Mitt Romney is keeping his focus on the economy and encouraged young people to “take risks” to deal with a tough job market, even if it meant borrowing money from their parents, reports the New York Daily News. At a speech at Otterbein University in Ohio, Romney talked about how the owner of sandwich chain Jimmy John’s got started by borrowing $20,000 from his father.
“We've always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it. Take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business,” Romney said.
Democratic activists quickly pounced on the remark as another example of how the presumptive Republican nominee is out of touch.
“Only someone who paid for college by selling stock given to him by his CEO father would just casually assume students could go borrow $20,000 from their parents to deal with the economic challenges they face,” a spokesman for the Center for American Progress Action Fund tells the Associated Press.
At a roundtable discussion with seven students, Romney noted engineering majors were in high demand and wondered whether students would have chosen their areas of study differently if they had been clearly told about job prospects.
“You really don’t want to take out $150,000 loan to go into English because you’re not going to be able to pay it back. You might want to think about something else that meets your interest,” Romney said, noting that “as an English major I can say this,” reports ABC News. Romney graduated with an English degree from Brigham Young University and later went on to study law and business at Harvard.
Romney’s speech was part of an effort by his campaign to continue focusing on the economy even as President Obama tries to shift focus to other issues, including national security, points out Reuters.
Source
Because everyone's parents have money they can borrow? I seriously hate this smug rich asshole.
“We've always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it. Take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business,” Romney said.
Democratic activists quickly pounced on the remark as another example of how the presumptive Republican nominee is out of touch.
“Only someone who paid for college by selling stock given to him by his CEO father would just casually assume students could go borrow $20,000 from their parents to deal with the economic challenges they face,” a spokesman for the Center for American Progress Action Fund tells the Associated Press.
At a roundtable discussion with seven students, Romney noted engineering majors were in high demand and wondered whether students would have chosen their areas of study differently if they had been clearly told about job prospects.
“You really don’t want to take out $150,000 loan to go into English because you’re not going to be able to pay it back. You might want to think about something else that meets your interest,” Romney said, noting that “as an English major I can say this,” reports ABC News. Romney graduated with an English degree from Brigham Young University and later went on to study law and business at Harvard.
Romney’s speech was part of an effort by his campaign to continue focusing on the economy even as President Obama tries to shift focus to other issues, including national security, points out Reuters.
Source
Because everyone's parents have money they can borrow? I seriously hate this smug rich asshole.
Also, I get pissy about anyone discouraging people from studying things like English (lit major here) and to go for the money-making majors. I really don't want to live in a country that's solely populated by engineers and business people.
We need to ensure that as a society we value more than just certain areas of study or we will always have unhappy people doing jobs they hate and people without jobs because they didn't make the cut. And we will always have people who can't get those jobs even if they are qualified if everyone goes for certain majors.
Of course, I'm a lowly scholar of literature. Clearly I understand nothing about supply and demand.
You need to be privileged to go to college to do what you love rather than what makes money, IMO.
I would mind minoring it. But oh my god, I wanted to major in art. My studio and computer art professors would get so disappointed when they find out that I wasn't an art major and it was a tough thing to swallow because I wanted to so fucking badly. But my mother's disapproval and the general attitude about majoring in art stopped me and I think it created quite a few emotional issues (and it was the start of my anixety attacks as well) over it. And now I have an artist's block seven years and counting.
That's why I tell everyone do what they meant to do because going against that can really do untold damage to you that you don't know.
Edited at 2012-04-30 05:56 pm (UTC)
Fuck "practical". It makes me happy, and people who can write are more valuable than "practical" majors think. Considering how many business majors I've met who can't write a paper to save their lives and then look down on me for being an English major...
I'm a pharmacist and it's the same in my field. People got into the field thinking it was a sure thing and it's not anymore. Tuition has gone way up and demand has gone way down. I got ridiculously lucky last year with my job and I do not envy the people graduating after me because it's just going to get harder.
Now that I'm in Uni, I've noticed how ignored are the Arts and Humanities (my generation has 15 students, and IT'S THE ONLY UNI IN MY STATE THAT OFFERS HISTORY. Philosophy has FIVE STUDENTS). In history at least, job opportunities in my city (flooded with factories and everyone wants to study engineering and graphic design) are actually good because while the demand is low (salaries range from okay to average), the students who graduate are even less.
So all I want to do is teach English, which I am very, very good at. (LOL despite my comments on here, ha ha, I know I seem barely literate most of the time, but I swear I'm excellent at fiction). So I'm going for a BA with an English and Gender Studies focus. My plan is to stay in school until I have a doctorate, and teach college. I'll have a shitton of debt, but I've already planned things financially, based on projected loan rates, income-based repayment, etc., and I should be fine.
Surprisingly, people actually think this far ahead. I ~love how rich people just assume we stupid poor people are just short-sighted or something. Which short sighted people got us into the recession again? Oh yeah, people like Romney. That's right. I remember now.
We actually do *need* variety in our work force.
*granted, with a minor in art history and now doing graduate studies in architecture.