Forgive debt, yes, but increase aid to lower costs

[Hoosier_Progressiv]

1. Forgive debt

In 1988 I went to Purdue West Lafayette to start work on a Ph.D. I started using my own money I was saving as a down payment to buy a house. During my second year, I needed some financial help. I applied for a "guaranteed" student loan. I was told under rules enacted during the Reagan administration, I "made to much money the year before to qualify." Reagan "trickle down" economics at its best. I ended up with a part-time job and a student loan from a bank at half of what I could have used. The rest of my "student loan" was a credit card. Luckily, I landed a job before graduating teaching a university and started to earn money to pay off the debt. It was less than $10K including the credit card, and I needed to finish my dissertation to be converted to tenure track or be dismissed. I retired a full professor 30 years later.

I do not begrudge any help today's grads get. Furthermore, I fully support that states step up and return to the level of financial support that allowed me to have lower tuition rates when I was an undergrad in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By the time I started teaching at the university level, states had been slashing support for education like it (education) was a blight on society. To the far-right, it is, because they do not like an educated electorate.

So, yes, we need to raise state level funding for education to reduce the cost. I have been donating to my alma mater and my employer's foundations to help less fortunate students out. The smarter they are, the better this country will become.