Another thing to add to the student loan discussion… Student loan forgiveness already exists in certain circumstances. My wife is working towards that now as a teacher. 10 years of public sector employment and her loans get paid off by the gov. So there are ways to get loans forgiven, without the federal government issuing a blanket forgiveness for all loans.

Here’s a novel idea that I could get behind. One time student loan forgiveness for all student loans coupled with the complete elimination of student loan backing by the government. All recipients of said forgiveness incur an extra 2% (this is a hypothetical level, but make it to where it’ll recoup a majority of the existing debt) income tax for the next 10 years. Make it an opt in type program so those that are close to paying off the loan can weigh the option before taking it. I’d get behind that. The reason college is so expensive is due to the federal backing of student loans. If you had to use the private sector for these loans, they would be much harder to get. Universities would have to adjust their pricing structure to compete in the open market and likely would have to cut certain programs in order to lower overhead. Now being realistic, that will never happen short of an economic collapse. There’s too many interests vested in keeping the higher education heavy train going. Neither political party will advocate for the ending of federal backing of student loans no matter if it makes sense.

Sounds like your athletic trainer friend made a bad business decision; unfortunately.
The cost of education is frequently compounded by the attitude that you have to be in a fraternity/sorority, drive a $20k(or more) car, party at spring break, live in a nice apartment and go to Starbucks. As opposed to walking; riding a bike, no vacations, living in a minimum cost facility( some would call a dump) and eat Hamburger Helper. It's about priorities and being willing to sacrifice to meet goals. There are lessons to be learned at that stage of life outside the classroom that served me well. Not saying that was your case; but it is prevalent.

That’s great but a lot of the people on athletic scholarships go for athletics and they just get whatever degree is “easy” for them to keep playing ball. Communications, Political Science, and Business seem to be what a lot of people pick.

Absolutely nothing wrong with getting it paid for by the military. For the sheer amount of hijinks and bullshit a peace time military member has to go through, they deserve every penny. Doubly so for a wartime military.

But what about people who aren’t very athletically inclined or fit for service? I’m neither, as I always sucked at sports, and when I tried to join the NG, I got stuck on waiver hold until I gave up, over some ADHD meds I had not even taken in years.

I promise you what I’m doing in IT and Cyber is where my gift is, but I had to wait until I was almost 30 to start advancing my career. I have heard of people like my cousins’ husbands who work for a galvanizing plant being sent to school for manager positions but that is exceedingly rare.

Another point I’d like to make is it’s not JUST about student loans. But the overall price of tuition. Look at what tuition costs in China, and see that they can go all year to a private school for less than the cost of an in state American student going to a public school for a single semester. It will be no wonder when China wholly surpasses us in tech and science, because the barriers are just so much lower, combined with their population of billions.

I paid for both my daughters college, what do i get? Oh wait, I get to pay for yours too!

I've always wanted to be a bartender...

You will get no argument from me about the cost of tuition and the waste and lack of good outcomes in our higher education systems. They could use a good dose of DOGE.
And; they should have skin in the game on student loans.

Does your farm get any tax breaks?

I can promise you she lived no life of luxury. She drove the same car she got as a teenager all the way through her 5-6 years. She cooked a lot. She had some athletic scholarships during undergrad as she played softball but they didn’t carry over into the masters program. And she definitely was not a sorority girl lol.


It is absolutely a profession I would never recommend to my daughter. I’ve been engraining the ideas of community college, places like Chick Fil A giving scholarships, and a career that makes financial sense.

But hers isn’t really any more expensive than say, a teacher. Like I said, someone has to do these jobs but the barriers are starting to get really really high. Some sort of intervention is needed or education will be a class thing, with only rich families kids being able to afford it.

Why should a waitress making $75,000 to $150,000 a year not have to pay taxes on her wages while a welder or an electrician making similar money, both have to pay full taxes on their wages. That's certainly not fair. No, no and heck no, on no taxes for tips and overtime.

As far as taxes go. I would never advocate for someone to pay more taxes. But this whole tip business is getting out of control. I'm a good tipper but it really pisses me off. Their pay should be dictated by their boss. Not me.

OT tax is ridiculous too. It really discourages folks from working more.
Dont even get me started on salary, its morphed into a bunch of BS and really is just used to screw folks out of money.
Plus the fact I see folks getting back 12,000 income tax checks who worked 3 days (or not at all) last year bout makes me blow a gasket.

More like a tiny drop of your rain landed in a big bucket, a bucket we also contribute to. It’s not like anyone asked you to bust out the checkbook.

It’s great you were able to afford to do so. Unfortunately while I was able to get my college mostly covered in grants and paid the rest myself, I’m not able to afford to contribute much to my daughter. I’m a single dad, the only contributing parent, with a 2023 mortgage interest rate. My income looks good on paper but teenage girls are expensive, homes are expensive, groceries are expensive. Even if she got a 50% ride I wouldn’t be able to cover the rest without loans because most of my income goes towards necessities and the roof over our heads.

But yeah, you were also the one who said you pay over 50% of taxes. So while your own high income is the result of your hard work, not everyone has or gets that chance. You worked really hard, and your daughters benefited. That’s great. I’m just saying all our daughters deserve a chance.

Exactly. And I resent the hell out of anyone thinking that money could be theirs for free. To answer the liberal's posing as conservatives questions. Me. I wouldn't take a penny of free anything if it was offered. Because I know someone somewhere worked their ass off for that money or someone somewhere will be saddled with that debt.

I was offered $10k to walk away from my first home before closing. I turned it down. I was offered $6k to annex into Helena, which would have screwed my entire neighborhood out of where they really wanted to annex into. I turned it down. The same fella that offered me $10k for my house built next door. He took that $6k when I didn't and he screwed every other neighbor on that street and he didn't think twice about it.

So, me. That's the answer to that hypothetical question. I don't believe in free. I've been working my entire adult life and much of my youth for every single thing I have. Never dreamed of not paying my debts. Never dreamed of getting anything for free.
So, to me, people playing that hypothetical game, are hypocrites, liars, cheats and without ethical or moral compass. They just seem to agree on a few issue that I have. Ultimately they show poor character and greed, just like so many other Americans.

So they can't fathom someone would stand up and say no to that question. It's pathetic and the halls of state and national legislatures are full of crooked spineless ass people just like that. Some of ya'll would fit right in.

Yes everyone is hung up on me “crying” about my already paid for education but my real hang up is with the salary part. Like I said, Biden had an order blocked by a Republican judge that would have gotten rid of the absolutely bullshit way companies pay a lot of non-managers by salary. It wasn’t it a total fix but it was a damn good start.

I would LOVE to be able to do some weekend work at my job and get extra money, but I can’t. And in my field, no one hires IT/Cyber on a “part time basis.” Plus, we often have non-compete clauses, and we have to disclose our other jobs. Even if I did IT in a completely non-related sector, my company could turn a big side eye to me moonlighting because I have so much access to things.

So I mean I could try to get a part time job at Harbor Freight or Home Depot or something but I’ll be making pennys on the dollar to my normal job. I could try to start a side business. But if I go buy a $30k stump grinder or excavator and try to do that stuff, which every Sam, Dick, and Harry is doing these days, I turned my desire for temporary extra income into a huge obligation.

You crazy. If the government pays me to not plant my fields, I’m gonna not plant them. If the government pays me to convert my land to CRP or WRP, I’m gonna do it. If the government says that people born in 1979 south of I-10 can get their house paid off, I’m gonna do it. You can call me whatever you want to I don’t give a flying flip man. No different than if a rich friend told me they were going to do those things for me in my book. I might not do it if it hurt my neighbor like you talked about, but any of those other deals… I’m in like Flynn.

I paid off a lot money on student loans that I chose to take out to go to school.
I pay a lot every year in taxes, that I have no choice over.
Screw a bunch of student loan forgiveness. You decide to take on a debt, pay it.

In case you haven't been following along, over 50%of my hard earned dollars gets stolen to paying taxes, you tell me what kind of break I get! And you don't have to have a degree to do that math!

Come on man. Surely you use the tax breaks that are available for farmers! Don’t run around the question chicken little. Answer it!

If you don’t use them you definitely need to fire your accountant.

I need to stop coming back to this thread. Every time I do I look at that check laying on my desk that has to be postmarked by the 15th and I want to puke.

Don’t puke. Hold it together man. God’s got ya.

Since the US government decided that a 17 year old that was 16 for over half the year is no longer a child, the only thing that helped my taxes was the 20k+ in mortgage interest paid over the last year. Which is nice for the taxes but no matter how you slice it, 20k+ of withheld taxes and 20k+ of mortgage interest is a big hurt feeling, that’s more than my income was just a few years ago.