Federal Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program Is Not Working

Guest: Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO

It's back to school for students around the country. Many –if not most –of their teachers are still paying off the loans they took out to get the college degree that qualified them to be in the classroom. A decade ago, Congress created a program to encourage people to work in public service jobs like teaching, nursing or law enforcement. The promise was that if you worked for ten years in a qualifying profession and kept up on your monthly payments, the government would forgive the rest of your student loans at the 10-year mark. The trouble is that hardly anyone –less than 1 percent of the estimated 32 million people who qualify for the program –has actually had their student debt erased. So the American Federation of Teachers is suing the US Department of Education for mismanaging and sabotaging the debt forgiveness program. 

 

The Mosquito: A Human History of our Deadliest Predator

Guest: Timothy Winegard, Instructor of History, Men’s Hockey Head Coach, Colorado Mesa University

Mosquitoes have a way of shaping outdoor summer plans. Camping trips cut short. Patio dinners moved indoors. The pesky blood-suckers have even more influence than that. The course of human history has been shaped by mosquitoes and the deadly diseases they spread. Wars have been won and lost because of mosquitoes. Economies have risen and fallen.

 

Free Tuition Programs Are Not Solution to Higher Education Costs

Guest: Robert Kelchen, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Seton Hall University, Author of “Higher Education Accountability”

Wiping out student debt, free college for all -the most progressive Democratic candidates for president are making big promises they hope will win them support from young voters. And some states –Texas most recently –are expanding their scholarship and grant programs to reduce the crushing burden of student debt. The trouble is, a program like that will be hard to keep up if tuition prices keep rising like they have. They’re up more than 25%, on average, over the last decade. If we don’t address what’s causing college to get more expensive, we’re just putting band-aids on the problem, says scholar Robert Kelchen.

 

Combatting Extremism: Use Peer Pressure, Not Logic or Fear

Guest: Nafees Hamid, PhD Candidate, Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London

When someone commits unthinkable violence for the sake of an extreme belief –whether it’s strapping on a suicide vest in the name of jihad or posting a racist manifesto and gunning down immigrants in a parking lot –surely that person is a psychopath. But that’s not what researchers found when they scanned the brains of people who support a radical Islamist terror group. Their insights are important to the discussion going on in the US right now about how to combat extreme white nationalism.

 

How Underage Drinking on TV Influences Teenagers

Guest: Cristel Russell, Professor of Marketing, Pepperdine University

All the teenagers on TV are drinking. In most of the soapy dramas and comedies popular with teens, alcohol is just part of on-screen life. Occasionally you’ll see a character get drunk and do something they regret. Mostly it’s just what the cool kids do. And in some cases, alcohol manufacturers are paying to have their products featured in those shows.

 

Disability Bias

Guest: William Chopik, Assistant Professor of Social/Personality Psychology, Michigan State University

It’s been almost 30 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act became law, and a lot has changed in that time. Most public places have handicapped parking and wheelchair accessibility now, and schools are more accommodating. But have our attitudes changed? Recent research suggests that in the last decade we might have actually taken a step backward.