People on the internet, or at least the small cross-section of Twitter I see on a regular basis, seem pretty upset that President Joe Biden has reneged on his pledge to cancel at least some student debt. President Biden said publicly several times that he would “knock off” at least $10,000 in student debt, and…
When I was in college studying philosophy, there was a lot of hand-wringing about how exclusive the discipline was. There was a noticeable lack of women and people of non-European descent. (Today we would add a lack of LGBTQA+ people, but it was the early nineties and that didn’t seem to concern anyone as much…
Student loan forgiveness has been a big part of the public debate (such as there is) for a little while now. I always encourage debate, and I’m all for student loan forgiveness. (After the financial services industry destroyed the world economy without facing any serious consequences, I’m actually for all personal debt being forgiven, but…
The most important moment of Dr. Robert Putnam’s presentation “Closing the Opportunity Gap” on July 21st at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts came after he’d already offered his conclusion. During the question and answer session, an audience member asked Dr. Putnam about former presidential candidate Bernie Sander’s plan to make college free. The…
One of my jobs is at a community college as a writing tutor. It’s mostly a fun job, but about once a week I will get a student whose problem is, “I don’t know how to start.” What the students are describing is writer’s block. Luckily, writer’s block is not a problem I’ve experienced. But…
