This is not difficult. If you are a Millenial who goes or went to college and your parents aren’t rich, your life is dominated by debt from student loans.
If you haven’t gone to college, well, if it was free, you probably would.
Bernie wants to make college tuition free. Clinton does not.
(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing, and want more of it, please consider donating.)
There are other parts to it, of course. Bernie’s policies are just generally better for young people, but this is the core.
This is not hard to understand.
I also find it amusingly hypocritical that the majority of Boomers oppose free college tuition, given that most of them benefited from a system which was so cheap it was almost free.
RJMeyers
I’d also add that millennials probably have less fear of the “s” word than boomers since they (mostly) didn’t live during the Cold War and/or don’t remember it.
They’re also old enough to remember that there was a Clinton in office in the 90s, but not old enough to have experienced the benefits of the tech boom directly (not old enough to have jobs). To me, and a lot of people younger than me, Hillary is another dynasty, like Bush, and is perceived as more of the same. And “the same” has been a really, really shitty economy for young people since 2000.
Paul
I don’t think Boomers are being hypocritical. They are simply looking after their own interests, as they did when they took advantage of free education. As anyone would.
This is just divide and conquer again. Keeps us where we belong.
Bill H
“They are simply looking after their own interests,” which is not only the approved way of voting, but is highly recommended. Today’s political environment validates the saying that “united we stand, divided we fall,” as voters all concern themselves with self interest and care not about national interest.
Steeleweed
I’m pre-boomer (78)
My college ran about $2500/year, essentially free, even for those times.
I support Bernie.
V. Arnold
IMO, anybody falling for this election hype is delusional. Same bullshit, different year.
Just when are you going to learn?
IMO, never…
Peter*
It is ironic that many young Dims are getting so excited by this geezer and his mock Socialism. It probably has more to do with them feeling part of the exciting Game than any real analysis or issues, Bernie is quite vague about how he will Break up the Banks or Green Amerika.
Some of Bernie’s followers may start to resemble some of Trump’s followers when Black voters reject the Bern in upcoming primaries as was evident when the BLM women had the nerve to confront their White Moses.
Ian Welsh
“As anyone would”.
Like the adults who set up free college education even though they wouldn’t benefit?
Susan of Texas
“Amusingly hypocritical” would be a pretty good epitaph for the human race. We lied and deceived our way to our demise but at least we were good for a laugh.
I’m told electing Clinton is in our best interest. I’ll remember that when Monsanto sues us for harming its profits and is awarded the Midwest.
Katiebird
I’m a Boomer (and 2008 Hillary supporter) who is supporting Bernie for Medicare for Everyone. I cannot imagine voting for Never Ever Clinton.
RJMeyers
AlanSmithee:
Millennials are looking for a change, because the current course is screwing them over. Obama promised that but never delivered. Sanders is the next chance and has at least some chance of delivering. Don’t need to be smart/er, just continually desperate enough to vote for something better when it comes along.
Same rationale that Trump voters hold onto, only they’re a different demographic slice.
Hugh
Millennials have probably looked at their future and realized under the current status quo they don’t have one. While at their age we might expect them to be thinking about marriage, kids, a house, they have neither the income nor the stability for any of these in the gig economy. For them, the American dream is gone, done. Do they think that Social Security will be there for them? Of course not, look how it is even now receding from 65 to 70. Few of them think they will make it that far, but even if they do, it will be gone like everything they were ever promised in their lives.
Sanders is offering them a chance, and Clinton is offering them crumbs. Not real surprising whom they are choosing.
Jim Karger
Free? What is free? Nothing is free. Someone pays and “free” in this context means the taxpayer. No thanks.
Bernard
that anyone opposes free tuition for the investment in our students/children, our future? WTF. America as a unit is gone. Nothing but “I’ve got mine, go f yourself and your kids, too” . lol this selfishness, this endorsement of divide and conquer, has taken roots, and thrives in the unacknowledged unconsciousness here in America, along with the lies of whatever it takes to steal, rape and loot the earth and it’s peoples. astounding that greed has lately been “blessed” as good and unquestionable.
Talk about interesting times. When Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as “Society,” seems Americans are proving that here. There is only one Earth. As the Native Americans said, when all the trees and fish are gone, will you eat that green dollar bill?
we are so screwed. the “Lord of the Flies” environment, only the Strong/Elites survive
BlizzardOfOz
I think “free” education is fine in principle, but the there have to be cost controls along with it. That means scaling back administrator salaries, resort-style dorm facilities, etc, etc. It also should mean restricting access to the brightest students (uh-oh, dats raciss!). Otherwise, it’s just another “healthcare”-style racket: drive up the costs with waste and fraud to enrich the connected, then make it a “right”, then make it “free”, meaning shift the cost of the racket onto middle class taxpayers.
Is Bernie talking about reining in costs? Somehow I doubt it. Don’t forget, while he performs his last-honest-man routine — he was the deciding vote for Obamacare.
Van Varga
I’m a boomer. I went to university in New York State. It definitely wasn’t free and I had a regents scholarship. I worked my way through school, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. My daughter is a millenial. I guess I’ve radicalized her because she wouldn’t vote for any of the jokers on display–left, right, or middle. The real power structure makes them all irrelevant.
I respect your critical views, Ian, been reading your blog for a couple of years now but your boomer thing, your hate, is not useful, the analysis incomplete (because hate-blinded) and simply lends itself to divide and conquer.
subgenius
@Vav varga
Now explain how to make $50,000-100,000 while at school, or you are talking bollox…
Hugh
It is all and always about the society you want for yourself and for both the people like you and the people not like you. After that, it is just a question of shifting our resources around to make it happen and keep it going. Education, and I don’t just mean university education, enriches and strengthens both the individual and our society.
We have been conditioned to equate free with undeserved. And we have been taught that paid for work is inherently superior to unpaid work even when we have whole classes of examples all around us of people being paid for work which is destructive to and of our society and others who work unpaid and without whom our society would cease to function.
So we should be very careful in our judgments of what is free and what is not, and what is deserved and what is not. We have been encouraged to forget that we have made commitments to each other that form the foundation of our society. Remembered or not, these are real and sacred. They are not free and require real work and sacrifice from us. And because of them, we are all deserving, and merit those basics which make for a decent and meaningful life.
Mary McCurnin
Money is a concept. Broccoli is real. Labor is real. Money is paper or cheap metal. The “value” of money is determined by the people with the most of it. They want nothing to be free, particularly education. Education inspires awareness. Awareness inspires political and cultural change. I don’t know if Bernie is the answer but Hillary certainly is not.
My only concern about the free education is the people who came before it who owe thousands of dollars. Many owe as much as the cost of a house.
Van Varga
@subgenius
I went to a state university. Google tells me average cost of a state school these days is anywhere from $23,000 to $32,000. 50,000 2016 dollars translates to 7,166.26 1968 dollars.
I worked 24 hours a week as an ICU/emergency room orderly at Albany medical center 24 hours a week during the school year and full time for three summer months at $3.25 per hour. You do the math.
I maintained a 3.87 (out of 4) average which entitled me to a regents scholarship. I got out with a bachelor degree in chemistry and money in the bank. I didn’t talk bollox then and I don’t now, but I notice you are quick with the deprecating comments.
S Brennan
Being a late boomer who graduated university in ’90, unable to consolidate my debt, I paid all my loans, 450+/month, while making 27K and it made my life miserable for six years. BTW, the GI bill did the heavy lifting, but that was a six year commitment.
College debt should not be odious, but it should not be free, anything “free”, take trade for example, is abused, as the early boomers most surely did.
As a modern day point of reference, before Obamacare I paid $425.00/month for gold healthcare Insr, now $867.00/month for “bronze” which is little better than catastrophic. I support expanding Medicare downward and although long past 50 yo, that’s where it needs to get to, as younger folks will find out when they start paying for their own.
Spinoza
Radical mass movements + electoral politics = progress
Nothing less will count. Without one you can’t get the result.
Generational analysis and politics are slippery. There are too many variables. Sometimes there are moments or periods that really do shape the consciousness of those present to experience them, such as the Civil war and emancipation, the Great Depression, 9/11 etc. but it shapes everyone at all ages rather than just one cohort. The socioeconomic and caste status of folks are an easier and more empirical metric for analysis.
And I can’t resist feeding the troll but is it really ALL about caste with you Mr. ofOz? Your ancestors came down from the tress like the rest of us.
Spinoza
Ah damn, should have said “race” in my little morsel to the troll.
V. Arnold
Van Varga
February 4, 2016
My daughter is a millenial. I guess I’ve radicalized her because she wouldn’t vote for any of the jokers on display–left, right, or middle.
Obviously you did a splendid job; congrats.
Bernard
February 4, 2016
Well said and spot on…
Bill H
“Nothing is free. Someone pays and “free” in this context means the taxpayer. No thanks.”
Some time ago there was a movement in our HOA to cancel our master insurance policy and have each of the 145 homeowners purchase individual policies, the reason being to “save money for the association.” Saner heads were finally able to point out that “the association” is actually the same thing as the individual homeowners, since the money comes out of the same pockets, and that one master policy is vastly less expensive that 145 individual policies.
That which can be done collectively is less expensive than that which is treated as an individual expense. That’s why single payer health care would be so much less costly than what we are doing now. That’s why we have city fire departments, municipal water distribution and government garbage pickup. Government funded education is less costly than individually paid.
Together we stand, divided we fall.
John Poynton
People will always vote for 2+2=5. Here’s an alternative way to make the sums add up https://jepoynton.com/2015/02/25/funding-the-nhs-and-other-public-services.
subgenius
@ van varga
That was then, this is now.
I asked about now.
24 hours a week makes you around $240 a week, these days.
A little shy of the $20,000+ needed just for fees…
Jerome Armstrong
There are places and states where it works just fine, New Mexico. But its all state to state. Some states have become so bloated administratively, some have went on building binges, in others it could work, just depends. I don’t see how the federal gov’t could come up with a solution, short of taking it out of the pentagon’s hide.
Anyway, I think this is pretty right on about the single-issue bullet. Bernie will tell you what you want to hear.
Brad Epstein
“If you are a Millenial who goes or went to college and your parents aren’t rich, your life is dominated by debt from student loans.”
As a recent millennial-college grad, I completely agree. However, that is why students should be encouraged to major in economically-useful subjects. I could have followed my passion for history but Electrical Engineering was just as though provoking and actually pays the bills.
I still shake my head when I talk to fresh graduates who majored in the liberal arts and can’t find a job. If you’re going for something like English, why in the world aren’t you a teacher? You go headlong into debt for your passion and end up working at a call center for $12 an hour.
If you lack the necessary motivation and proper planning from the start, I don’t know how making it tuition-free is going to change such habits. It will still be a waste when they get out just as it was when they actually paid for it.