Call it straight, call it B.S............

While on one hand the relentlessly rising total Federal student debt crossed $956 billion as of September 30, and was growing at a pace that will have put it over $1 trillion by the end of 2012, the one data point confirming the size, severity and ultimately bursting of this latest debt bubble was the disclosure in late November by the Fed that the percentage of 90+ day delinquent loans soared from under 9% to 11%  in one quarter. The "higher" educational system, which now includes such vaunted institutions of learning as study-in-your-pajamas.com and Everest University, is a huge racket that uses taxpayer guaranteed "student loans" (good luck getting water from the rocks that are debt-enslaved students, whether pre or post-bankruptcy), is a massive scam designed around job security and wage security for literally tens of thousands of "professors" (tenured or otherwise) and "deans."

In many respects, the higher education system mirrors the for-profit prison system in the U.S., where the average cost of a year of attendance at either institution is rising towards parity, and the U.S. taxpayer is ultimately on the hook for the costs of incarcerating or "educating" either the prisoner or student.

The prison and "college" subsidization needs to end. It's total, unmitigated bullshit.

Taxpayers should not be shelling out $40,000 per year to house prisoners who were sentenced to 3 years because some 19 year old had a dime bag of pot, and they certainly shouldn't be shelling out $50k to 200k so students can obtain a fine arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania or a vacuum tube repairman certificate from ITT Technical Institute.

I realize that taking many of the non-violent pot smokers out of prison and rejecting 50k taxpayer loans to students of educationconnection.com will adversely impact the for-profit Prison & Education scams (where wardens & deans get compensated based on headcount), but the shit has got to stop. Subsidization of banks, Wall Street, the defense contractors, the prison racketeering operation and the education scammers is out of control.

My question is: Why do the bankers insist you get an appraisal of the value of your home before you get a loan, but no one is appraising the value of these college degrees?

The moochers, leeches and parasites are in control. It's a dam joke from where I sit.

And my taxes are being wasted on it all