(02-12-2016 06:24 PM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 03:38 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 02:28 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 02:19 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 02:08 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  Not really, there is only 1 Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico production has grown in the last 18 months.

Yes, but the net revenue has fallen, even in the face of increased production. That's why Louisiana's finances are a disaster. And why Texas will follow Louisiana into a crisis next year. And its not just the revenue. Its the jobs. Rig counts are down. Employment ancillary to energy production is down as well.

Our crooked dumb ass political leaders are why we are in a financial crisis, this has been coming for a long time, didnt happen in a year. Those "unconventional oil producers" in other states...are from Louisiana and Texas. It's a whole lot of corruption is the reason we are where we are. We have had record prices of oil and production for 6-7 years prior to that, we should be running out of place to put our money but our leaders are morons.

Oh, this didn't happen in a year. It was the proximate result of state policies in both states.

Texas has a 'rainy day fund', but one that is completely broke. And the energy bust is going to cause non-energy revenues in the state to collapse. My fear for Texas is that there isn't someone in government who is willing to ring the alarm and create a sense of urgency until we end up in a desperate crisis. Oil isn't coming back this year. It will be 3 years before government revenues in either state start to resolve themselves. We've sold everything we can sell. We've cut pretty much everything that can be cut. And now we've got nothing left. Two years ago, oil was at 110 a barrel. We apparently saved little.

Paraphrased from an article written written in the Texas Tribune a few weeks ago:
The Texas "rainy-day fund" has $8.5 billion dollars in it. Despite the downturn in oil and gas revenue, it is still projected to have more than $11.1 billion dollars by the end of the next 2-year budget cycle. That's even after nearly $4 billion dollars in voter-approved withdrawals for water and road projects in the past 18 months.


The fund was established in 1987 and never had more than about $300 million dollars in it. It passed the $1 billion mark in 2007 and quickly inflated to almost $10 billion during the high oil prices of the early 2010's.

The rainy-day fund did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put away billions of dollars in excess oil and gas revenues during an oil boom and now it should be able to handle the bust. Texas isn't broke.

In fact, Texas has well over $140 million in an unappropriated general-revenue dedicated account that is from Landfill tipping fees (Solid Waste Fund 5000). It is just one of several $100 million+ unappropriated accounts that Texas has that you have never heard about. Instead, it is always a do or die emergency to get the taxpayers money in a "raise taxes or else" scare tactic.

That isn't going to last long. Ugly, ugly, ugly things are happening in the job market here in Houston. The economy is getting ugly - fast.

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:32 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:23 AM)rokamortis Wrote:  

(02-11-2016 09:02 PM)bullitt_60 Wrote:  I just had a conversation with my buddy in BR and this is no show, this is for real. How does this happen? How can you back charge students or their families for fees that have already been 'paid'?

From what I've read they governor said they would make the schools eat the shortfall and not charge students / families.

I think a program like that is great, but they will have to institute some changes if they want to keep it. I read where the minimum GPA for one of the programs is a 2.5. In Georgia the state had to raise the GPA from a 3.0 to I believe a 3.2 a couple of years back. Free college for most is a great ideal but not practical.

Free college for everyone is not a good idea, it will devalue a college education more than it already is. First off, nothing is free....somebody is always paying for it and things that are free have no value.

Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:32 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:23 AM)rokamortis Wrote:  From what I've read they governor said they would make the schools eat the shortfall and not charge students / families.

I think a program like that is great, but they will have to institute some changes if they want to keep it. I read where the minimum GPA for one of the programs is a 2.5. In Georgia the state had to raise the GPA from a 3.0 to I believe a 3.2 a couple of years back. Free college for most is a great ideal but not practical.

Free college for everyone is not a good idea, it will devalue a college education more than it already is. First off, nothing is free....somebody is always paying for it and things that are free have no value.

Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Actually I think the exact opposite could be argued, there are millions of unemployed college grads entering the work force that have no other skills or work ethic besides sitting at a desk making 6 figures and they expect that at 23 years old fresh out of college. Lack of skilled labor is holding the country back.

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:32 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:23 AM)rokamortis Wrote:  From what I've read they governor said they would make the schools eat the shortfall and not charge students / families.

I think a program like that is great, but they will have to institute some changes if they want to keep it. I read where the minimum GPA for one of the programs is a 2.5. In Georgia the state had to raise the GPA from a 3.0 to I believe a 3.2 a couple of years back. Free college for most is a great ideal but not practical.

Free college for everyone is not a good idea, it will devalue a college education more than it already is. First off, nothing is free....somebody is always paying for it and things that are free have no value.

Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Part of the problem (and I'm very liberal) is that the only solution to rising tuition appears to be 'add more loans'. I suggest a radical solution to tuition affordability.

Don't raise the subsidized loan limit - The bankruptcy protection portion of the loan guarantees are the problem. It provides no incentive to colleges and universities to hold costs down and to ensure that its graduates actually leave trained to earn enough to pay back the debt. Here's what I'd do.

1) Set a cap on taxpayer subsidized grants and loans. Ensure that that the cap can only be raised in coordination with the rate of inflation.
2) Combine that with an end to the protection from bankruptcy protection for educational debt in certain scenarios. Those scenarios would include: if a school's degree/major combination results in a overly large percentage of deferments due to graduate student's inability to pay after a certain number of years.
3) Ensure that the bankruptcy exemption for student loan defaults only applies to private schools that hold a low deferment rate and that those loans can only be for 2x the regulated limit on state supported schools (and are also subject to the limit on cap raises)

In that way, the ultimate recipient of the student loan funding/taxpayer grants will have a strong motivation in ensuring that it produces a graduate that can pay back those loans. And that if they want to continue raising tuition/fees at 20 percent a year, then they're going to have to find some private sector way to ensure that people can pay for it (and without bankruptcy protection for the issuer, that debt will be very expensive).

Problem solved. Bye-bye GWU (my alma mater) charging 75k a year. Bye-bye Liberty Online/Online Test Drive University. Bye-bye 20 percent a year increases.

There would be costs. First, there would need to be some (thinking small) offsets for the fact that schools that serve underserved communities with historically high default rates. Secondly, Universities would probably dump a lot of liberal arts degrees/reduce admissions for unrenumerative degree programs. Caution would need to take place to ensure that the result of this is not racial discrimination in university admissions. Perhaps the evaluation of the program default rates could take into account the socio-economic status of the borrower.

I've become convinced that adding easy money with little accountability to the ultimate recipient of those funds (the schools) to our university system is the problem.

(02-12-2016 12:52 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 12:46 PM)bullitt_60 Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:03 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  No, actually it not a right, it's a privelage. If you make it a right and free it simply becomes an extension of the horrendous public high school system we already have. Not everyone is made for college. We are currently one of the least expensive tuitions in the country. The problem is we have way too many 4 year universities in louisana and half of them under perform. The cost is so damn high because we need to consolidate but that will never happen because of politics and everyone won't take their hand out the damn cookie jar. This country was built on welders, plumbers, electricians and carpenters..there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and we need to get back to embracing workers who labor, they are vital to this country and bring a blue collar mentality that permeates through everything. Instead we are spitting out spoiled, lazy, entitled morons at a rapid rate who can't start a lawnmower.

You are correct that it is not a right but higher education should always be encouraged. Who is going to train these tradesmen? Are we going to depend on solely on unions to do this?

(02-12-2016 10:42 AM)rokamortis Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:34 AM)CatMom Wrote:  Do any other states have a similar program? I mean, I don't know. Does Texas? My daughter went to college on her working and getting out of the norm scholarships (she'd hunt and peck to find obscure ones people rarely applied for).

Georgia has the Hope scholarship but is funded with lottery proceeds. It was a minimum 3.0 HS GPA but has changed. I believe 3.2 is the new minimum but it won't cover full tuition. To get full tuition you have to have a 3.7 GPA.

SC has a similar program but I think it only provided a portion of tuition.

Students still need money for room and board.

The requirement is still a 3.0 GPA. There was talk of raising the requirement during the economic downturn as lottery sales were down but that has corrected itself. The tuition paid is not based on GPA but by college: https://apps.gsfc.org/main/publishing/pd...mbined.pdf

Depending on the school you choose, it can pay all or nearly all of your tuition. It's a great program and paid for my edjumacation!

When I was in high school there were classes at the trade school that people could take that knew they were not college material. You don't need to go to college to learn how to weld, pipe fit, refrigeration, electrical, paint and body, plumbing etc. All those programs have been cut out. We are now graduating kids that are under educated, who don't belong in college and have zero skills. They are the ones crying that you can't make a living off minimum wage and it should be raised...need flash, minimum wage jobs are for teenagers to learn responsibility in high school, not make a career out of sweeping Burger King.

Agreed. I was meaning to include trade schools and technical colleges when I said "higher education".

ESPN wrote about this months ago. The speculation was that LSU will be fine, probably La Tech, ULL and ULM too, but the HBU's with their low graduation rate and a ton of FCS programs may be closed, consolidated or lose their athletic programs. Louisiana is pretty small to have 4 FBS programs and all the FCS programs too.

Louisiana has a spending problem more than an income problem! If government waste is eliminated, the budget deficit can be easily eliminated.

(02-13-2016 02:29 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:32 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  Free college for everyone is not a good idea, it will devalue a college education more than it already is. First off, nothing is free....somebody is always paying for it and things that are free have no value.

Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Part of the problem (and I'm very liberal) is that the only solution to rising tuition appears to be 'add more loans'. I suggest a radical solution to tuition affordability.

Don't raise the subsidized loan limit - The bankruptcy protection portion of the loan guarantees are the problem. It provides no incentive to colleges and universities to hold costs down and to ensure that its graduates actually leave trained to earn enough to pay back the debt. Here's what I'd do.

1) Set a cap on taxpayer subsidized grants and loans. Ensure that that the cap can only be raised in coordination with the rate of inflation.
2) Combine that with an end to the protection from bankruptcy protection for educational debt in certain scenarios. Those scenarios would include: if a school's degree/major combination results in a overly large percentage of deferments due to graduate student's inability to pay after a certain number of years.
3) Ensure that the bankruptcy exemption for student loan defaults only applies to private schools that hold a low deferment rate and that those loans can only be for 2x the regulated limit on state supported schools (and are also subject to the limit on cap raises)

In that way, the ultimate recipient of the student loan funding/taxpayer grants will have a strong motivation in ensuring that it produces a graduate that can pay back those loans. And that if they want to continue raising tuition/fees at 20 percent a year, then they're going to have to find some private sector way to ensure that people can pay for it (and without bankruptcy protection for the issuer, that debt will be very expensive).

Problem solved. Bye-bye GWU (my alma mater) charging 75k a year. Bye-bye Liberty Online/Online Test Drive University. Bye-bye 20 percent a year increases.

There would be costs. First, there would need to be some (thinking small) offsets for the fact that schools that serve underserved communities with historically high default rates. Secondly, Universities would probably dump a lot of liberal arts degrees/reduce admissions for unrenumerative degree programs. Caution would need to take place to ensure that the result of this is not racial discrimination in university admissions. Perhaps the evaluation of the program default rates could take into account the socio-economic status of the borrower.

I've become convinced that adding easy money with little accountability to the ultimate recipient of those funds (the schools) to our university system is the problem.

Keep in mind that Louisiana colleges and universities (with the exception of one) were purposely kept at an artificially low rate by the legislature until the last five years or so.

First casualty of the Louisiana budget crisis hits at Grambling as they have been forced to suspend their search for a new AD


http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/sports/.../80414070/

Let's face it, all state colleges and university across the country have enormous waste. LA schools just happen to be the first to have this overspending bite them.

(02-15-2016 07:53 PM)SBEagle Wrote:  Let's face it, all state colleges and university across the country have enormous waste. LA schools just happen to be the first to have this overspending bite them.

Have you ever been to Nicholls State or Grambling? Not good examples to use for decrying over spending.

(02-15-2016 07:59 PM)CatMom Wrote:  

(02-15-2016 07:53 PM)SBEagle Wrote:  Let's face it, all state colleges and university across the country have enormous waste. LA schools just happen to be the first to have this overspending bite them.

Have you ever been to Nicholls State or Grambling? Not good examples to use for decrying over spending.

I think Louisiana has a revenue problem. It is easy to say that there is "enormous waste", much more difficult to actually identify the enormous waste. This particular problem is not resolved by just cutting expenses. Not when education has been underfunded for many years.

(02-13-2016 02:19 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 08:32 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  Free college for everyone is not a good idea, it will devalue a college education more than it already is. First off, nothing is free....somebody is always paying for it and things that are free have no value.

Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Actually I think the exact opposite could be argued, there are millions of unemployed college grads entering the work force that have no other skills or work ethic besides sitting at a desk making 6 figures and they expect that at 23 years old fresh out of college. Lack of skilled labor is holding the country back.

actually we are lucky in america to be able to everyone go to college and to pretty much any one we choose and study whatever we want. In many countries it is not an automatic choice. kids take tests that decide if they get to keep on going to school or enter a trade or apprenticeship program. there are many kids in college here that should learn a trade or get a public service job or join the military and plenty of morons who take out huge loans to go to well known schools and major in stuff that will never pay when they graduate.

(02-15-2016 11:07 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(02-15-2016 07:59 PM)CatMom Wrote:  

(02-15-2016 07:53 PM)SBEagle Wrote:  Let's face it, all state colleges and university across the country have enormous waste. LA schools just happen to be the first to have this overspending bite them.

Have you ever been to Nicholls State or Grambling? Not good examples to use for decrying over spending.

I think Louisiana has a revenue problem. It is easy to say that there is "enormous waste", much more difficult to actually identify the enormous waste. This particular problem is not resolved by just cutting expenses. Not when education has been underfunded for many years.

Education and health care in the State of Louisiana have been underfunded for many years due to them being unprotected from deep budget cuts by the Louisiana constitution. Along with large reforms to the TOPS program, which I mentioned previously, the legislators of the state need to take a gander at large scale changes to the constitution or just rewriting the sumbitch altogether. I mean we're tied with Georgia for the most constitutional re-writes. Might as well go for the record right??

(02-15-2016 07:59 PM)CatMom Wrote:  

(02-15-2016 07:53 PM)SBEagle Wrote:  Let's face it, all state colleges and university across the country have enormous waste. LA schools just happen to be the first to have this overspending bite them.

Have you ever been to Nicholls State or Grambling? Not good examples to use for decrying over spending.

No I haven't. Interesting considering the "arms race" going on across the country with colleges. I stand corrected.

(02-16-2016 08:21 AM)runamuck Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 02:19 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Actually I think the exact opposite could be argued, there are millions of unemployed college grads entering the work force that have no other skills or work ethic besides sitting at a desk making 6 figures and they expect that at 23 years old fresh out of college. Lack of skilled labor is holding the country back.

actually we are lucky in america to be able to everyone go to college and to pretty much any one we choose and study whatever we want. In many countries it is not an automatic choice. kids take tests that decide if they get to keep on going to school or enter a trade or apprenticeship program. there are many kids in college here that should learn a trade or get a public service job or join the military and plenty of morons who take out huge loans to go to well known schools and major in stuff that will never pay when they graduate.

I'm able to be a horse jockey but 6'0 240 it doesn't mean I should be. You are bringing up a totally different subject. Living in a free country has nothing to do with devaluing college educations( which if everybody had one, it would be) and teaching kids who aren't "college material" other ways to be successful. You don't need to each up $100k in student loans to learn a trade. Trades are learned by beginner instruction then you get good at your trade by working at it. The education system of this country is a f'n joke to begin with. It's a protected Ponzi scheme.

(02-16-2016 08:21 AM)runamuck Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 02:19 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(02-13-2016 01:33 PM)slycat Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 10:40 AM)tx.state Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 09:49 AM)slycat Wrote:  Triple the cost of college so only a few can attend and really make those degrees worth something.

I'm not saying free college is the right answer, but much more affordable college is. Everyone has a right to college not just those that can afford it.

No, not everyone has the right to free or subsidized higher education. It is neither a legal right, nor a natural right. It is an entitlement.

Entitlements must be paid for, and there is no such thing as free, it is only a question of who is paying for it.

In the case of higher education, it is largely subsidized by poor people (through taxes) who are not and have not gone to college. They are not only subsidizing the middle class, but they helping the middle class increase their advantages over the poor.

The cost of college is way too high. It needs to go back down. No more fancy resort dorms. Holding kids back from college is only hurting the country

Actually I think the exact opposite could be argued, there are millions of unemployed college grads entering the work force that have no other skills or work ethic besides sitting at a desk making 6 figures and they expect that at 23 years old fresh out of college. Lack of skilled labor is holding the country back.

actually we are lucky in america to be able to everyone go to college and to pretty much any one we choose and study whatever we want. In many countries it is not an automatic choice. kids take tests that decide if they get to keep on going to school or enter a trade or apprenticeship program. there are many kids in college here that should learn a trade or get a public service job or join the military and plenty of morons who take out huge loans to go to well known schools and major in stuff that will never pay when they graduate.

I agree with 99 many young adults would be better off learning a trade than going to four your colleges.

However we are very lucky we have a choice, based upon my parents and grandparents "status" as it may have been perceived by other countries cultures I may never have had the opportunity to achieve the life I lead. However I did choose a major that has helped.

We are America, we give people the right to choose, however I wish we didn't encourage the notice that people have a "right" to be bailed out of their current position based upon poor past choices. That goes for individual and companies.