I'm saying that they cannot handle their responsibilities in a trustworthy manner. Why give more gasoline to the fire?

Who says that we are? Public education is already subsidized, this is just a different mechanism.

Why not put out the fire entirely? No public services. Hell, abolish the state of Oregon entirely :)

This is an entirely new mechanism. One that based on recent history is doomed to being another Fannie and Freddie. We'd be paying for it later on and in spades.

Since we are getting ridiculous, why not do that with the human race? Mother Earth will be better off for it.

No: the current mechanism of Federal loans is another Fannie and Freddie, and is quite broken. This is an attempt to improve this system.

I am thinking it is another Fannie and Freddie from the standpoint that it looks good today and will come back to bite us not today but sometime in the future.

Everything seems to be an attempt to improve the system or at least is labeled that way. Are you sure Fannie and Freddie was not some way to improve the system? Are you sure that Solyndra was not an attempt to improve the system by ramming something thru that wouldn't work? Are you sure that siphoning taxes that were supposed to be for this to go there is not classified as trying to improve something? Now, if they stop their tricks and can manage their money WITHOUT TRICKS, it might be prudent to start seeing how far they can be trusted. At this time, what, besides a desire for intervention is your motivation for trust?

Simply put, just because I can't fire you doesn't mean I should trust you more. Trust is earned, not given

Now is the time for a PETENG degree. I did mine at TAMU, MBA at TCU. Bet bet is to attend a school in the region where you plan to work, better alumni contacts and job networking. Of course the money aspect is important. But financial aid is there.

The whole original posts cracks me up, tuition is a small part of the cost. Fees and books are a lot more, especially at a public school. I learned all about financial aid by going private for my graduate degree.

Sure. Be complicit in poisoning the planet more. Hopefully the government will relegate your so-called industry to the same place that PCBs and asbestos mining are now, in the next 20 years, and the real jobs to have will either be in power electrical engineering or nuclear.

Your industry is a relic of the last millennium, and the sooner it's given a shot in the arm, the better. And by "shot", I mean good 'ol Texan-style lethal injection.

Your position would be a lot stronger if you were someone who'd actually done what you propose for others.:rolleyes:

My wife got a loan from Dad. By loan, I mean with interest and doing work for him in the meantime. Does that count?

Sure, why not? All I meant is that saying "I didn't have to pay my way through college but I'm a big fan of others having to do it" and "I went to private school but I'm a big fan of public colleges" strikes me as more than a little bit....what's the word?
Elitist?

My grandparents put away money for all of my kids' education. Given their academic success in high school and their SAT scores, none of them needed the money. All three have paid for their own education, all three could have gone pretty much anywhere but chose to start at in-state schools.
My eldest recently claimed her share as she needed it for foreign post grad work/study. Middle kid hasn't taken hers yet, she's in grad school. Sonny boy doesn't even know he has it to fall back on and I like it just fine that way.

Your ignorance is astounding. I wish low-IQ people were a relic of the last millennium, but apparently they (you) are going strong. I guess you have given up your car, heating and cooling your home, going to work (or are you a sponge off the government?), and eating food you did not grow in your backyard. When you show up at my house on your wooden wheeled bicycle, then you can complain about the energy industry. And even then, you will still have an IQ below room temperature.

And *I* wish that brainwashed boneheads like you would be relics of the last millennium. You're operating under the fallacious ass-u-mption that petroleum products are the only way to power home HVAC, freight transportation systems, and personal vehicles.

We should be embarking upon a mass campaign to electrify all of the main railroads in the US for long distance freight transportation, set up special electrified lanes on freeways for trucks, charging stations every 50 miles for cars on all major highways, mandatory replacement of oil and gas furnaces with electric heat-pump systems in homes, energy-saving technology (things as simple as motion-sensing or timer lights in apartment and hotel lobbies).

Then start cranking out the nuclear (and invest in thorium and/or fusion research), wind, solar, and hydroelectric capacity as if our lives depended on it. We'd still need some petroleum for chemical processes and plastics production, but the quantity would be much smaller. THAT's real engineering, not attempting to suck a poison that we should have got rid of 40 years ago out of an increasingly reluctant planet. Plus, if the mode of energy transport is primarily electric, it makes for a very modular economy, in the sense that future power generation technologies can easily be added and outdated ones removed.

But hey, you're welcome to your conservative s**theadery, that the way we've done things over the past 100 years will always be the right way.

PS - looks like I struck a nerve, since you had to resort to ad-hominem :)

Thanks for the feedback, emmerich - Texas is a terrific place to be for public edu IMO. Esp advanced edu. I have toyed with embarking on a second career for some time now. The field of petroleum intrigues me to be honest, as does the high potential for travel - going where the oil is. I think were I to visit with a few old hands in the industry it would help me in my focus(ing.)

Why make all these over-the-top posts, spdrun?
Your political agenda posts bashing this or that aren't much fun to read. Especially when it's just blowing off personal steam. Think again before posting that stuff if you will, plse.

He's just blowing off some sort of steam, IMO. I don't think he likes Texans either.:o

Feel free to ignore-list me if you're really that offended. That's one of my hot-buttons -- I think that the fossil-fuel industry should be bulldozed into the dust, and I make no pretensions of believing otherwise.

read - "I got my education, so f**k everyone else"