First Lady Jill Biden asked to be called “Doctor” after her husband was elected president. She’s not actually a doctor. She’s also not nearly as smart as one and so she thought the title made her look like she was, at least to stupid people who don’t know better.
The justification for “Doctor” Jill’s request to be called a doctor was she has an EdD. That’s a doctoral degree in education. It’s a little like a PhD but much easier to obtain. No EdD in the entire universe could pass an introductory college chemistry or physics course.
I suppose I could ask to be called a “doctor” too, since my law degree is a J.D., a Juris Doctor, but my friends would laugh at that request, and rightly so.
They don’t teach you anything in EdD programs. After all, they don’t know anything themselves. Their qualification for teaching in an EdD program is their own EdD. They don’t even teach grammar or proofreading. “Doctor” Jill’s written thesis for her EdD contains a typo in the first paragraph.
But the degree helps you land a job in school administration. Think half-million-dollar school superintendent. School administration is the part of the educational-industrial complex where people don’t teach. It’s now the biggest part, at least cost wise.
These bogus doctoral degrees are featherbedding by educators, something like the way they get paid extra if they get a Master’s degree. This is true whether or not they learned anything useful in getting their Master’s. Since there’s no accountability in their job, there’s no way to tell. Pay money to the education establishment for another degree, and the establishment will automatically pay you more taxpayer money.
Everyone wins – except the taxpayers and the students. Then they have the gall to think the rest of us are foolish enough to believe them when they tell us these self-serving scams are “for the children.”
“Doctor” Jill initially saw herself as co-president. That’s understandable, since being around Joe all day probably made her feel at least a qualified as he.
On one of Joe’s first foreign trips, she posed for a photograph of herself behind a desk purportedly going over briefing books. Even Democrats realized this show of her doing foreign policy homework to accompany her questionably cognitive husband overseas didn’t sell.
Since then, she’s been lying low. Most of her public displays of authority are limited to whispering in her husband’s ear to tell him where he is and who he is, and unsuccessfully instructing him not to talk.
But she scored big this week behind the scenes. She whispered in Joe’s ear that he should cancel billions in loans that students voluntarily took on to pay six-figure tuition bills to the education establishment. The published cost of this giveaway is $300 billion, but most objective observers think the real cost is more like triple that.
The people whose debt is being cancelled are, naturally, people with college degrees. A large proportion of them have Master’s degrees. These are not the downtrodden of society; these are the privileged. They are people who either have excellent earnings prospects or used the money loaned to them to voluntarily purchase worthless degrees. Either way, they don’t deserve this freebie.
But I’m sure they’ll take it. Everyone likes stuff when they’re the ones to receive it while someone else pays for it.
The someone who pays for it is you and me, and it’s not a trivial amount. Do the math. With a couple hundred million taxpayers in America, a trillion dollars computes out to several thousand dollars per taxpayer.
Joe is effectively taking thousands of dollars from some of us and paying it to others to purchase their votes in the upcoming midterm elections.
“Doctor” Jill lobbied, whispered and cajoled for this not only because it buys votes in an election that looks bad for the Democrats but because it all redounds to the benefit of her favorite special interest group – the educational-industrial complex that she identifies with and participates in. Colleges can now urge students to take on ever more debt to pay ever higher tuition, with a wink and a nod that the debt will be canceled anyway in the future.
It’s well documented that colleges have spent hundreds of millions (of student tuition and tax-deductible donor endowment) to lobby for precisely this outcome. It’s equally well documented that the Democratic Party was owned by the teachers’ unions even before “Doctor” Jill showed up. But how nice for them to now have one of their own as First Lady, wife, “Doctor” and nurse to a president who is comatose.
You might reasonably ask: How can Joe/Jill simply cancel people’s debt? If they can do that here, couldn’t they also cancel debts owed by favored constituents to the IRS for back taxes? Or to the EPA for fines?
Isn’t debt cancelation the same as free money? What would stop them from instructing the IRS to simply send money to favored constituencies such as unionized public school teachers (but not ununionized charter school teachers)?
Joe himself said some time ago that he had no power to do this. So did high officials in the Obama administration when they considered the idea. So did Nancy Pelosi, the future ex-Speaker of the House, as recently as last year.
They were right then, not now. I expect legal challenges, and I think there’s a fair chance that this mother of all freebies will be shot down in the courts. Good. Then we’ll see “Doctor” Jill self-medicate.
the Aspen beat 
Hey, who’s complaining. I have written to Joe and my congressmen asking for reimbursement of the $500 loan from the Methodist Church that I needed to finish my degree at CSU in 1963. I paid $5 per month for 100 months to pay it back, hope I can get the refund. Menwhile I will be contributing to those who aren’t willing to pay every month to return what benefitted them.
I’d like to be reimbursed for my 1970s college debt, my husband’s and ALL the college tuition we paid for our 3 kids! Anyone votes for these demonrats they’re crazy. They’re intentionally running the US into the ground.
I cannot “forgive” the millions of ignorant fools who voted for Joe Biden, the Social Media cabal that prevented….at their own admission…information that might well have changed the election. Look at what we have in Washington DC. The Executive Branch looks like the bar scene from Star Wars where everyone was chosen for some irrelevant quality…melanin level, sexual activity, or spouting the right woke nonsense. Mrs Biden is a perfect example of being educated by our public school system. Like a trained seal she regurgitates platitudes and thinks she’s impressing us., I won’t call her “Doctor” given my mother earned a PhD in Biology in 1956, and never insisted anyone but her students address her as such and then only in class. My mother actually earned a very tough degree in a very tough subject back when women in college were more focused on getting their Mrs than their B.S. My mother worked through college, tutoring and later as a lab assistant. Ditto with my father who went to college on the GI Bill. I worked through school taking a small loan my senior year when I was studying for the CPA exam and couldn’t work. I paid it back. What a message this group of complete ideologues sends to we the schmucks that thought a degree should be earned and paid for by our own efforts.
Great anecdotes about your experience & your parents. Thanks. My biology teacher in high school in upstate NY (1972-76) was a very smart lady & great teacher who had been one of the first women to obtain her Ph.D. from MIT.
Robert A. Heinlein, the great Science Fiction Master, made fun of Doctors of Education in his stories.
Beaton’s mocking was not harsh enough. He is kinder than I. My teaching credential program taught me nothing. The higher you go in education programs, the dumber you get and are. Jill’s “dissertation” was valid beyond belief.
Your assessment of the educational establishment is spot on target. I retired from the belly of the beast after thirty plus years in the trenches. (How’s that for mixed metaphors.) It all is one big racket, a criminal enterprise. There are many schemes out there to ‘fix’ education, but the only thing that will really work is the total collapse of it all. Rebuild from the ground up.
What you said. But what will it take for the public to pull the rug out from under it? I thought the Covid fiasco might initiate its collapse, but now it seems more likely that this regime will collapse the entire culture first, in which case who does the rebuilding?
See Galt, John
👍
Who is John Galt? 😜
I am about to retire after 22 years. I agree with your assessment, Boligat, that it all must be destroyed and rebuilt. The technology exists to devolve education back to the small communities from which it originally sprung. Teachers are necessary even with the technology. I look forward to seeing these monstrous buildings turned into community training centers where students go for advanced training in useful disciplines.
The next move is for states to cut off funding to universities that fail to uphold academic rigor and have bloated administrations that contribute nothing to education. No administrator should have a position that does not include teaching at least one class. However, I’m not sure that the diseased university system can or should be saved. It is possible that, outside of the sciences, they have outlived their usefulness.
If we are going to keep any portion of the university system, then I would begin by instituting a college entrance exam that would be required for ALL students to enroll in any public university. This entrance exam should be long and hard and in two parts. The first part is all facts, dates, people, events, basic arithmetic, reading, etc. This part is objective and could be checked with a scantron. The kid knows whether or not he has passed as he walks out the door. The second part, which cannot be taken until the first part has been passed, evaluates the kid’s ability to write and think logically, etc. This must be graded by hand. The test can be repeated.
This test takes the place of ALL general education requirements. This, in turn, means that a four year degree now takes two to two and a half years to complete. Fire all the university people current employed teaching or administering the general education classes. NO remedial classes should be allowed.
Next, give every student, at birth, a voucher for 12 years of schooling. This voucher can be used any time and at any public school. If the kid is homeschooled or goes to a private school, he ‘saves’ his voucher for use later in college. If a kid is really smart, he can take the college entrance exam early. Once he passes, he is through with k-12. Any unused portion of the vouchers go with him to university or trade school.
I would scrap all teacher certification requirements. If a person can demonstrate mastery of his subject, he should allowed to teach. If none of his students ever pass the college entrance exam, the teacher gets fired. OR, the teacher contracts with the student(s). If no one wants to take his classes, he doesn’t get paid. The school administration’s job is to provide teaching space, if needed.
Each state should devise their own exam and I would not use either the SATs or ACT scores. If athletes can’t pass the entrance exam, they don’t get to play.
I could go on.
Though I try to think for myself, I’m probably closer to “liberal” than any other label. Still, I think Biden’s Student Debt Relief is bad. Very, very bad. My liberal wife saw this before I did. The liberal Washington Post was all over it. It’s that bad. So why attack Jill Biden personally? I agree about an EdD not being all that much of a doctorate and the silliness of addressing Ms. Biden in that way, but how does this personal hit piece add to the value of the column? It doesn’t. In fact it distracts people from the real issue; adding to national debt, likely inflationary effects and insult to the many who struggled to pay back so much. Cut out the personal attacks Glenn. They bring kudos from those who can’t separate facts from feelings and think insults are arguments. But you are better than that. Aren’t you?
Mrs Biden insisted she should be called doctor. A bit of vanity on her part. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she would do whatever it takes to be First Lady of the land. If it meant exposing her husband to ridicule, so be it. The damage the Democrat party and mainstream media have done to the country is as nothing, when you consider that his wife kept her husband’s cognitive decline under wraps before the election and has exposed him to ridicule since. That’s surely unforgivable. Historians won’t treat him gently, or her, I hope. Mrs Biden knew, none better, that her husband wasn’t fit for the job. Good on you Glenn for exposing the ineffectual woman behind the useless President.
I suspect the reason Mrs Biden was pilloried in this article is that she is likely influential in forcing this through. Also her cohorts are heavily invested in the Education Industrial Complex. They call it The Blob in some cities. That seems apt. Teaching used to be an honorable profession. No more.
Hey, she’s a symbol, the very face of pandering, pretentious stupidity when she says things like “Si, se PA-DWAY!” and “the BO-GA-DAS of the Bronx.” Some “doctor” of education! Granted, she never heard a word of Spanish in her life, but you’d think she could at least ask how things are pronounced.
I’ll give her this though — as a spouse, she appears to be keeping her end of the bargain in her Faustian marriage. She seems “nicer” than her lying, thieving, vainglorious, blarney-filled husband. In any case, she strikes me as too stupid to be the Machiavellian Lady Macbeth that Glenn sometimes makes her out to be.
The reason to attack Jill personally is because she wanted to live in that house so badly that she was willing to foist upon the American people a husband who is an Alzheimer’s patient. She knew he wasn’t up to the job and frankly has never been up to the job. Joe Biden has not once in his life been the smartest person in a room and now that includes when he is alone. Jill knew that and knows that. The country is suffering egregiously because of that but her ambition was to live in that house so screw the rest of you and the horse you rode in on. That is why we can and should all attack that woman personally. She is one of the most despicable humans in recent memory.
Get a life….The article is one of best ever written. The stupidity and corruption of the left is always fair game.
Your beloved “Doctor” disrespectfully insulted the country’s largest ethic-group, and
then offered a quiet apology.
Although I’m only part-Taco, her latest de facto act of Treason demands the gallows.
Just kidding. Maybe.
By the way, you’re a simp. Seriously.
Sometimes readers need to be smacked between the eyes! Had MORE folks written “hit pieces” like this, POSSIBLY some of the BS that has infiltrated all our lives and is remorselessly attacking what is left of our “culture” might not be so bad!
What a scam. Since Carter and the Democrats created the Department of Education as a sop to the NEA/AFT for working hard for him the public schools have become a cesspool for the country. Also, the worthless college grads are best exemplified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As something simple, ask any of these students to make change from any denomination bill. I expect the legal challenges to be fierce.
I, like the author, have a J.D. I also have a host of other letters after my name. Only immediately after earning my J.D. did my husband tell our kids to call me Doctor Mom (I’m also a nurse with a M.S.) and they were around a lot of medical doctors growing up so it seemed natural-silly but natural. It lasted about 2 days. I never asked to be called or identified as ‘doctor’ until nitwit Jill with her EdD made it such a big deal. Now when filling out forms, surveys, etc. I check the box marked “doctor.” I actually worked for my degree. (I did take undergrad and some grad level education courses. I have always told everyone they were an absolute joke. Nothing but busy work!)
Get a life….The article is one of best ever written. The stupidity and corruption of the left is always fair game.
I worked 3 jobs all the way through college and served in the military 6 years to pay back a scholarship. (Plus 14 more) I wouldn’t change a thing but it should be noted I put my butt on the line to pay back my scholarship with dangerous service to my country. You know, some of those folks who served alongside me were injured or killed in training accidents or war casualties. What were they doing over there? Paying back their GI loans with service to their country. How are they ever going to get free loan paybacks, now? Some of them are dead…
Doctor Glenn,
There is indeed an “educational-industrial complex.” The extraction industry, for example, has a cozy, mutually beneficial relationship with The Colorado School of Mines, as does the hotel industry with Cornell’s hotel-management program. Well and good, since industry actually produces something — goods and services.
But what we are speaking of here is an educational-GOVERNMENTAL complex, in which schools indoctrinate those who will govern, who in turn fatten up their alma maters and educational bureaucracies. Government, of course, produces NOTHING — except cushy jobs in the Deep State for its friendlies, jobs that are virtually tenured as long as the reigning political party stays in power. When a Trump comes along, threatening to say “You’re fired!” — well, we’ve seen what happens when you poke the hornet’s nest, especially when the hornets are of the Marxist, Woke variety.
Anyway, you know all this, but I just thought I’d refine the terms — pedant that I am, who hasn’t yet earned an EdD degree.
I agree, Chad. “Educational-Industrial Complex” is too generous a term.
This “giveaway” is but a short term “loan”. Ultimately, we will all pay for it in the direct cost of inflation, higher taxes and higher interest rates. The Dow responded yesterday by shedding a thousand points – just the start of what’s to come. When “recent college grads” see their home-owning prospects placed out of reach by higher interest rates (and higher prices) perhaps they’ll see that they’ll be paying for that $10,000 “gift” several times over on their mortgage payments. And taxes – as they move into the “tax paying” quintiles of earners. TANSTAAFL.
I’m glad you mentioned “Doctor” Jill’s “thesis” for her Ed.D. It’s way worse than a typo. It’s a travesty, a very simplistic & error-filled paper that might get an earnest 7th grader a B+. In other words, like everything else Biden, it’s fraudulent.
Dr Jill is a egomaniacal narcissist who feels more important if people call her doctor, some of whom will naturally assume she is in fact a physician. For the same reason she pushed mr Biden to run for an office he clearly wasn’t cognitively qualified to hold yet she insisted so she could be First Lady. Look at the damage Biden and his far left wing handlers have wrought on the nation. Thanks , Jill.
Just read an article claiming Dr. Jill was against this move to “forgive” debt that was willingly acquired. Which is it? Is this the correct take? What evidence does Aspen Beat have to support this? I didn’t really see any evidence, just discussion of her inflated ego.
Whichever account of this you read had its origin in The New York Times, the Pravda of our times, which is probably no more privy to the Bidens’ pillow talk (if there is any) than a blogger named Beaton. The story claims that all Jill ever lobbied for was free community college, an equally harebrained big government scheme to increase federal debt and the reach of top-down leftist indoctrination simultaneously. Whatever her actual role in bringing forth the loan forgiveness decree, she’s in the mix.
If conservatives don’t like it, it could only have originated in the NY Times? Quite an assertion. What’s the evidence for that? And by implication, if it comes from the NYT it’s automatically incorrect and perhaps even evil? (Rhetorical Questions) When it comes to rhetoric and argument, I certainly conservative; I believe in conserving civility, stating premises before conclusions, and offering evidence supporting premises.
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My math professor dad had some contact with his (Indiana U) School of Ed and ended up having to read a PhD ‘thesis’ in math ed. His comment: They run around all day long, eating one anothers’ SHIT
I have always wondered what the value of a Presidential vote is. Now we know.
Don’t forget the democrats pusHing through their bill a couple years ago which included a provision which excluded student loan forgiveness from paying taxes on the forgiven amount. In the real world if your debt is forgiven, you will pay taxes on the amount forgiven. It’s ironic that the Dems try to find taxes of any source to fund their socialist ideas but decide to let that tax go. I don’t get it.
How many of these students qualifying for $10K or even a $20K (with Pell Grant) in “forgiven” loan debt racked up $5K or $10K going to exotic Spring Break locales like Fort Lauderdale, Hawaii, or some Mexican resort in Cabo?!?
Students applying for this sham forgiveness should have to show receipts and prove that they were not squandering money for weeks of drunkenness and debauchery. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing Spring Break for college students partying like Hunter Biden.
Better yet … if there must be a loan debt relief, how about re-programming all these billions upon billions and re-directing up to $10K in relief to honorably discharged military veterans who have VA homes loans, education loans, and/or small business loans instead?
While we’re at it … let’s also re-program that money from Biden’s sham of a bill, the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” and transfer the IRS’s 87,000 new agent hires over to Customs and Border Protection where we actually need more federal officers to shut down Biden’s open border.
Buy more guns … buy more ammo. Never forget what these craven and mendacious politicians have done to you. Vote all Democrats out of power.
I don’t disagree with the sentiments, but I think the money is better spent on Republican candidates than on a 5th or 13th gun and another 1000 rounds of ammo.
Just another Obmama lie. “Nationalizing student debt will pay for Obmamacare.”
I also have a J.D. (and my undergrad and masters are in a science /health care field). I have told my family & friends that as long as someone with an educational doctorate -that ANYONE can get -calls herself Doctor than I too shall be called Doctor. Any form at all that asks for a title I now write Dr. ; fortunately, if i’m ever called to help in a medical emergency my lower level degrees and work experience would likely come in much more handy! Jill’s a doctor then I’m a doctor. My degree and a real life 3 day licensing exam count for much more than her educational-joke degree.