MSU- Mississippi related. Closing the Federal Department of Education

[mstateglfr]

This is a big question. The federal govt taking full control of FSA under the Obama admin is what has created the cost of college to go up by 200% since they took it over. And eventually led to student loan cancellation processes. Im not sure how this plays out, but when the Feds are in full control of anything, it always gets exploited, just as the FSA has. I have one starting college next fall and it is a total cluster 17

Eh...from what I can tell, there is a good bit of correlation=/causation with this narrative.
Yes, college costs have increased since Department of Education took over control of Student Aid. That is absolutely correct. But other things have happened in that time which also impact higher education costs.

Some realities-
- FFEL loans ended, in part, to ensure SLABS wouldnt be the next thing to cause mass chaos in our economy after the low-quality Mortgage Backed Securities disaster of '08.
- Many states have continually underfunded their state university systems since 2008, pushing more costs onto students.
- Analysis has shown loans since '08 have been handed out at lower interest rates than they otherwise would have been handed out(private funds), which has saved countless students and young adults money.
- The actual total cost hasnt increased. Hot take? Well there is data to at least support the argument.


Personally, I think student loans should be capped at a per hour or per class amount. Perhaps some categories of majors would allow for more student loans than other categories of majors, and that would be based on demand or potential career earnings for various majors.
Details aside, the idea would be to cap student aid and force schools to adjust or push students to schools that are more affordable.
There are obvious issues with that proposal too though.

I have one that will start college next year too. Just applied for half her schools last night actually, and the others hopefully will be done on Thursday. I dont know what you feel is 'a total cluster 17'. There are a lot of financial unknowns right now since FAFSA hasnt been released, but assuming that happens in a month as planned, we will fill out the form and schools she applied to will then be able to come up with financial incentive plans.
Again, lots of unknowns, but it hasnt seemed like a cluster 17 yet since there hasnt been anything financial/loan related to have to sort thru.

 

[Podgy]

There's no doubt that the education bureaucracy is massive. Part of that is the nature of bureaucracies, they grow and benefit people in bureaucracies along with federal and state mandates. Most of the increased spending over the past couple of decades in K-12 education hasn't gone to teachers but to bureaucrats. And being a bureaucrat is a nice gig. It pays well and has good benefits. I have my doubts about bureaucrats improving reading and math scores.

 

[8dog]

Found this quote.

“We absolutely need to shift the administration of federal dollars to the states”- Anonymous Former NFL QB

 

[johnson86-1]

Maybe because of how they pick and choose who to target. You’ve obviously never had to deal with the idiots there. Post-Covid it is an even more ridiculous endeavor.
They are notorious for also going after the less affluent because those are the people who give in to their demands instead of fighting back with accountants and lawyers who actually are intelligent and know the tax laws.

They go after low income people because head of household and the EITC are some of the most heavily abused code items and it's usually relatively easy to prove the abuse and with so many people willing to claim those improperly, you need a high audit rate to make fraud less attractive.

Your experience with the IRS is going to be heavily dependent on what agent you deal with and what office they come out of. My experiences with them have been that for a government agency, they are fine as far as competence. Not sure they're any worse than any other federal agency with regulatory powers as far as having become partisan, but need to make an extra effort to stamp that out because it probably is more corrosive to have them politicized than even other agencies with significant enforcement hammers.

 

[stateu1]

They go after low income people because head of household and the EITC are some of the most heavily abused code items and it's usually relatively easy to prove the abuse and with so many people willing to claim those improperly, you need a high audit rate to make fraud less attractive.

Your experience with the IRS is going to be heavily dependent on what agent you deal with and what office they come out of. My experiences with them have been that for a government agency, they are fine as far as competence. Not sure they're any worse than any other federal agency with regulatory powers as far as having become partisan, but need to make an extra effort to stamp that out because it probably is more corrosive to have them politicized than even other agencies with significant enforcement hammers.

As someone who deals with the IRS regularly, let me tell you that IRS agents and the service as a whole are completely incompetent.

 

[johnson86-1]

As someone who deals with the IRS regularly, let me tell you that IRS agents and the service as a whole are completely incompetent.

Fair enough. I've had pretty limited interactions with them on non-complicated issues but to their credit, unlike some government entities, they were at least able to take care of the non-complicated issues and they acted like decent human beings while doing so rather than members of the Stasi.

But I definitely haven't had anywhere near enough interaction with them to judge them as a whole.

 

[johnson86-1]

Eh...from what I can tell, there is a good bit of correlation=/causation with this narrative.
Yes, college costs have increased since Department of Education took over control of Student Aid. That is absolutely correct. But other things have happened in that time which also impact higher education costs.

Other things have happened, but probably the biggest impact has been the government subsidizing demand both by issuing guaranteed loans with no underwriting and also by making it legally risky to use tests to identify good applicants but legally safe to use degrees as a proxy. In reality we somehow managed to screw over a bunch of college attendees that took on debt, while also screwing people that didn't attend by saddling them with costs of unpaid or forgiven student loans. Basically no winners except for college administrators and to a lesser extent, professors.

Some realities-
- FFEL loans ended, in part, to ensure SLABS wouldnt be the next thing to cause mass chaos in our economy after the low-quality Mortgage Backed Securities disaster of '08.
- Many states have continually underfunded their state university systems since 2008, pushing more costs onto students.

I would say having the people that get the benefit pay is not underfunding it. Funding has gone up generally. The number of students has gone up as much or more.

- Analysis has shown loans since '08 have been handed out at lower interest rates than they otherwise would have been handed out(private funds), which has saved countless students and young adults money.

And costs taxpayers money. Not sure that would be a bad tradeoff generally if it werent' for the upward pressure it puts on tuition. But just pointing out that it's not "free".

- The actual total cost hasnt increased. Hot take? Well there is data to at least support the argument.


Personally, I think student loans should be capped at a per hour or per class amount. Perhaps some categories of majors would allow for more student loans than other categories of majors, and that would be based on demand or potential career earnings for various majors.
Details aside, the idea would be to cap student aid and force schools to adjust or push students to schools that are more affordable.
There are obvious issues with that proposal too though.

There really aren't obvious issues with that proposal other than some schools that have really been hammering students and their belief that they didn't need to do a cost benefit analysis on college costs will have to further improve their value proposition.

Student loans should have been capped a long time ago. If they had been capped and not allowed to grow faster than inflation when they were originally issued, college costs would have miraculously stayed close to inline with inflation.

 

[Howiefeltersnstch]

Again, sarcasm. Like earlier when I said Arkansas scored a million points on us and had 6000 yards of offense. I'll do better by putting sarcasterisks on my sarcastic comments.

You have to use sarcasterisks with about 3 or 4 posters here. They don't understand sarcasm or typical humor. Probly engineers or overly educated folks with zero common sense.

 

[Seinfeld]

Question for those of you that follow this stuff more closely than I do

What is driving the GOP’s sudden push for this? My guess has been that the left’s recent push to cancel loan debt has fanned the flames, but maybe this is something that’s on the agenda for a long time, and I didn’t realize it

 

[mstateglfr]

Question for those of you that follow this stuff more closely than I do

What is driving the GOP’s sudden push for this? My guess has been that the left’s recent push to cancel loan debt has fanned the flames, but maybe this is something that’s on the agenda for a long time, and I didn’t realize it

Dept of Ed has been a thorn in the side of many on the Right for a long time.. But even then, it was more of a passion issue for a small amount overall.

Recent Title9 changes definitely increased support on the Right for burning the Dept of Ed down.

Then you have antiwoke daarling Musk pushing for massive Fed spending cuts thru his supposed created DOGE position in the upcoming Administration.



Add that all up and here we are.

 

[bolddogge]

Question for those of you that follow this stuff more closely than I do

What is driving the GOP’s sudden push for this? My guess has been that the left’s recent push to cancel loan debt has fanned the flames, but maybe this is something that’s on the agenda for a long time, and I didn’t realize it

I'm no expert when it comes to this, but if I had to guess it would be related to the promotion of the left's positions regarding gender, DEI, etc. and not enough of an emphasis on teaching history, math and science.

 

[johnson86-1]

Question for those of you that follow this stuff more closely than I do

What is driving the GOP’s sudden push for this? My guess has been that the left’s recent push to cancel loan debt has fanned the flames, but maybe this is something that’s on the agenda for a long time, and I didn’t realize it

I don't know that there really is a push beyond what is normally out there.
- Portions of the right have long recognized that education shouldn't be dictated at the federal level. Tons of compliance costs are driven by federal regulations that while they may be good intentioned and are occasionally helpful, are no where near cost efficient. It also pushes conformity in schools across the country, which is not a good thing when you are generally pushing schools in the wrong direction.

- Portions of the right concerned either about federal over reach, or fiscal responsibility, have long recognized you have to actually eliminate programs if you want any meaningful corrections, as trimming them just ensures that they bounce back at higher levels of over reach and/or spending when administrations change.

I think people are calling for the same things they always called for, but calling for them more vocally because the party aligned with them is actually in power across the executive and legislative branch. Discussion calls to eliminate the Department of Education gives grabbier headline than discussing positions like, "Let's pull back some over reach and leave the states more discretion in how they operate their educational systems, but since we're already taking the tax money in, let's still give the states access to it rather than forcing them to quickly put a state level funding in place." So it suddenly seems like the calls to eliminate the department of education are more common than they are.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Get the federal government out of our military, social security and Medicare. No more subsidies for farmers. OSHA rules need to go along with FEMA. Individual states can handle all of that. The Morrill Act that created land grant colleges ruined higher ed. The federal govt provides about 47% of state revenue for MS. Get rid of that nonsense.

FEMA and Social Security are not good examples for pro big Government …. We would all retire as Millionaires if the Social Security we paid in was put in a stock index fund. FEMA, what a joke. Post Office - let UPS, Amazon, Fed Ex bid on who brings us junk mail. College is not for everyone, if you want to go to College but can’t afford it , two years of active Military service and then Uncle Sam can pay. Those Sweet Tater Farmers will need someone to plant slips and dig taters after Trump deports the illegals.

 

[johnson86-1]

FEMA and Social Security are not good examples for pro big Government …. We would all retire as Millionaires if the Social Security we paid in was put in a stock index fund. FEMA, what a joke. Post Office - let UPS, Amazon, Fed Ex bid on who brings us junk mail. College is not for everyone, if you want to go to College but can’t afford it , two years of active Military service and then Uncle Sam can pay. Those Sweet Tater Farmers will need someone to plant slips and dig taters after Trump deports the illegals.

You can bash FEMA and the Post Office and whatever other federal agencies for their inefficiencies, but at the end of the day, they are the only ones standing between us and butter products that don't have labeling telling us it may contain milk...



ETA: I didn't check into this story. I acted like a journalist and decided it is "too good to check".

 

[WilCoDawg]

Fair enough. I've had pretty limited interactions with them on non-complicated issues but to their credit, unlike some government entities, they were at least able to take care of the non-complicated issues and they acted like decent human beings while doing so rather than members of the Stasi.

But I definitely haven't had anywhere near enough interaction with them to judge them as a whole.

My last interaction provided no satisfactory service whatsoever. There was no one person to talk to and they kept sending letters threatening severe punishments all while telling me to wait until an agent looked over the paperwork (which my accountant had assured me was properly filed and should be an easy “oops, you’re right, no foul” once an actual (knowledgeable) agent looked at it. They were years behind reviewing due to Covid and they kept sending the letters freaking us out.
So my last interaction was less than enjoyable, especially after sitting on the phone literally for hours trying to actually speak live with an agent.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

This would return $80 Billion per year back to the states for Education. What are the Pro’s and Con’s?

Easy answer for a Con: No one will trust the Mississippi Miracle when it comes to K-12 education.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

 

[Howiefeltersnstch]

Anybody that bothers to do 5 minutes worth of research would come to the conclusion that the DOE has made zero improvements to the education of this country. Any form of ranking you can look into has gone down. It's an obvious boondoggle which is mostly funded by the states but then ran by the Feds. We spend a ton of money to put kids thru 12 years of high school and they still can't read or do simple math. A cluster17.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

View attachment 690293

 

[BulldogBlitz]

Fair enough. I've had pretty limited interactions with them on non-complicated issues but to their credit, unlike some government entities, they were at least able to take care of the non-complicated issues and they acted like decent human beings while doing so rather than members of the Stasi.

But I definitely haven't had anywhere near enough interaction with them to judge them as a whole.

You were very fortunate.

 

[paindonthurt17]

Ever since it became a part of the Cabinet (under Jimmy Carter) Education in the US went from #1 in the world to 30-something (currently)

our government has FAILED our kids. And teachers unions and rogue school boards are big problems.

Department of education is basically useless

 

[paindonthurt17]

I never understood the hatred of the IRS, you realize they don’t make the tax rules right? Getting mad at the IRS because of the taxes you owe is like getting mad at the cashier at Walmart because of the price of milk.

Except part of the irs was weaponized against certain groups and people

also considering we don’t need half of it

I can do differential equations, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics but I can’t do my own taxes. 17ing STUPID

 

[paindonthurt17]

Get the federal government out of our military, social security and Medicare. No more subsidies for farmers. OSHA rules need to go along with FEMA. Individual states can handle all of that. The Morrill Act that created land grant colleges ruined higher ed. The federal govt provides about 47% of state revenue for MS. Get rid of that nonsense.

Well let’s get rid of federal taxes and increase state tax by 3.5 factor.

that’s an additional $6 billion in state tax revenue
Sales tax would definitely go up bc people would have more money to spend

 

[mcdawg22]

Anybody that bothers to do 5 minutes worth of research would come to the conclusion that the DOE has made zero improvements to the education of this country. Any form of ranking you can look into has gone down. It's an obvious boondoggle which is mostly funded by the states but then ran by the Feds. We spend a ton of money to put kids thru 12 years of high school and they still can't read or do simple math. A cluster17.

Who did we fall to? If you look at countries that are ahead of us, most of them have national depts of education as well and spend a higher percentage of their GDP on them. Also has anyone bothered to look at what the highest expenses for the DOE are? Do me a favor and report back.

 

[mcdawg22]

Except part of the irs was weaponized against certain groups and people

also considering we don’t need half of it

I can do differential equations, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics but I can’t do my own taxes. 17ing STUPID

How were they weaponized against certain groups?
I do my taxes. Even so, if the taxes are too complicated it isn’t because of the IRS. They don’t make the tax codes, Congress does.

 

[tired]

Nothing, and I mean nothing. Is EVER better after being left up to Mississippi.

Dr Evans is better than anyone the feds have.

 

[RockyDog]

Get the federal government out of our military, social security and Medicare. No more subsidies for farmers. OSHA rules need to go along with FEMA. Individual states can handle all of that. The Morrill Act that created land grant colleges ruined higher ed. The federal govt provides about 47% of state revenue for MS. Get rid of that nonsense.

Mississippi government positions pay on average about 30% less than the private sector. College graduates do NOT want to work for MS state government. Many agencies can’t even get applicants at on campus job fairs. Your governor and legislature do all they can to not pay said employees a living wage. Turnover is at an all time high. Retention is at an all time low.

Who the hell exactly do you think is going to handle the load when you say “individual states can handle all of that”.

 

[PhredPhantom]

I never understood the hatred of the IRS, you realize they don’t make the tax rules right? Getting mad at the IRS because of the taxes you owe is like getting mad at the cashier at Walmart because of the price of milk.

I just wish other government agencies and their employees would work as diligently as the IRS does at extracting money from citizens. The powers they wield to go after people and their money are virtually unlimited. It almost seems like they work on commissions. They are ruthless.

 

[mstateglfr]

I just wish other government agencies and their employees would work as diligently as the IRS does at extracting money from citizens. The powers they wield to go after people and their money are virtually unlimited. It almost seems like they work on commissions. They are ruthless.

Who are you referring to when you say 'their'?

 

[QuaoarsKing]

I just wish other government agencies and their employees would work as diligently as the IRS does at extracting money from citizens. The powers they wield to go after people and their money are virtually unlimited. It almost seems like they work on commissions. They are ruthless.

Apparently not, as estimates show they leave a $trillion or more on the table every year from not being able to nail all the tax cheaters (aka people stealing from their fellow Americans).

 

[PhredPhantom]

Who are you referring to when you say 'their'?

The taxpayers.

The government just thinks it’s the government’s money. It’s taken under threat of arrest/imprisonment by men with guns.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

Yes but I also feel like Elon is about to get entangled because he has government contracts but then he will be sitting a the table where decisions are made that directly effect his contracts. That's technically against the law. Elon would be best served to not be on the government side as that would open him up to a lot of litigation against him and his companies

 

[leeinator]

Closing of the DOE, will likely be as successful as boiling the wall in his first term.

The Wall build went pretty well considering all the obstacles and lawsuits the Donkeys threw at him at every turn (including Russia, Russia Russia hoax). Think he built almost 250 miles of new wall and fixed a lot of existing inadequate sections. Should be able to finish it this time since the GOP swept all 3 sections of government.

 

[leeinator]

There's no chance DOE is eliminated

Not sure I would bet against Vivek and Elon. Those 2 are gonna do some real big thangs! Elon just downsized Twitter and now runs it with one-tenth of the personnel. The DOE is not needed at all. Let the states run their own education at local levels.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

This chart tho…

 

[stateu1]

My last interaction provided no satisfactory service whatsoever. There was no one person to talk to and they kept sending letters threatening severe punishments all while telling me to wait until an agent looked over the paperwork (which my accountant had assured me was properly filed and should be an easy “oops, you’re right, no foul” once an actual (knowledgeable) agent looked at it. They were years behind reviewing due to Covid and they kept sending the letters freaking us out.
So my last interaction was less than enjoyable, especially after sitting on the phone literally for hours trying to actually speak live with an agent.

This is the norm.

 

[DawgBoneSlam]

My fellow Missisipan’s goodness sometimes I must say. A lot of you here seem to want federal power out and/or fiscal responsibility. Be careful what you wish for with this new Trump term. You may just find some of these services were actually useful. IRS, federal & state have to have their money for us to be a proper United States. Otherwise we are just a landmass in which every state is its own foreign sovereignty. For our country to be fiscally responsible again, it means less spending & our future generations for a time will not have it as good as us. Let’s move past that, back on topic.

DOE going away on Mississippi will mean this. The DOE provides funding for Title schools, grants & financial aide. This means special education students & low income families will really get left behind. So you know lol maybe they can go pray about it? Oh well, time for you to drop out of school to get a job or the military. Your kid has special needs? Go fish. Sorry, IED is gone & those teachers don’t have jobs anymore that were willing to teach them because of the funding is no more to the areas that relied on it.

No more financial aid for kids wanting to go to college but can’t afford to without a student loan. Some of the grants that would be eliminated - Pell grants, Migrant Education, Emergency Impact Aid, Homeless Education.

Our state it self through 2022-23’ had 6k+ kids that counted & depended on this funding as it gave a lot of them food for 5 days a week. Among other social interactions etc. oh no no, the chances of these kids escaping that hard home family life & possibly never escaping poverty will shoot up. I just wonder, is saving all this money worth it? So low income kids possibly fall through the cracks? Oh I think we are about to find out!

 

[HulksStache]

I never understood the hatred of the IRS, you realize they don’t make the tax rules right? Getting mad at the IRS because of the taxes you owe is like getting mad at the cashier at Walmart because of the price of milk.

^^^^ works for the IRS^^^^

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I just wonder, is saving all this money worth it?

Of course not, because it's just going to get spent elsewhere - where the Republicans want it spent.

And it won't end well anywhere, because a good bit of this federal spending is pacifying many people, who, if not for that, would be roaming around the Republicans' neighborhoods looking to eat.

The hypocrisy of the dollaritis-consumed conservative hivemind is alarming. "muh accountmabiluteee", muh drainz sWaMp". Garbage in, garbage out, shlt ain't getting any better.

That said, Trump is probably not going to do any of this stupidity that is getting thrown around.

 

[WilCoDawg]

My fellow Missisipan’s goodness sometimes I must say. A lot of you here seem to want federal power out and/or fiscal responsibility. Be careful what you wish for with this new Trump term. You may just find some of these services were actually useful. IRS, federal & state have to have their money for us to be a proper United States. Otherwise we are just a landmass in which every state is its own foreign sovereignty. For our country to be fiscally responsible again, it means less spending & our future generations for a time will not have it as good as us. Let’s move past that, back on topic.

DOE going away on Mississippi will mean this. The DOE provides funding for Title schools, grants & financial aide. This means special education students & low income families will really get left behind. So you know lol maybe they can go pray about it? Oh well, time for you to drop out of school to get a job or the military. Your kid has special needs? Go fish. Sorry, IED is gone & those teachers don’t have jobs anymore that were willing to teach them because of the funding is no more to the areas that relied on it.

No more financial aid for kids wanting to go to college but can’t afford to without a student loan. Some of the grants that would be eliminated - Pell grants, Migrant Education, Emergency Impact Aid, Homeless Education.

Our state it self through 2022-23’ had 6k+ kids that counted & depended on this funding as it gave a lot of them food for 5 days a week. Among other social interactions etc. oh no no, the chances of these kids escaping that hard home family life & possibly never escaping poverty will shoot up. I just wonder, is saving all this money worth it? So low income kids possibly fall through the cracks? Oh I think we are about to find out!

I couldn’t bother to focus on your message given the amount of improper grammar/misspellings. I guess you’re a product of that wonderful DOE system. Prior to the creation of the DOE, the US was #1 in the world in education. Look up where we are now. Look up our results per dollar spent on a kid.

Regardless, the DOE isn’t going anywhere. He may put the wheels in motion but it’ll never come to fruition.

Now, as far as the IRS, the IRS can’t absolutely be abolished and a more simple and equal tax code put in place. But the über-riche people in power and their buddies love this system with loopholes that they get to exploit while leaving the rest of us to suffer through. I’m not sure why this is so hard for people to understand.