Apparently someone in New Jersey is considered a "local voice."

I guess the follow-up questions should be: Is the college graduate going to have a job after the taxpayers front the $100,000? Is the investment worth it if they just end up running a cash register at McDonald's, with a degree in modern art?

If society at large and the business community in particular would do two things, it would help:

1) Stop blaming lower-wage workers for their own plight in that they are not 'educated' enough.

2) Stop requiring a college degree for advancement to certain positions that an intelligent person can fill admirably. In other words, do away with the glass ceiling for management.

It would also be nice if education weren't so expensive for those technical degrees that we need to compete with the rest of the world. Should those opportunities be limited to only those students whose parents have the financial means to either send them to school or lend them the money for it?

If I had decided to major in art at Camden County Community College, I would want someone else to pay for it too. After all, how could I afford to live with THAT decision?

Randy,

Then government should pay for our business expenses. If some kid wants to risk our money on a major in art that will take him nowhere, then the kid who wants to have government pay for him to start a hotdog stand deserves to have the government pay for that too. Both involve risks and are investments in their future.

The only fair thing to do is have people take the responsibility for the risk upon themselves. The truth is that most people do not actually go into and stay in the field that they studied in undergraduate school. They must accept responsibility for that investment.

I think the point was that Romney is so out of touch that he didn't quite realize that borrowing money from parents was not an option for so many of us. He went to school and he succeeded in business, so why not all the rest of us?

Well, we're not all Governor's sons, y'know?

I think Romney's point was that you do have options.

Randy: The way FAFSA works, parents are required to file. If they have no means to pay cash for tuition, they are offered a Federal loan. If the parents are unqualified for a loan, then the kid is given the loan.
Unless you are a minority, there is no financial aide for families earning in excess of $40,000/ year. Unless your kid makes the Dean's list, then maybe they get a $1000 grant from the school.
Romney telling kids to go to college and 'borrow money from your parents if you have to' is not bad advise. Not everyone will get a free ride at Columbia because they are Kenyan.

Fewer options if funding for Pell grants is cut and the rates on federal education loans are raised. And wasn't that what the original remarks were about?

Who is seeking to cut pell grants and raise interest rates on federal education loans?

You do realize that Obama vetoed a republican bill that would have kept the low interest rates, don't you?

Randy: I wasn't offered a Pell grant. I would like to know what the qualifications for the grant are. One would think financial hardship should make a person qualify, but I think there is a special set of criteria based on one's disclosure of race. My ethnicity should not be a factor in any financial aide. People should refuse to answer that question based on the fact that we are all created equal.

More acceptable?

Apparently someone put Fred in charge of deciding what's acceptable in the comments section.

Fred: So what you are saying is it is bad to spend your own money on educating your child, but it is good for the Government to spend everyone's money to do so?
Why not just give everyone a free ride in life too? Allow everyone to stay home and not work and put the obligation on Govt to take care of us all!
Give all of us a free cell plan, a meal ticket, pay our rent and utilities, and pay for our education. Why would anyone go to school to better themself, if there is nothing to gain from it?
I wonder how long that will work.

We can pay more for both education if we stop having to pay for every other thing in so many's lives. More than Half of All Federal Spending Will Be on Entitlement Programs in 2012, 62%. Defense is 19%.

Didn't you claim you were Dutch and not a US citizen? If so, who is the "we" you're talking about?

Fred, What percentage of the federal budget should be spent on defense?

The primary purpose of federal government was to:

1. Defend the shores

2. Establish a system of currency

3. Deliver the mail

4. Protect individual rights

Nothing there about free stuff!

All the letters in FREE are found in the word FEDERAL,Greg. Just a little redistribution,and then, like magic, you have a couple 'extra' (free) letters to hand out after you re-spell it out.

FEDERAL creates value by making it FREE !!

I'm still working out how to find STUFF, maybe Congress could help.

Well Fred, keep 'hoping' and see how well that works out for you.
I have been hoping for four years.
I see a system full of beurocratic red tape. The Federal Application For Student Financial Aid is a classic example. Pell grants should be eliminated if they are dispersed in a prejudicial format. Single mothers get financial assistance that is stunning- the aid is more than her tuition in many cases! Yet the poor girl who didn't get knocked up is penalized because she has the brains to say no ?
This is effed up beyond recognition.
I don't know how they do things in your home land, but I would bet there is not preferences given to those who have made more mistakes in life.

But you can't vote so, really, you have no say in the matter. Likewise, you've got a fallback position in the event the country votes the way you want them to and everything goes to crap as a result of doing so. You can go back home.

If others want to take you seriously, that's their prerogative.

It doesn't matter what you say you would or wouldn't do, Fred, it's that you can. Should you decide that you no longer care for or need the benefits you currently reap by living here, you can bail out and go back home. That's why we don't let non-citizens vote, Fred. There's no commitment.

If you want to be taken seriously on these matters, get your US citizenship. As it stands now, your opinions are completely worthless.

Nobody's stopping you from stating your opinions, but when you use the inclusive "we" it's well worth noting that you aren't a citizen. Your opinions are those of a non-voting, non-citizen. You're not willing to make the commitment to become one. You, unlike others in this thread, have the benefit of another country to flee to, should you decide you no longer like the way things are going here. That's your option. We don't have that option. That needs to be taken into consideration when contemplating any opinion you may express here regarding what the government of this county should be doing vis-a-vis tax policy, government entitlements, etc. or even who should be involved in making those decisions as an elected representative of the citizens of this country.

I was in this country for 12 years before I thought I knew it all.

Well, maybe some day Fred you can join them, since you seem to take joy in relaying that piece of information. One can hope, anyways - no?

Until then, you're essentially a guest here. Try acting less like you own the place.

John Nichols ‏@NicholsUprising

Final PPP Poll for WI: Obama 51, Romney 48; Baldwin 51, Thompson 48. @thenation @hardball.

@Greg -- That America didn't just suddenly end with President Obama. It has been brewing for a long time, and the crash came at the end of Bush's second term. Why does everyone forget this?

But, but, but we were going to have Hope and Change. Those people don't look like they have hope, and the change looks pretty negative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc