Rep. Virginia Foxx On People With Student Loans: ‘I Have Very Little Tolerance’ For Them
8:06 am - 04/16/2012
Rep. Virginia Foxx On People With Student Loans: ‘I Have Very Little Tolerance’ For Them
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) took on a unique enemy during a radio interview yesterday: people with student loans.
Though many politicians sympathize with those who are saddled with exorbitant student debt, Foxx, who chairs the House subcommittee on higher education, had a different take. Appearing on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, the North Carolina congresswoman recounted her own experience paying for college, where she worked her way through and graduated after seven years. Foxx then pointed to her own experience as justification for why she has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt.” “There’s no reason for that,” she concluded:
FOXX: I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money. He borrowed a little bit because we both were totally on our own when we went to college, totally. [...] I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” You don’t have it dumped in your lap.
Listen to it:
Despite Foxx’s implication, these loans are not taken out frivolously. They are taken out because of the soaring cost of college. In other words, because the price of college is so high — and House Republicans are working overtime to cut Pell grants for one million low-income students — the amount of loans required to pay for it is also high. Indeed, student loan debt topped one trillion dollars last year, orders of magnitude larger than in the decades prior.
Still, Foxx’s distaste for large loans does not appear to extend to the mortgage sector. In Foxx’s 2010 financial disclosure statement, she owned two individual mortgage notes worth up to $250,000 each, from which she earned as much as $20,000 in payments.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) took on a unique enemy during a radio interview yesterday: people with student loans.
Though many politicians sympathize with those who are saddled with exorbitant student debt, Foxx, who chairs the House subcommittee on higher education, had a different take. Appearing on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, the North Carolina congresswoman recounted her own experience paying for college, where she worked her way through and graduated after seven years. Foxx then pointed to her own experience as justification for why she has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt.” “There’s no reason for that,” she concluded:
FOXX: I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money. He borrowed a little bit because we both were totally on our own when we went to college, totally. [...] I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” You don’t have it dumped in your lap.
Listen to it:
Despite Foxx’s implication, these loans are not taken out frivolously. They are taken out because of the soaring cost of college. In other words, because the price of college is so high — and House Republicans are working overtime to cut Pell grants for one million low-income students — the amount of loans required to pay for it is also high. Indeed, student loan debt topped one trillion dollars last year, orders of magnitude larger than in the decades prior.
Still, Foxx’s distaste for large loans does not appear to extend to the mortgage sector. In Foxx’s 2010 financial disclosure statement, she owned two individual mortgage notes worth up to $250,000 each, from which she earned as much as $20,000 in payments.
My husband and I saved like crazy for our kids' education because I saw how things were changing. They also worked and got scholarships. They still needed to take out some loans. One of them is using scholarships and a Teach for America award to get her MA, but she'll probably need to take out additional loans anyway.
edited due to spectacular grammar fail
Edited at 2012-04-16 12:06 am (UTC)
Only someone who has probably had opportunities thrown at them all their life, without any real worry about the costs, could ever believe this.
Most people do not live in a 'world of opportunities'.
I never borrowed a dime of money. He borrowed a little bit because we both were totally on our own when we went to college, totally.
I never borrowed money but I did really.
I was paying around $14k a semester during my first two semesters at UT. After that, I was fortunate enough to get an out-of-state waiver + scholarships that decreased it to 10% of that out of pocket. I can't even imagine how hard it is for people to do that for 4 years without scholarships or waivers.
I do think that some people could make better choices in their college years to save money (like not moving into the dorms if you have the option to stay at home--the ~college experience~ isn't always worth the thousands of extra dollars), but...it's not my life and it's not my money, so do what you want!
The bottom line is, some people can get through college without loans and some can't. Those who can't should have that option, just like people take out loans to buy houses. I just think people should not go overboard with loans and use them for unnecessary things.
School full time usual means min $4,000 in fees and anywhere from $500 - $1,000 in books, supplies, living costs, food aren't included etc... that adds up and how much can you work and not flunk your classes?
And some people would massively fail their classes if they stayed at home because they don't have supportive families or too much drama at home.
*my campus is typically a 4 year school, and that's usually the amount of time people here aim to be out of there by.
You irritating hypocrite!!! I hate hypocrites the most >=/
No they're not. You just don't live in a 'opportunity society'. You live in a society where rich people charge extortionate sums of money for EDUCATION. That's not opportunity, that's OPPORTUNISTIC.
Education should be based on free and equal access. Then you will have an 'opportunity society'.
Now excuse me while I get my poor ass back to the degree I wouldn't be able to afford if it weren't for student loans.
No only are older conservatives completely in the dark about how the cost of education has sky-rocketed. They whole heartily on the myth that they got what they earned via their own hard work and "no help from the government."
They think that things were cheaper back in the day because "God was Good" and every dollar they were able to put into in a savings account or in the stock markets - that earned HUGE interest back in the 90s- just blossomed like flowers in May because they "earned it". They completely ignore any context about the economy, how or who made that economy work , and why it isn't working today for the younger generation.
Most importantly education itself is under attack and the GOP is just fine with that.
Many of the people like this are willfully ignoring the fact that inflation is a thing, and that education over the last few decades (I'm counting the UK in this, too) has been continuously privatised, and the result of this is higher tuition fees.
But it doesn't have to be that way. So many countries have fully subsidised tuition for higher educations - especially for those who go for more vocational than academic courses.
Edited at 2012-04-16 12:28 am (UTC)
Stop blaming us and not the system that force us to go to college to even get a decent job and the insane inflation that get worse every year.
Seriously, fuck this basic motherfucker.
You've been riding high for so fucking long you don't know what reality looks like. SMH.
Foxx needs to STFU.
Especially given the fact that a lot of employers don't even particularly care where your degree came from these days.
Screw you lady. I went to a community college for 2 years to save money, while working. I had to transfer to a larger school for my degree. I spent 3 years there. I had a small scholarship from my state, I worked FULL TIME, and I still had $16,000 in student loans to pay. I'M ONE OF THE LUCK ONES.
I have no respect for people who think like this. When did she go to college? 30 years ago?
In short, kiss my overeducated ass.