Don’t EVEN Get Me Started, Mythical Bootstraps College Student

[tuvor]

This photo’s been kicking around Facebook for the past few days. The first time I saw it, it miffed me. The second time, it aggravated me. Times three and four I was angry. And now that I’ve seen the photo posted, shared, and tagged a half a dozen times, I’m enraged; which is where this post comes from, a place of fully developed rage.

This flip little photo angers me because it’s a lie.



I’m sure those who posted it thought it was pithy and bold and really hit home the “truth” of an already much propagated agenda. But the thing that is so very offensive about this photo is that there’s nothing true about it.

Even before I set out to do my research, my educator and lawyer hackles were up; this crap doesn’t even pass the smell test. If you thought it did, you weren’t paying attention. If you didn’t think it passed muster but wanted to share it as propaganda anyway, shame on you.

http://persephonemagazine.com/2011/10/dont-even-get-me-started-mythical-bootstraps-college-student/

[chrisa]

1. "I received scholarships which payed for 90% of my tuition"

Where I stopped reading.

Btw., I have no loan debt either - not because I'm some miraculous person with money. It's because I was lucky, and also got money to pay my tuition.

And also, a 30+ hour week isn't working your butt off. What a load of donkey stool. These "OMG LAZY WELFARE CHECK IDIOTS" people that the Cain whiners gush over are mostly working multiple jobs just to make ends meet - they work 100X as hard as those living comfortably.

But all of this is pointless since this wasn't even written by a real person.

[tuvor]

3. Convenient to brag they expect no handouts after getting what's basically a handout. n/t

[chrisa]

7. If this were a real person, at least some of the money also probably came from the government.

But, "bootstraps" and such. Blah blah.

It's like those Republican governors that try to emulate Reagan, and then beg for government money all of the time.

[dionysus]

2. right. for starters, "decent grades" won't get 90% of your tution payed. i had excellent grades and

felt lucky that i had 50% in scholarships. I also worked 20-30 hours a week, and that just covered living expenses.

Not only that, the "handwriting" on those 53%er letters is almost identical from letter to letter.

[Bill McBlueState]

4. pretty self-congratulatory

The typical college senior has too much of life and its uncertainties ahead of him to feel that good about things. I was pretty confident in myself at 21, but not everything's as easy as one expects.

[handmade34]

5. it's worth reading the entire article...

"...So what are the takeaways I hope you’ll get from this angrily, but earnestly written piece?

If you went to college ten years ago, don’t pretend like you know what students face today.
If your parents paid for some or all of your tuition don’t you EVER post condescending and ill-informed posts about how a college student just needs to drive an old car and rent a cheap apartment plus work hard at a minimum wage job to fund a college education. Students of today aren’t playing on the same field you played on, their terrain is much, much tougher.
Whether Sally, who tells us that she’s not part of the 99, wants to be or not, she IS. Because, at minimum wage, she’s in the bottom percent of income earners. And however much she might want to protect or aspire to the top 1% of earners in this country; probability says she’ll never be part of the 1%. (Know where I learned about probabilities? In college.)
That moronically glib lines like “whether or not you’re part of the 99% is your decision” are complete horse manure (and, as an aside, I highly doubt a college student with a 3.8 GPA would make such a stupid claim, so let’s just say I doubt this photo’s veracity a touch too)...

...This stupid little Facebook photo is not only ill-informed, it’s harmful. Nothing on it has anything to do with reality. It has everything to do with a false rhetoric that’s being promoted by people who either don’t know about the realities of higher education in this country, or don’t care... ...If you’re a middle class kid, or an upper middle class kid, or a rich kid, you have no right to claim that you got where you got simply because of hard work. You got where you are, at least in part, because of what others did for you, and if you hadn’t been born into a family of people who wanted to and were able to do those things for you, you would have needed someone else to do it..."

[ebayfool]

6. Counterpoint ...

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=714315224

"A response to a picture that has been floating around the internet. Please read it, and if you agree, please repost it, I would love for it to circle back to the person who originally posted it. Thanks!"

[redqueen]

8. Thanks for that. (nt)

[intaglio]

10. Did this person start at Walden College,

or have they made up the whole shebang?

[Scout]

9. K&R n/t

[gratuitous]

11. From vibrant life to ignominious death in less than a week

Our 1% friends had better bone up on their rhetoric (or hire someone smart) to write their next bit of bogosity. There's WAY too much real life experience (and native smarts) out here arrayed against them to let some anonymous ersatz "self-made" stuff go untouched.

Is that all you got, Elites? Maybe you'd be better served looking to corner the pitchfork and torch markets.

[ceile]

12. K&R n/t

[retread]

13. And his dad got spit on in airports when he came home from 'Nam.

[OhioChick]

14. "I received 2 scholarships which cover 90% of my tuition"

I call bullshit.

I stopped reading at that point.

[ChromeFoundry]

15. Response found on Reddit:

[Missy Vixen]

16. This is astroturf, pure and simple

I loved the rebuttal.

Sooner or later we will discover who's actually behind the "mythical bootstraps college student", and it won't even make the national media...

:eyes:

p.s. Adding to state that the article written to rebut MBCS bases her figures on how much it costs to get a degree at the University of Washington, considered a "value" in higher education due to competitive costs and excellent education...

[Skidmore]

17. I could buy this based on personal experience, but it's the

attitude that reflects how little this person has learned in life. I put myself through both undergraduate and Master's programs and worked fulltime while raising 2 kids on my own. It was hard work with lots of sacrifices on all our parts and I had some grants for returning students. It took a long time to accomplish with plenty of letters coming wanting to know if I was making "reasonable academic progress." I damaged my health doing this for so long. Then I helped my kids get through undergraduate programs by providing them with housing. They were both excellent students and my son won full scholarships which got him through engineering college. My daughter took advantage of grants. Our combined loan debt was less than $7,000, all of which was paid off early. Both of the kids worked too. It can be done. Between this guy and the one who wrote the other 53%er BS about going to a top notch law school while living in NYC and walked away with scads of debt, I smell BS too. You don't live comfortably while making these kinds of sacrifices.

[unblock]

18. classic deflection. working hard has NOTHING to do with 1% vs. 99%.

why?

because for the 1%, their MONEY does their working for them. sure, they may go to an office and make phone calls and so on, like many of us in the 99%, but

(a) for them, work is optional, it's a game. they can retire at a very young age and live what most of us would consider a cushy retirement and
(b) for them, "work" really means overseeing their own money. they buy and sell companies (not shares; i mean entire companies) and businesses. their salary is often a minor or even meaningless portion of their total compensation, the real loot is in capital gains in the companies they run or invest in or sit on boards of, and often their salary is just whatever they feel like taking out of their own company for personal use. that is, when they don't feel like sticking their company (and any minority shareholders) with the bill.


very few in the 99% are genuinely lazy, because laziness is severely punished. you have to put forth considerable effort just to survive. yeah, there are some government "handouts" if you're in real trouble, but even for that, you often have to put forth considerable effort just to collect what's coming to you.

in contrast, the 1% can easily afford to be lazy.


on second thought, maybe work DOES have a lot to do with it:
the 99% have little choice but to work hard; the 1% can choose to work hard or not.

[ThoughtCriminal]

19. At least they've learned not to photoshop faces

with random people from a Google image search.

[southmost]

20. complete bullshit,

I worked two part time jobs, which barely provided sustenance, as soon as my beater car broke down I was S.O.L. and quickly in debt, I surely couldn't afford the cheapest of apartments plus light and water, so I had to move back home.

all kinds of bullshit in this 'letter'


btw I had lots of scholarships which paid for most tuition and books, but living expenses kept me poor and in debt by the time I graduated from college.

(I went to local state college and couldn't afford to go to the University (too far) anymore; so I got a technical degree instead and started working. )

This bullshit letter is pissing me off!