Monday August 6, 2012, 4:14 pm
(Photo: Saint Huck)

After graduation, students' incomes would be "attached" by financiers.

Let's take a trip deep into the magic kingdom of "Laissez Fairyland" and prostrate ourselves before the infallible and inscrutable force known as the free market.

While this awesome deity cannot be seen, the high priests of free-market fundamentalism insist that we mere mortals must simply have faith that its mysterious workings are always in our best interest. Yeah, sure, your holiness. We saw how well that worked out for us wandering pilgrims after you true believers deregulated Wall Street, which then crashed on our streets.

Well, get ready. Free-market purists want us to have another ungodly religious encounter with their omnipotent deity. Looking at America's trillion-dollar student debt crisis, these spiritualists had a burning-bush revelation.

The crisis can be healed by letting the magic market (aka Wall Street) lay its hands on the funding of college education. Get the government out of the student loan business, they preach, and let global speculators invest directly in students by covering their tuition. In other words, turn students into just another Wall Street commodity to be purchased by the wealthy.

But venture capitalists expect fat returns on their investments. What do they get back for covering some kid's tuition? A chunk of the kid's future, that's what. After graduation, students' incomes would be attached by the financiers. And, since the free-market doctrine dictates that investors should always seek to maximize their returns, they would have a direct interest (and maybe even a legal right) in making their investees pursue careers that make the most money for them.

The first thing to know about the free market is that it's not free, and turning Wall Street loose on college students will turn them into chattel, effectively indentured to investors.
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By Jim Hightower, OtherWords | Op-Ed | Truthout |

Monday August 6, 2012, 6:34 pm
Debt is salary, debt should be outlaw today

Monday August 6, 2012, 9:35 pm
QUOTE-rather terrifying
But venture capitalists expect fat returns on their investments. What do they get back for covering some kid's tuition? A chunk of the kid's future, that's what. After graduation, students' incomes would be attached by the financiers. And, since the free-market doctrine dictates that investors should always seek to maximize their returns, they would have a direct interest (and maybe even a legal right) in making their investees pursue careers that make the most money for them.

Comment
Even the man who invented the free market maxims about freedom claimed that one business got to colluding the free market no longer worked also that momopolies were dangerous to the public

Monday August 6, 2012, 9:50 pm
No jobs after graduation , just debt. The dumbig down of America.

Monday August 6, 2012, 10:47 pm
No freedom in the "Free Market"...

Monday August 6, 2012, 11:15 pm
Same with our for profit healthcare system. It's a sick system that exploits ill health for profit.

Tuesday August 7, 2012, 3:13 pm
This type of exploitation has been going on since the beginning of time. The only difference is that they are getting more sophisticated and going more brazenly for the throats of students. For example a new required textbook latest edition around $250.00 new used around $160.00. Last year’s edition, about $30.00, but tell that to the textbook authors, publishers and bookstores who want to draw all the blood (money) they can from the college students, by updating the information each year even though it doesn’t really change in certain careers that much, to justify the huge price hikes!

Tuesday August 7, 2012, 3:47 pm
Hightower definitely speaks the truth here. My daughter and I are certanly indentured to these investors. At least we didn't attend the overpriced, substandard private colleges. Their graduates often end up in low-paying jobs while owing massive sums of money. Perhaps the worst feature of student loans is that one cannot dismiss them through bankruptcy. Thanks Kit.

Tuesday August 7, 2012, 5:34 pm
They don't want anyone educated and it they are then they are so in debt that they are enslaved - the globalists win no matter what!

Tuesday August 7, 2012, 5:57 pm

The price of education today would leave most of my generation without an education. The students are paying for very poor decisions by both the universities and school districts by believing Wall Street and the banks and investing in a sinking ship.

Tuesday August 7, 2012, 10:02 pm
Thanks Kit---and the GOP wants to privatize student loans again despite the strong evidence of how poor a choice that was before...prisoners are already commodities in many respects and now our children...is this the new face of serfdom and slavery?

Wednesday August 8, 2012, 7:37 am
Noted, thanks.

Wednesday August 8, 2012, 8:19 am
The education system is flawed. I agree completely with this article as students are now just commodities. The education bubble is going to be the next to burst.

Wednesday August 8, 2012, 7:35 pm
Great comments on here. I agree with Val, they don't want the majority of us educated, we become a threat to a system that only works for them. Their offspring will do well, they can always afford the education. They want us like the serfs, uneducated, don't question the masters, pay just enough of us to do their bidding and pay those just enough to survive but not thrive. You know even the slaves had to have just enough to eat, be given a simple roof over the head so as to not expire from the elements.

I know if I was just starting off today with the circumstances I was born into, a college education would not of ever happened. Thankful, even I had the opportunity to go to college, that was a Country we could be proud of, I'm not sure what the heck we have here anymore. I know things change within one's lifetime, but I never in my wildest dreams thought it would go in this horrible direction.