America is the land of equal opportunity. Well, yeah, truth be, your odds are little bit better if your parents can afford to send you to a good university. Other that, it’s even Stephen.

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What if those who weren’t born to means could borrow the money? That would almost be as good, no.? Before 1965, if they went to their friendly banker, he asked them if they or their family had an account at the bank. If the answer was that their parents did have an account, he would say that he would look into the possibility and get back to you soon. The bank would take it from there.

Under the 1965 Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program, private student loans were subsidized and guaranteed by the Federal Government. Banks like to make loans that are Government guaranteed.

In 1972, President Nixon created the Student Loan Marketing Association, or “Sallie Mae” — a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) empowered by the government to use U.S. Treasury money to buy government-backed student loans from banks. The U.S. Government would make money off loaning money to university students. Education, and opportunity, was now marketized, monetized, and financialized.

By nature, such genius belongs in the pantheon of Free Enterprise. So, where is Private Enterprise’s share? In 1997, Sallie Mae began privatizing. Now, the opportunity gap was a source of return for those who could afford to invest in the market. A three $trillion market.

For it to even get close to being even stephen, the poor kid would need to stand out in a series of very public schools, then be granted the money needed to attend a good university.

Senator Thune, R-SD, “And I believe it is fundamentally unfair, particularly if you think about all those Americans out there and those families, many of whom never had the opportunity to go to college or those who did and paid — paid their loans down already, paid them back, or their parents pinched pennies and made it possible for them to get through college. And now you’re asking them, essentially, to pay a half-a-trillion or there’s some estimates up to a trillion dollars, really, to forgive all the loans of these people out there who currently have loans. And it just — on so many levels, this just seems fundamentally wrong, fundamentally unfair to those that are going to be paying the freight, and I think a really bad precedent going forward.”

Senator Thune was not worrying about the working people of America. Amna Nawaz, PBS NewsHour, let him get by with it.

Senator McConnell, R-KY, “President Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt. This policy is astonishingly unfair.”

“This is cynical and outrageous but perfectly in character for these Democrats,” McConnell added: “Taking money and purchasing power away from working families and redistributing it to their favored friends.”

Even the Hill had to clean this up. But, they all let him get by with such pandering to ignorance.

Senator Cruz, R-TX, “If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can’t get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand,” Cruz said on his ‘Verdict with Ted Cruz’ podcast. “Like, holy cow! 20 grand. You know, maybe you weren’t gonna vote in November, and suddenly you just got 20 grand.” The Texas Republican continued: “And you know, if you can get off the bong for a minute and head down to the voting station… or just send in your mail-in ballot that the Democrats have helpfully sent you, it could drive up turnout, particularly among young people.”

Whatever the hell that meant. Having been a preppy and being a Princeton and Harvard Alumni, the Senator knows about such matters.

Put the three’s together, do some creative editing, and you get a truer picture. Poor working-class kids who borrowed money to attend college in hopes of increasing their opportunities, most of whom weren’t able to finish for lack of funds and other reasons (a lot of the money went to rip-off, for-profit schools), were to have some or all of their student loan indebtedness forgiven. How dare Biden? These are our turnips, our crabs in the bucket! How dare they dare to succeed out of their serfdom!

Student loans, like the G.I. Bill of 1944, are an investment in America’s future. Free tuition for all underprivileged kids would be far, far better. A good king, or queen, would understand that a healthy, well-educated people make for a stronger kingdom. That ensuring that the people of the kingdom reached their full potential would mean the same for the kingdom. That a few getting rich at the expense of the many was not good for the kingdom.

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