involved in financing higher education in America. That is why college costs so much to begin with, and why there is such a disconnect between many students' debt and their subsequent earning power. Investopedia reports that today, the Federal Government owns over 90% of all student loan debt, up from 55% in 2010—right before the Obama Administration’s federal monopolization of student lending, which expelled the private lenders from that market—and 0% in the early 1990s. * That is not capitalism. That is a creeping socialist takeover of higher education. Eliminating that lending and paying colleges directly out of the federal treasury would complete the takeover. What, AOC, is the cause that “reliably buries millions of Americans in trillions of dollars in debt & graduates them into low paying jobs without good healthcare?” Your precious Democratic Socialism, that’s what. Higher education in America is nowhere near capitalism.

To be sure, Betsy DeVos is not calling for an end to federal student lending or aid, as she should. She simply wants to “overhaul” it. I give her credit for calling attention to this creeping socialist takeover of higher education. But not too much credit. What would a real “capitalist takeover” look like. It would start with the abolition of the entire federal student loan program.

When AOC and her ilk speak of a capitalist takeover, they speak of individuals controlling their own educational affairs without government interference. When she speaks of “free college,” she calls for government control. DeVos is right. Government-paid “free college” is socialism, and represents a manifestation of “a socialist takeover of higher education.” I’ll take a capitalist takeover anytime—a genuine capitalist takeover; not what we have now, with the student loan monstrosity and overpriced colleges. Let’s have the real thing—the complete separation of higher education and state.

Ocasio-Cortez is either an ignorant fool or a liar—or both. Nonetheless, thank you, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for highlighting the fundamental choice we Americans face—socialist slavery or capitalist freedom in higher education.

* [ . . . although the Federal Government had been in the business of guaranteeing private student loans since at least 1965, Investopedia reports.]

Related Reading:

QUORA: Why do capitalist governments bail out large corporations? Isn’t this a practice of a socialist government?

Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society

End, Don't Reduce, Federal Student Higher Education Funding

Rather Than quibble Over Federal Student Loan Interest Rates, the Feds Should Get Out of the Student Loan Business

On "Nightmare" College Debt

Obama’s “Free” Community College Scheme

NJ Assemblyman Joseph Cryan's Bill to Control College Costs is the Wrong Solution

QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’

QUORA *: ‘What makes someone a socialist?'

Merit vs. ‘Affirmative’ Action

The college admission bribery scandal brought out the anti-capitalistic mentality of the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Its March 2019 editorial is titled College admissions scandal exposes a corrupt and broken system. The “system” does not refer to college admissions. The Star-Ledger wrote:

It is not news that the dullard scions of the wealthy are afforded the same educational benefits enjoyed by real scholars, who earned their way into prestigious colleges.

But the admissions scandal not only exposes how far parents will go to get their kids into elite schools. It reminds us that the correlation between merit and the just apportionment of rewards isn’t the bedrock American precept we claim it to be.

Still, who knew the new definition of affirmative action involved millionaire parents greasing the volleyball coach?

Apparently missing the extreme irony, the Star-Ledger then writes with a straight face:

Meanwhile, more qualified students who followed the rules were squeezed out.

For those who thought that giving special consideration to a deserving minority is a threat to the integrity of the admissions process, we’ll pause here for cognitive dissonance.

Apparently, it’s ok for more qualified students to be shut out for the sake of some other less qualified student labeled “deserving minority.” Apparently, it’s “far worse [that] Parents were paying to break the rules” by bribery versus by racism. What about these rules, which shut out “more qualified students” because of race or ethnicity? No answer. It’s just assumed that there is some fundamental difference between cheating by Affirmative Action and cheating by bribery. There is not. Both forms of affirmative action are wrong. I left these comments, edited for clarity:

This scandal is a case of the wrongdoing of the few, not the workings of some “master class” of “the rich.” To say it is is bigotry. Such language is the premise of racism applied to economics. Any kind of admission policy that results in “more qualified students who followed the rules [being] squeezed out,” whether based on racial “qualifications” or bribery, is corrupt.

We didn’t get to our material prosperity through cheating, but through the workings of a social system—capitalism, to the extent it is free to function—that, over time, allows rewards to follow value creation through individual merit and voluntary exchange. It’s ridiculous to say otherwise.

This scandal is not a result of “savage inequities”--not in the way it is meant in this editorial. The rush to condemn “the rich” for the college scandal is a primal appeal to ignorance, envy, resentment, hatred of achievement, and to anyone who wants to blame others for their own failures. Justice, not bigotry, should be our standard. Punish the guilty. It is immoral to condemn an entire group, whether by race or by level of wealth, for the wrongdoing of the guilty.

Related Reading:

SCOTUS "Affirmative Action" Decision is a Small Victory for Justice and Individual Rights

Leftists are the Last People Qualified to Lecture on Race

Some Relief, and Fairness, to For-Profit Colleges, Thanks to DeVos

The Obama Administration, true to its statist, Leftist agenda, spend years waging an assault on private sector colleges and universities. The Trump Education Department, under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, is taking a different approach, giving some relief to these schools.

In If Betsy DeVos and her unscrupulous profiteers won't do their jobs, N.J. will, the New Jersey Star-Ledger attacked Betsy DeVos for rolling back the Obama-era assault on private, especially for-profit colleges. The Star-Ledger wrote:

For-profits aren't the ones lending students money, so don't care if they can't pay back it back. They encourage people in dire straits to take out as much financial aid as possible. Then they suck up this federal loan money like sponges, leaving veterans, single parents and others who live paycheck-to-paycheck with huge debts and no degrees.

I left these comments:

All colleges “suck up” federal loan money. Why single out for-profits? The problem of the disconnect between too-high student loan debt relative to career earning potential cuts across all higher education—including public colleges, which have ridden the government’s student loan gravy train to tuition increases four times the rate of inflation over the last several decades. Anyway, education producers, private or public, should be no more responsible for students who overpay than other businesses are for someone overpaying for cars, vacations, or anything else. Don’t the consumers of education have any responsibility for controlling their spending?

For-profit colleges sell education, like all colleges. They cater mostly to mature working poor and middle class students who are trying to improve their skills through education while juggling jobs, families, and other adult responsibilities. These schools largely succeed despite unfair competition from public colleges, which have the benefit of taxpayer subsidies that enable them to keep tuitions artificially low. True, there are some unscrupulous actors, as in every field. But the Left, due to its irrational hatred of profit-seeking and private enterprise, is waging a war against private colleges, hoping eventually to eliminate them and gain increasing government control over higher education. Kudos to DeVos for rolling back the Left’s discriminatory assault on private colleges.

The government should not be involved in lending money to students at all. But so long as it is, and so long as it regulates these loans, it is morally obligated—and should be legally obligated—to treat all students and all educational institutions equally under the law.

Related Reading:

The Government’s Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities

The Government’s Renewed Assault on Private-Sector Colleges.

Stamato's For-Profit College Hatchet Job

Obama’s “Free” Community College Scheme

QUORA: 'Should I report a right wing student in my class?'

QUORA *: Should I report a right wing student in my class? Our university has a “Prevent” policy, requiring that we report extremism. This student is vocal in class, speaking of white supremacist views and labeling others ‘communist’.

I submitted this answer:

It would be proper to report the student only if the student’s behavior is disrespectful and disruptive. But really, it is the professor’s job to control his classroom.

That aside, the university’s “Prevent” policy is certainly within the University administration’s right. But that doesn’t make it right. The vague term “extremism,” like the term “hate speech,” is a smear tactic useful only in intimidating and silencing an opposing voice. Racial supremacism may be “extreme”; but so is the view that “all men are created equal” and should be treated as such under the law, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

It is intellectual cowardice to report the student for his views, thus silencing him in the classroom. It is also impractical. First of all, you say actually learn something by listening, either by realizing that the “extremist” has a valid point or by using the ojectionable viewpoint as an opportunity to sharpen your own thinking and formulate a counterpoint. Second, disagreeable views cannot be defeated by silencing, in effect driving them underground where they metastasize. They can only be defeated by intellectually discrediting, and then by countering with a better viewpoint. Prohibition does not work. It didn’t work with alcohol. It doesn’t work with the “War on Drugs.” And it won’t work with ideas. Truth-seeking is about exposing and debating, not burying and retreating into an “echo chamber.”

The right move is just the opposite of reporting it. You should vigorously defend the “right wing student’s” right to express his views. Voltaire’s sentiment is applicable here, as it is to all individual rights: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You should welcome the challenge posed by the “right wing student,” and then stand up for your beliefs rather than run for cover behind some ridiculous “Prevent” policy. The best response to “hate speech” is counter-speech. The only proper response to bad ideas is better ideas.

It is shocking that, with the record of fascism and communism still fresh in our history, that the tactic so beloved of dictatorships, intellectual oppression, is rising again in the land of the First Amendment--and on the campuses of so-called “institutions of higher learning” no less.
Related Reading:

Free Speech, not Self-Censorship, is the Answer to 'Offensive' Free Speech [UPDATED]

Budding Grassroots Campaign Against ‘Hate Speech’ is shallow, childish . . . and Dangerous

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

John Farmer's Understanding of Free Speech Rights as Non-Absolute is Dangerous and Wrong

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.]