Happy Tuesday! I'm sorry if I posted this picture before, I can't remember, I know I posted a few from this particular outing but I seemed to have misplaced a few of my image folders on my computer.  Of course I was expecting something to happen since I was making progress on my other issues, well as promised today is rant and or rave day and although it will be short it will be enough to piss you off, hopefully.  (Again, I'm taking my stats from a book written almost ten years ago so I am certain the numbers have only gone up on what I'm sharing at the end of this.
     Just recently Germany,with a democratically elected government very similar to ours (especially since the US set it up after Germany was divided in WW II) just made college education free to everyone, not just in there country, but any student , anywhere is free to go college in Germany, for well, free.  Now I stated their government is just like ours because their lawmakers are lobbied and such probably just like here in America yet somehow, they all agreed Education should be free.  Germany isn't the first country to do this either, there are now at least 9 European countries where a college education is absolutely free.  The way it is supposed to be, no one should be making a profit off of  something that should be free anyway! Of course as the Europeans are getting rid of student loans and tuition all together the cost to go to and complete college for the average American citizen continues to skyrocket, because as long as there is a way to make money your education will never be free, as a matter of fact with the outrageous costs of tuition now, and more and more people taking classes on-line, the number of student loans have tripled in the last ten years alone and as long as your saddled with those loans someone somewhere is making money and your credit begins to dwindle.  The average American student has to work for twenty years to pay off four years of school! Twenty years! So the student loans don't just keep you in debt they keep you working, which generates more tax dollars for the government.  Are you getting where I am going with this? I certainly hope so, doesn't it make you so frustrated to know that the real forward thinking, progressive, enlightened countries all over Europe who are realizing that humans, no matter what income class or race are entitled to certain freedoms, freedoms that we Americans will always have to pay for.? It should infuriate you all, especially knowing that our own lawmakers know what's going on in Europe and make no attempt to help us, the average citizen at all? It makes me sick to my stomach, anyhow here are some stats from ten years ago regarding student loans:
62% of college graduates aged 21-35 still have debt
39% said it would take 10 years or more to be debt free
43% used credit cards to pay tuition and one third are still in debt
53% say higher rates will have a "major impact" on their ability to pay
29% miss payments occasionally or regularly
44% say the debt made them delay buying a home
28% say it made them delay having a child
one third say the debt made them move in with their parents
one quarter had to postpone or cancel graduate school attendance
(Stats from Outrage, Morris/McGann, 2005)
As I said those are nearly ten years old, I'd probably be ripping my hair out if I saw the new numbers...............................PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!