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Health & Fitness

Student Success Act fails to resolve student debt crisis

Kline's Student Success Act passed the House amidst fears that student loan rates would double. At a recent student loan forum hosted by John Kline at Simley High School in Inver Grove Heights he blamed it on the parents assuring them that his bill would provide them with better information to help keep costs down. He also assured us that this would relieve congress of the burden of repeatedly reviewing the issue of student loan interest rates. It's not at all clear to me what Kline's bill has to do with student success. Questions submitted by myself and other DFLer's at the event never made it to the floor.

As bad as it is, I wish it was the worst of our problems. We need to get back to basics. Education used to be about training our young people for careers and leadership positions but under Kline's leadership in the House Education and workforce committee it has become a for profit industry depriving our young people of economic opportunities and producing degree programs with little or no economic value. We have a trillion dollars in student loan debt carried by students who can't get jobs. If it was Ford or GM we'd be talking about a bailout, not raising the interest rate. We have a lot of quality post-secondary schools in CD2 and they should not be competing with the kind of high margin online schools that support Kline’s campaigns. Our ability to fund education has a direct impact on the viability of post-secondary education in our district.

At the forum Kline also spoke proudly of foreign students who come with buckets full of cash which underlines another serious problem with our profit oriented education system. We are selling our technology to foreign students and then importing them with visas to fill the high tech jobs. They often send the money back home which in no way benefits our economy. How have we created a trillion dollars in student loan debt without creating an adequate supply of qualified workers? Naturally, I would expect Kline to skip that question because he has not even responded to the simple ones.  

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Identifying the problem is just the beginning. The solutions require a far more serious commitment.  There was a time when a high school graduate could get a job and earn a living wage.  K-12 was an adequate model of education.  Today more advanced technical or intellectual development is essential to success and we need some serious attention to expanding our public education system to ensure our young people meet the needs of industry and government.  This is not an entitlement.  This is an essential investment in sustainable economic growth and prosperity. It is an essential role of government. Other less wealthy countries can do it. According to Kline, they send their students here with buckets full of cash.  I’m certain we can do as well.

 

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