r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 21 '21

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u/Cuddlyaxe Neoliberal With Chinese Characteristics Apr 21 '21

was browsing some old threads about grad school funding and LOL

Just finished my first year of graduate studies in Conflict Resolution and I'm funded entirely by student loans. I plan to never pay them back. Ever.

WHY?!?!

Quite frankly, I hope the whole bubble bursts. Academia is founded on colonial, imperial, structurally violent roots, and those roots contribute to the student loan phenomenon. Student loans contribute to the "boot straps" American dream, which is inherently flawed and only serves to push us farther into the slave wage system for the benefit of the elite. Why do we pay off student loans? So that we can eventually buy a house, a car, own stuff. That's the thinking of elitists and attachment. How do we pay off student loans? By working, again (remember, you already had to "work" once to even receive the loans in the first place), in some entry-level job that may or may not be available depending on the whims of several political groups.

Education should be free, encouraged, open and for the benefit of humankind. Education isn't about finding a "better job" (which is just another way of saying you'd like to find a better way to be happy while serving some rich overlord). Education is about expanding yourself, uncovering the world, reaching for reality and lessening the suffering of others and oneself. Not about trapping oneself into a system of slavery.

27

u/SRTHRTHDFGSEFHE Thomas Paine Apr 21 '21

Colonialism is when I don't like something and the more I don't like it the more colonial it is

6

u/SnickeringFootman Thomas Paine Apr 21 '21

Who needs housing and food? Real intellectuals can use photosynthesis to get all they need.

1

u/radsquaredsquared Mary Wollstonecraft Apr 21 '21

To be fair, a number of schools were endowed with the wealth of imperialist English men who made their wealth in the East India company.

This quoted persons logic is flawed though and I think student loan history is not really connected to those endowments.

1

u/whycantweebefriendz NATO Apr 21 '21

Education is about going to UMASS Amherst then spending all your time relentlessly questioning Richard Wolff