Jackson Jambalaya

What needs to be done at the national level is student loan reform.

1. Tie the amount of a loan to the average starting salary of the major
2. Base loans on the amount of tuition and fees at a public university in the borrower's home state
3. Make them bankruptable (if that means removing or reducing the federal guarantee, then so be it)

Bill, Mr. White's ideas hit a little close to home for you? Too close to your rice bowl? The sane MS taxpayers don't want to fund the woke brain washing classes/majors that you embrace. TFB.

Kemper Bill is all about big central government diktats ... except when he's not.

It’s not going to matter by then end of this decade.

The US government has been so irresponsible with debt and inflation.
Now with Biden’s failed administration, even the Saudis have joined BRICS.
What is going to prop up our inflated currency when are largest trading partners are doing everything they can to decouple themselves from our currency?

A degree from a university in the USA will be worthless outside the USA and this nation is quickly become a place that no educated person wants to live in.
Our most famous institutions such as Harvard and MIT are jokes now.

Nobody wants to live in a nation where you have to order everything online because going out requires you to interact with all manner of dangerous human debris.

So you spend all this money on a degree and the best you can hope for is a government job in Jackson or Metro DC?

I think Crawford missed White’s point altogether, or else is trying to claim White said something he didn’t say

Bill you are the reason people don’t trust the press/media. You have put your own spin on this to suit your personal opinion and agenda. Shad wants the money going to degrees that matter in life so you can be a productive person.

We need a new education system in this country if we want to ever become competitive again.
We need to begin identifying the capable and achievers early on.
Those who show promise and talent in advanced areas should get invited to a more advanced public schools that specialize in STEM around junior high school.
Those who are clearly less capable should be guided toward trades.
Those who are not quite capable of STEM, but more capable than the tradies can pursue degrees in business, banking, etc.

Art should not be a major that receives student loans. Art can be your minor, but not your major. Get a business degree.

A persons ability to play a sport should no longer be any factor in our education system. It’s preposterous for a 70 IQ goon to get a pass all the way through high school into university when they are barely literate. It devalues the academic achievements of those who actually earned them.

Now what we have is a 70+% percent of the workforce ready to work. Everyone at every cognitive level has marketable skills. You can be productive and earn a good living doing jobs no robot can replace.

Crime will definitely go down. And we can eliminate a majority of this class warfare that has been inflicted upon us by a totally garbage government and education system that rewards all the wrong behaviors.

There doesn’t have to be any shame on not having the cognitive ability to excel at STEM. There is a place in a healthy workforce everyone.

I wish there was some manner of industry censuring board for journalists where a person can lose their press credentials for this type of yellow journalism.

Sure you should still be allowed to babble incoherently on whatever platform will let you, after you have been disgraced and censured.

You shouldn’t be allowed to lie and shield yourself with the first amendment while legally call yourself a “journalist” if you go from massaging the truth to totally contorting and reshaping it the way Bill Crawford and others do so freely these days.

College was never supposed to be for everyone.

If you've ever had to borrow money for a business an ability to repay the debt has to exist. Maybe Shad could get a tobacco like warning label on these Diplomas, " warning-may cause semi subterranean residence in your birthing person's domicile"

The IHL will change when the Ole Miss good ole boys says it should change, and when it suits Ole Miss plain and simple. If they want to trim, everybody gets trimmed, if not....to bad. That's the setup. Shad is campaigning, nothing more.

This is about government control. When Obama/Congress wanted everyone to have a college degree, the citizenry accepted it. Education is a bureaucracy.
It seems a natural consequence that the bureaucracy may decide which degrees are useful.
It seems a natural consequence that the electorate will disagree with the bureaucracy depending upon the political persuasion.
RMQ

To reiterate:

Technical degrees do have tremendous value - but far too many youth are in no way interested in them because they require actual, hands-on, outdoors work - even WITH the opportunity to make some moola - young folks ain't sighing up, or they drop out.

The primary function of the Jr. or "community college" system is strictly a "feeder" system - to herd as many high schoolers through their doors as possible, then "complete" them regardless of effort or achievement, then feed them to the major universities around the state. It's a racket for sure to capitalize on BILLIONS in federal Pell Grants and Loans. One third of the community college "completion" of their "college" level credits happen in high school as "dual credit" achievements - which doesn't happen in real life - you can't be in two places at the same time - or get double salary for covering someone else's work while they're out. Huge scam on Mississippians.

All three levels stay flush with money, get good "grades" for completing everyone (since attendance is no longer required in high school - just turn something in) and they keep building their high school, college, and university fiefdoms. All of this activity is justified because? "Jobs, PERS, and votes."

The largest employer in MS is "education" - where the state and federal gravy is. Shad puts out garbage like this to merely appear he's looking at the educational systems - but is simply looking the other way hoping no one knows how much he truly knows about the level of fraud that's going on. Just like he did in the welfare system. So, Shad is part of the overall fraud now because he has a family to provide for - in Mississippi - so you play ball, or don't eat.

Mississippi is the last place we should be shitting on education . . . any formal education.

If nothing else, any college degree should guarantee functional literacy, which a high school diploma does not.

To those advocating for trades (which is a good thing): Somebody has to pay those tradesmen, and it's most likely going to be someone with advanced education.

But, the idea for some sort of aptitude test early in life to place people on different life tracts is anathema to everything good for which the Unites States stands. I'm not saying that's what Shad White proposes, but it's implicit in some of the comments.

I can't help but wonder if the modern GOP, writ large, realizes how much it's currently-trending ideas resemble Stalinism.

@3:00 PM

I don’t think this nation stands for thug culture.
But that culture determines the future lifelong failure for many 12-15 year olds.
This culture can ruin the lives and potential of many young people.
The founding fathers never could’ve imagined the glorification of this culture.
I think the measures are appropriate for the current state of this nation.
Maybe after a few generations in the right track, we can re-evaluate and adjust.
But we can’t keep going the way we are going.
The experiment has failed and we have lost too much of our competitiveness.
Identify the gifted people before it is too late.
Offer them the opportunity to go to a prestigious school with peers of their Cognitive level where they can thrive away from bullies and thugs.

Colleges and universities are responsible for MUCH student debt. Shad White is on the money. .
One gets a degree in some semi useless subject.
The advisor tell the student "you really need a masters to "make it work. ."
THEN the student gets the masters only to be told a PhD is required.
The idea is to 'pimp out" education, no how much debt is foisted on the student.

Mr. White is trying to apply some sensibility to a situation that is out of hand. All these powder-puff courses/majors are a result of too many people going to college. We can thank the Federal gov't for that by making all these student loans which in all likelihood will never be repaid. As a result of all this "free" tuition, college costs have sky-rocketed. Nationwide, colleges and universities have too much money. They are in a never ending race with each other to have the biggest, the best. The entire system is totally out of control.

“Mississippi loses half its college graduates to brain drain within three years, and the problem is getting worse,” his April 2022 report stated.

For the fourth or fifth time, I ask that he prove it!

Where does that come from? In the absence of factual backup, it simply comes out of thin air.

You can criticize White for dabbling in an area outside his swim lane if you want, but the point he makes about those majors that promise little return is right on the mark. He's 100% correct.

I wish these suckers in worthless degree granting programs would take Shad’s advice to heart.

While Crawford continues traveling down the “wokeness” dead end road.

"State Auditor Shad White is playing IHL Tzar again. Now he foolishly wants government to tell university students what they can and cannot major in."

No Bill, you are falling into the same process that your fellow 'journalists' at Mississippi Today do (granted, should be a comfortable good fit, but)

Auditor white did not suggest that government should "tell" students what they can and cannot major in; read the report and discuss what he actually said and your column might be worth reading --- as it was several decades ago when you weren't as jaundiced in your hatred for anything conservative.

White suggested (and that was wll he was doing, as HE STATED in his report, since this would be a policy decision of those elected to make those decisions - the legislature, not the Executive Branch of which he is a part. He suggested that the state should not provide the same financial support for degrees that did not advance the state in the way others did.

You can argue all day long over whether his concept is correct or not - whether an anthropology major provided as much value to the state as a student in a STEM program; whether a sociology major was 'worth' what an architecture degree to the state.

That could be a good discussion; lots of possible viewpoints, lots of arguments probably on both sides.

BUT, your opening statement - as totally incorrect as it is in "reporting" what White's report stated --- is not responsible.

You need to either reurn to your old days when the logs (big, big damn chips) on your shoulder weren't as heavy -- or recognize that you have moved into the same tar pit of Bill Minor in the last few decades of his career. (BTW, you do have plenty of company in that tar pit - Bobby Harrison jumped into it a good while back; should give you a soft landing as you dive down into it.)

Just when you think Crawford cannot get more obtuse, he comes through with another fail.

3:34 wrote:

"The experiment has failed and we have lost too much of our competitiveness.
Identify the gifted people before it is too late.
Offer them the opportunity to go to a prestigious school with peers of their Cognitive level where they can thrive away from bullies and thugs."

Actually, the implicit theme is the inverse of what you propose: Identify the non-gifted and teach them to work for the truly gifted. The question is, who decides?

To be clear, I believe that all honest work is honorable. But the idea that we have to abandon the promise of American opportunity, in order to save it, is complete BS. In fact, it smacks of the same type of hyper-intellectualism, "think-tank" nonsense that produces nothing, is completely useless in the economy, and survives only by funding from wealthy ideologues.

I wish there was some manner of industry censuring board for journalists where a person can lose their press credentials for this type of yellow journalism.


Ain't a whole lot yellow about Crawford's opinion column.

If you truly believe we should censure opinions, then lets start with your own.

Would be helpful to give every graduating student a document detailing what they can make with each degree offered, and how long it will take them to pay off their debt with each monthly payment they can afford to make. They could also throw in how much a HVAC repairman can make, a truck mechanic, lumber, truck driver, etc.

I think lots of them are sent to college with not nearly enough career information. They borrow and borrow and then there are no jobe where they will make enough money to live and repay the debt they foolishly took on living the "good life" while in school.

@10:24 for the win

I interpreted Shad’s comments as advocating for the curtailment of public funding (State) for worthless college degrees. I do not interpret them as telling students what they can major in.

How about instead of getting the State Auditor to tell our kids what degrees they should and shouldn’t get, parents actually do some parenting instead? I thought the whole idea that we conservatives advocate for is that families should decide for themselves what they do and that we didn’t want the government to hold our hands?

I went to college for a VERY LONG time and I think people should do what they want within their own means. While I have this pie in the sky mentality, I do think there needs to be more honest conversation about the actual purpose of college and how it is a vehicle to position yourself to make more money........

There is no greater purpose of enhancing your cultural awareness or any of that nonsense that we have been brainwashed to believe, at the end of the day it is 100 percent about making money, otherwise you can enhance yourself for free with google and an internet connection.

They need to ask you at the admission desk "you sure you want to major in philosophy"? What are you planning on doing with that?

If you are planning on partying for 4 years and then taking over your dads company, then sure........but if you are planning on using that to make money and provide for some little blonde who is waiting in the car, then you need to re-think what's happening here. its all about position, plan, and ultimate goals. We are pushing this "life will just work out" message too hard.

8:24 said, "I interpreted Shad’s comments as advocating for the curtailment of public funding (State) for worthless college degrees. I do not interpret them as telling students what they can major in."

Hammer meets nail.

@932
You need to figure out the difference between a lie and an opinion first.

I did not have college educated parents to help me plan my career path and could have really used some input to help me.

I just picked a generic business degree because it seemed to be an employable field of study and I do ok salary wise now.

But having made friends in college who grew up in prep schools and had doctors and lawyers for parents, and seeing the level of preparedness and exposure to high paying career paths made me realize how important a guidance counselor really should be.

Mine sucked, and probably makes more money than me.

Who wants government to dictate anything?

Lordy have mercy!

Gosh, the arguments against a classical education and denial of any value to literature from another country should embarrass everyone.

Apparently, you think everyone should labor making widgets or counting beans.

You see no value is understanding the world beyond our borders.

No wonder some of you still engage in magical, mythical thinking.

Shad is completely full of shit, but THIS is serious news....the Feds are finally going to blow the lid off of the corruption at all levels of "college" education in Mississippi. Willful and rampant fraud and abuse of federal financial aid dollars for the past decade could lead to the college/university systems being crippled. This is the tee up, and it was only a matter of time....

https://mississippitoday.org/2023/09/25/ihl-universities-put-on-federal-monitoring/

@ 7:33

No one has indicated that there isnt value in literature, the argument is that type of education is free and can be obtained with a library card.

The fact you think you need to take a 1500 dollar class for someone to wax philosophically to you about "the old man in the sea", should embarrass you.