Conservative Dogma and the Student Loan Crisis

Excerpts from a John Stossel presentation denouncing student loan relief. These excerpted portions pull most if not all the registers of conservative dogma, as summarized in this essay.

Other talking points characteristic of such chatter include objections that student loan relief would not be fair to those who either paid off their student loans or did not go to college—there is at least a partial solution to that problem, discussed below. Beyond that, such flippant disregard for the welfare of others exemplifies the deracinated state of the American mind. The welder or carpenter who did not go to college feels no concern for the plight of others because there is no community—no Volksgemeinschaft. This lack of community is created by the absence of any bond or connection by common race, blood, or soil. Together these form the very hallmark of a low-trust society, a somewhat cliched term but one that conveys a core, critical concept nonetheless.

Much of the opposition stems from outright hostility to higher education generally if not categorically. To a certain, limited extent, some of that hostility and disdain for higher education is a reaction to the present state of higher education, in which English departments for example are no longer teaching Shakespeare or Milton, but are instead teaching “diverse” authors in an insidious bid to “deconstruct” the canon of Western literature. A large portion of such hostility nonetheless reveals a piggish anti-intellectualism and the crass philistinism that defines a large contingent of mainstream conservatism. Such overt philistinism would characterize much of mainstream conservatism even if universities were the bastion of erudition and culture they are supposed to be. Such abject philistinism—outright contempt for and aversion to matters of culture and the arts—are a critical factor behind the state of society and the Unkultur that envelops us all. When only the left cares about culture, the culture, or lack thereof, that we all suffer from is the result. This in no way should be interpreted as an endorsement of leftist pretensions of cultural superiority to their ideological adversaries. Leftist swine, particularly millennials and younger, are as incessant as they are insufferable in their constant references to an unending stream of cultural sewage, from Star Wars, to Marvel “cape shit” fare, and everything in between. Many even allude to such garbage with reverence, as if they were quoting Shakespeare or Goethe. That caveat notwithstanding, the strident philistinism that has defined many facets of mainstream conservatism is a critical flaw that has doomed the supposed culture war from the start.

This trademark philistinism only partly explains conservative dogma concerning the student loan crisis. While there are of course detractors among the American conservative establishment, mainstream, “normie” conservatives insist that those afflicted by the student loan crisis pay off the debts they agreed to, no matter how destructive such an insurmountable burden might be to their futures or quality of life, and without regard to the fact that many simply cannot given the inflated cost of tuition and what is available on the job market to many college graduates, some of whom admittedly are probably not fit for a truly collegiate, academic environment. There is a vindictiveness, a mean-spiritedness in much of the rhetoric. This vindictive rhetoric seems to take delight in young adults and even people in their thirties and forties being relegated to a perpetual state of impoverishment, only just a notch above destitution, with no prospect for any quality of life, let alone the ability to own a home or start a family.

Moreover, the conservative outrage about the idea of helping others makes no distinction between those who can reasonably pay back student loans and those who simply cannot. There is a fundamental distinction between a person who takes a ten-thousand-dollar debt but has a hundred thousand dollars or even the ability to pay it back versus someone who was lied to since infancy and winds up working at Starbucks or a manager at Pottery Barn after “playing by the rules and getting a college education,” and borrows tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand dollars or more to do so. Even worse, almost no figure in conservative punditry even so much as countenances reforming bankruptcy law2 to allow those who truly cannot pay back loans (absent a lifetime of indentured servitude) some sort of relief. One might even think such persons regret the reform and abolition of debtor’s prison.

That mean-spiritedness is properly attributed, at least in part, to the lack of cohesiveness in American society—and multicultural societies categorically. With no common blood, ancestry, history, or language that binds a common people together, by living in the various antithesis of Volksgemeinschaft, Americans, utterly deracinated and alienated from one another, have little reason to show compassion or concern for one another.

The most appalling aspect of the “normie” conservative opposition to student loan relief is that it punishes millions who have been defrauded by the institutions of higher education, as well as led astray by parents, teachers, and elders at large. The student loan fiasco is aided and facilitated by the federal government which guarantees these loans, removing any incentive to control or curb the rising cost of tuition. One would think that a group of people who hate a particular institution would want to make that particular institution pay for the harm it has imposed on many tens of millions of ordinary Americans. As stated, one suspects many of these people would hate universities even if they were teaching the canon and applying rigorous academic standards. Conservative dogma rarely yearns for a time when the University adhered to exacting academic standards and was a beacon for high Western, European culture. Instead, it often denigrates the humanities as akin to the fabled and ridiculous “degree in under-water basket weaving,” while also conflating disciplines like history and English literature with gender and critical race theory. And they do so categorically, meaning many conservatives would be no less contemptuous of an English major if English departments were raising the banner for the dead white males, for what Matthew Arnold called the greatest that has been uttered and written.

But therein, nestled in that very hostility and resentment to higher education, either in the abstract or as it currently exists, lies an elegant and compassionate solution to the problem. Many universities have billion-dollar endowments, attributable at least in part to the student loan scam. Most estimates tally the total combined worth of all endowments at $873 billion.3 This is pitted against some $1.77 trillion in student loan debt. A tax or levy on these endowments could of course never come close to covering all of this debt, nor is there any reason to propose that. The Pew Research Center indicates 25 percent of those with student loan debt struggle financially. The actual figure of those in legitimate need of debt relief likely varies from this figure (it could be higher or lower), but that 25 percent offers a nice benchmark of relief that ought to be targeted: $425 billion.

Rather than consign many millions of people to what is in effect indentured servitude, much of the student loan crisis could be addressed by levying a tax on these endowments and other revenue streams. This sort of reform could also address the objection that it is somehow unfair to persons who “did the right thing” and paid off these unconscionable student loans. At the very least, bankruptcy laws could be reformed so that student loan debt could be written off through the process of bankruptcy, particularly in conjunction with a tax or levy on the universities. Many of the more unflattering, standard conservative sort would not allow even that.

These considerations are compounded by how petty and pointless these diatribes are. “Let them eat cake” rejoinders such as “they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and “they borrowed the money, they can pay it back regardless of the hardships” are trotted out time and again by conservative shills who are often nothing less than mouthpieces of the donor class. But to what end does any of this dogma serve? While “principled” conservatives, many of them of the boomer generation, drone on about “personal responsibility,” the federal government has only continued to squander many trillions of dollars, as the national debt has gone from about 19 trillion to over 34 trillion. This explosion in deficit spending is most readily attributable to the absurd, hysterical reaction Covid in 2020 and beyond, to the money laundering scheme that has propped up Ukraine in a war that is of no concern to any nation but Russia and Ukraine, as that war has brought the world closer to nuclear oblivion in very frightening ways, surpassed only by the Cuban Missile Crisis and perhaps a couple moments of heightened tension between the USSR and the United States during the Reagan administration. And let us not forget these same conservative shills have no problem whatsoever with hundreds of billions in aid the United States has given Israel, to say nothing of how this government and society has enriched and empowered nefarious Jewish interest groups. These and other considerations reveal most if not all conservative punditry is beholden to moneyed, corporate interests with insidious, subversive designs.

Any Sensible Student Loan Reform Would Require Drastic, Even Unthinkable Education Reforms

Ultimately, much of the student loan crisis touches on other problems with our education system, not just in regards to higher education, but primary education as well. One of the reasons why a college education means much less than it used to is because much of American society has adopted the absurd proposition that college is for everyone. If the average IQ for whites is 100, and substantially less for blacks, between one and two standard deviations below, college curriculum accessible to anyone would have to be accessible to persons with that 100 IQ, less if one is truly committed to the splendors of diversity and inclusion. That is squarely incompatible with a rigorous academic environment. Could a politician or a political movement in a democracy, replete with cultural baggage in America that eschews elitism and embraces hyper egalitarianism, be able to convince the electorate that this must be done? This consideration only further persuades this author and hopefully many readers of this publication that, eventually, somehow, some way, democracy has to go.

Another problem, facilitated by this strong aversion to matters of culture, is how thoroughly infiltrated higher education is with Cultural Marxism. The number of professors, especially in the humanities, who are far-left is beyond overwhelming. This is why English departments no longer teach the canon, (which in turn explains in part why bachelor degrees in English literature have less appeal) as it also accounts for the rise and dominance of the descriptivist menace. A march through the institutions by a new, populist right seems improbable, particularly given the strong aversion to disdain many opposed to the left have for higher education—again, one suspects this aversion would be present even if universities were not as tainted as they are. This of course has been a critical, devastating error, ceding the institutions of culture and education to Cultural Marxism, as it explains precisely why and how large swathes of white persons have been indoctrinated by the cultural milieu formed by these institutions.

Lest there be any confusion on the matter, nothing set forth in this essay suggests that Biden’s failed plan of carte blanche student loan forgiveness should be endorsed. Student loan forgiveness should however be available for those who need it. But—absent drastic reform at all levels of education—student loan forgiveness, particularly on a large scale or universal basis, would not address many of the underlying problems with education that have created those conditions which gave rise to this crisis with student loan debt. If unconscionable student loan debt were somehow erased or paid off overnight, irrespective of what that might do to national debt that has long since gone beyond the point of no return, issues of inflation, and other ancillary issues, the problem would just continue as it has, perhaps even worsened by the “positive reinforcement” of paying off over a trillion in student loan debt absent consequences or reforms. In order to prevent the crisis from continuing after, there must be additional reforms of some of the underlying cultural and institutional problems that are foundational to the student loan crisis. The clear solution is to provide some measure of student loan relief—even if just by reforming bankruptcy law to render student loan debt eligible for bankruptcy discharge—combined with wide-reaching reforms that are at the root of the problem. Unfortunately, it is doubtful our democratic system is capable of or willing to implement such drastic reforms.

Many mainstream conservatives rightly decry the federal guarantee of student loans, which simply encourages schools to rubber stamp these loans in a way that simply does not occur anywhere else in lending. This is an essential reform, but does not go nearly far enough to correct the number of deficiencies and flaws in our education system, not just at the collegiate level but at all levels. If there were a genie in a bottle or a wand to be waved, here follows a short list of reforms that would prevent the student loan crisis from reoccurring. Many of these would not be possible in our current democratic system, but would require the strong-arm of authoritarianism, backed by populist, anti-democratic mandate, and enforced with the swift-carriage of strong-arm and jackboot!

Complete overhaul of the university and admission and academic standards as conceptualized in modern American life. College and university are not for everyone, and cannot be for everyone. A smaller pool of those eligible for college would allow the United States to move closer to the European model, where admission to college better demonstrates actual merit. If free universal college tuition is not possible, free tuition would be much more expansive than it is, as it should be.

This means educators at the primary school level as well as society overall must no longer encourage everyone to go to college. This would be complemented in turn by an even greater revival of trade schools, which is already taking place, but not nearly to the degree necessary to solve this problem going forward. There are of course countervailing considerations, such as how to make allowances for deserving late-bloomers, bright intelligent youth who come from broken or chaotic familial backgrounds and the like.

Closure and consolidation of lower-tier schools. Lower supply of students would lead to closure and consolidation of a great number of nominal colleges and universities, some of which are barely accredited. A lower supply of college graduates, with much greater quality, would restore demand for academic credentials, making college education mean something again.

Complete overhaul and transformation of primary education. One critical defect of higher education is that many high school graduates, even those who are admitted to the most elite colleges and universities, are deficient in aptitude for what should be standard for any entering freshman. Were it possible, American high school should be transformed to something akin to the German gymnasium, jettisoning both varsity athletics and an overall environment that is hardly academic at all.

Many cultural and sociological phenomena associated with American high school as an institution would also need to be addressed. The truth about American high schools, particularly in affluent suburban areas, is well known, so much so it has become a cornerstone of teenage themed movies, particularly in the 80s. Many of these same problems continue on in college, with binge drinking, hyper promiscuity, and worshipping the football and basketball team par for the course.

This, like many negative characteristics of American college life discussed below, would be exceedingly difficult to reform. Such phenomena in high school are, very much for the worse, a hallmark of American life, and are deeply embedded in American “culture” and the American consciousness.

End the university’s role as a bacchanal orgy and minor league for sportsball. Banish the American university’s role in what is in effect a quasi-professional farming system to “sportsball,” the NFL and NBA in particular. The degree to which American universities have prostituted themselves out, like shameless whores, to be the minor leagues to sportsball is a travesty. Moreover, this phenomenon perverts and taints college life, rendering it little more than an extension of suburban high schools, preoccupied with keggers, football, and hyper-promiscuity.4 The wanton debauchery that pervades the fraternity and sorority system warrants reforms in the Greek system5; alas, outright abolition of a system that has existed for a century or more would be nigh impossible.

Unfortunately, many of these aspects of college life are deeply embedded in what passes as American “culture,” better described and derided as American Unkultur. It would be exceedingly difficult to foster a political mandate sufficient to override these institutions so deeply embedded in the American consciousness.

Severe, drastic reforms of both teaching and academia. Make English Departments great again, make English teachers great again. The sheer numbers of subversive, ideologically corrupt teachers and professors would likely render this impossible, absent a sustained spending campaign by billionaires like Elon Musk in order to perfect a second “March Through the Institutions” as Cultural Marxists did after the United States imported the Frankfurt School upon rightful expulsion6 from Nazi Germany, seating Jewish “intellectuals” first at Columbia University, which then soon took over all of American academia. The alternative would be a purge of both higher education and the teaching profession at large, in way of large-scale firings, widespread revocation of teaching licenses, and other, far more drastic, but exciting measures. These and other ideas should be endorsed in theory, but presently have little realistic prospect of happening in the foreseeable future, at least for now. Beyond that, how would large contingents of the education profession, such as it is, be replaced and restaffed with persons not affiliated with leftist ideology?

Indeed, most if not all of these reforms would be impossible in our democratic system. If powerful lobbying interests would not prevent them, as lobbying is simply a euphemism for bribery, misguided American sentiment about equality and egalitarianism would make even the more modest reforms a tough sell in our current society and governmental system as they currently exist. One would hope that some sort of propaganda campaign could convince a critical mass of persons that, for a college education to have value, it cannot be for everyone and that something must be done about falling academic standards and the number of problems that pervade not just higher education but American education at large.

But while many of these reforms are just as fantastical as they are necessary, entrenched rhetoric about “personal responsibility” replete with chatter about “pulling one’s self up by his own bootstraps” under the pernicious shadow of Horatio Alger does nothing to solve these and many other problems that seem so intractable. Although some if not most of these proposals show no immediate prospect of success, at the very least the student loan crisis can be mitigated at least in part by these reforms that our current system and current form of government can reasonably implement:

• Levying a tax on institutions of higher education to recoup ill-gotten gains and help fund relief that may be in excess of 425 billion;
• Reform of bankruptcy law to allow for student loan forgiveness more readily;
• End or substantially curtail federal guarantees of student loans;
• Some modest measures that at least clean up academic standards in some measurable way, particularly in higher education but also in primary school. This means defunding and abolition of critical race and gender theory, doing something about college classes on comic books and other such things that conservative pundits enjoy harping on to impugn universities categorically. There would also need to be some sort of propaganda campaign dissuading society against the mad delirium that everyone should go to college.

Even these more modest reforms would require greater rejection of mainstream conservatism by those who oppose the left in a meaningful way. Ultimately, in the long-term, meaningful opposition to the left must supplant mainstream conservatism, as such opposition must come to embrace principles similar to those of Volksgemeinschaft and disabuse themselves of some of the more pernicious illusions stemming not just from misguided sentimentality about rugged individualism, but critical philosophical and intellectual errors about fundamental differences in abilities in individuals and groups in the collective. Stated more precisely, those opposed to the left must reject mainstream conservatism and many of its ineffectual trappings, embracing in its wake a far more potent movement in the guise of hard-right, reactionary populism.

Other articles and essays by Richard Parker are available at his publication, The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective, found at theravenscall.substack.com. Please consider subscribing on a free or paid basis, and to like and share as warranted. Readers can also find him on twitter, under the handle @astheravencalls.