Thank You, Anonymous Tumblrina! (College Tuition)

So, as is usual for the cause-heads of Tumblr, there's a post going around cheering for some Tweet from some jackoff who thinks Republicans oppose Obama's "free community college" giant cartload of horseshit empty symbolic gesture because, you know, they hate the poor.

After all, those rich folks, they're not paying their fair share.

I mean, they're paying 92.5% of all the taxes paid in this country, but fuck, why settle for 92.5% when they could just pay for everything and you can just have a free ride everywhere, right?

But at any rate, Free community college!

Yaaaaay!

After all, poor people should get to go to poor people college, right? But why should they get to go to real schools?

I'm pretty sure, at some point here, people will begin to take offense and defend the honor of their awesome community college.

And that's fine and good, but if you have any shreds of honesty you know good and goddamn well that if your community college is so awesome, it's a huge, glaring exception.

So, here's the thing that makes me burst into flames when I read something as goddamn ignorant as that Tumblr post, which Lovely Wife conveniently saved for me. (Fair warning: Lovely Wife is a fanfic writer. Learn to cope.) 

That is, we already pay for college. You, me, the pimply teenager at Burger King, all of us, pay taxes, and a goodly portion of that to the states we live in, whether as income tax or sales taxes. And guess what's publicly funded? State colleges.

So, University of Minnesota? University of Pennsylvania? Texas A&M, University of Texas, FSU... All of those are great schools, and they're also ALREADY TAX FUNDED.

It's not like there's a giant rich people conspiracy. There's a giant government which wants you firmly under their thumb. That's not - quite - the same thing, although boy are the government wonks trying to turn it into the same thing.

As a side note, that thing would be called a "hereditary aristocracy," and was a big part of what the Revolutionary War was all about, but who studies history? History is for squares, and, like, conservatives.

So.

The current apparatus is miserable. The public universities take taxpayer funds, and then charge astronomical tuitions, which the government will happily give the student funds for, provided the student is willing to enter perpetual debt peonage; the student then finds out that they also have to pay astronomical prices for textbooks "because publishing textbooks is really expensive" as opposed to, you know, how-to books on computer programming which are a dime a dozen in any bookstore and teach at least as much as a college course on computer programming.

At least that trend is starting to reverse itself with regard to the books; more and more schools are putting the textbooks up as a free download for the students, which is a step in the right direction.

But the question needs to be asked:

What,

Directly,

The FUCK,

Are Student Loans,

Even About?

I mean, I'd love to know.

Remember that these are schools funded by tax dollars. I'm not talking about private schools; private schools can charge astronomical tuitions if they really want to, and if your family can afford it, or you are willing to take on that kind of debt, awesome for you.

But public universities have no such justification.

There is no good reason - none whatsoever - that public, and publicly funded, universities should not be free to attend for residents, full stop.

Obama is making an empty symbolic gesture, by saying that he wants the worst schools in the country to be available for free. Yes! Give me the worst education I could have, for free, instead of the education I have been paying for all of my adult life through tax dollars and therefore should already receive for free, and I will cheer for you, because...

...Well...

"OMG FREE SHIT YAY!"

And then when someone points out that maybe instead of lustily tackling the shitty free thing, you should be going after the much better thing that you already also deserve for free...

...Well...

"WHY DON'T YOU LIKE FREE SHIT, YOU MUST HATE THE POOR!

...

SHITLORD!"

...Only because I find "shitlord" to be a hilarious insult and one so devoid of meaning or importance that the only reason I don't shoehorn it into conversation at work is because I'd get fired.

I guess what I'm getting at, O nameless Tumblrina, is that you're misdirecting your angst and concern for the poor against Republicans, when you should be aiming it at Obama, for trying to sell you a deliberately chosen shitty thing, instead of what you actually already earned.

But thanks for spurring me to write this.

Lovely Wife interjected, to warn me to add that we're not rich, because "they will accuse you of being rich."

"I don't give a fuck what some random Tumblrina thinks. If they don't read this blog, or yours, enough to know we're not rich, then they have no right to expect us to care about their opinions."

But since she mentioned that...

Hey, Nameless Tumblrina, you're gonna get another whole post tomorrow, just for you. I doubt Lovely Wife will link it, but just in case, I'll make sure I title it appropriately.