Comments on: Married Mormon Graduate Students On Welfare – Is It Right?

By: SUNNofaB.C.Rich

SUNNofaB.C.Rich — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:37:18 +0000

polygamy is always a fun topic..

By: Kullervo

Kullervo — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:11:15 +0000

735: Hey now, be fair. We work really hard to inflate the tally ourselves, too.

By: Orwell

Orwell — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:38:28 +0000

734: Yeah, well, we don’t have (m)any Mormon teenagers commenting on this topic to inflate the tally.

By: Kullervo

Kullervo — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:25:42 +0000

You guys really need to pick up the pace. Our Polygamy Jesus thread over at LDS & Evangelical Conversations is now at over 1100 comments.

http://ldstalk.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/jesus-was-a-polygamist/

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:31:32 +0000

I am completely agree with all of your comments. My husband is currently in graduate school in the state of Michigan. I am working to try and help with the increasingly high tuition and fees. It is very aggravating to have friends that truly do “milk” the system and try to justify their actions. I don’t know how many times I am asked by fellow members of the church when my husband and I will start having children. It is no one’s business but my husband and I and second we believe that we should be able to pay for the children that we are bringing into the world. The state of Michigan happens to have an excellent welfare program due to the incredibly high unemployment rate in the state. I do not think that graduate students should be taking the funds that others are truly in need of. Our state is struggling to pay for everything and continues to make cuts to things like education to pay for the welfare program in the state. Out of the 35 students in my husband’s class, over half of them are living on state benefits. We recently had some friends move out of the state because they had graduated and secured well paying jobs, but they continued to use their food card to purchase groceries after they were in another state and working full time. They asked us for some advice, “how long can we use our food card before the state finds out we are employed?”

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:55:39 +0000

Most graduates especially in the sciences are not finding six figure jobs in this economy. Most are unemployed and do not qualify for unemployment insurance when they graduate because the universities pay them as self employed during their graduate work in laboratories. I graduated in biochemistry from one of the top universities in the country a year and a half ago. I’ve applied to over a thousand jobs and only got two interviews. Most of the jobs turned me down because I am overqualified and they don’t want to pay a decent salary above 35k for the degree. Why did I waste so much of my time slaving my life away for this stupid education in the sciences if I can’t even support my wife and children. The education system and government want cheap scientists and have lied for years about the shortage of scientists. Really it is a shortage of scientists that will work for marginal wages. There are very few jobs for Ph.D. graduates. Higher education is not adding new faculty and if they do they higher someone that has been around teaching for 20 years already as an adjunct instead of a recent graduate, unless of course the graduate has done three post-docs and are in their mid-forties. If you are LDS and have any savings like I do you likely will not qualify for any government assistance. Me, my pregnant wife, and son do not show up on the unemployment numbers. We do not receive any government assistance because we have not lied to the medicaid office about our limited savings assets. We get nothing, are homeless moved back to Utah with family, and no one will hire us. I would think again before you make a judgement about other students. They may as well use the system now as they may never get a good job and be able to pay back their loans. I know many law school graduates that are unemployed with lots of loans to payback. Don’t waste your time on science eduation or law school the jobs aren’t there.

By: sam

sam — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:11:03 +0000

Mormons are supposed to get as much education as they can. But they are not supposed to put off having a family, either. To have kids, you need medical insurance. To get medical insurance, you need to buy it yourself at outlandish prices, or be employed full-time somewhere that offers it. But being employed full-time makes it extremely difficult to get through school at any decent pace. You could do part-time at school, but then you have no access to any scholarships, all of which (including Pell Grant)require you to be a full-time student. So then you need to fund your education yourself, or take out a loan, which is even more financial difficulty.

Young Mormons starting out in life are up against innumerable obstacles. All of this “advice and/or spiritual guidance” coupled with people who shout, “Don’t milk the system,” does not help.

People need to mind their own business. Period.

By: Stormi

Stormi — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:46:25 +0000

The Mormon Church is extremely wealthy from all of the money they take from the members. They demand these children get married & start having as many children as they possibly can, while going to college. All of these students are on welfare so they can have all these babies on our tax dollars meanwhile daddy is supporting them under the table & writing it off his tax’s. If this church needs these people to breed like flies to up their membership status they should pay for it. But as we all know this is the church of the “Holy Dollar” & there is nothing for free not even the word of God. If you cannot afford to support yourself then you cannot afford to go to college.

By: mac

mac — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:56 +0000

Santana,

The idea of such “safety nets” is to make certain that those who REALLY need help could get it. The problem comes when those who actually could, with a bit more work or more prudent planning, support themselves, take the resources meant for the really needy.

Most people don’t mind helping or paying SOME taxes to assist those who cannot help themselves. It’s when people see abuse of the system (in the Church) and get to greater than 40-50% taxation, that the anger and resistance to helping comes. There is a reason the Church always wants people to do something for the assistance it renders. Giving people charity often demeans them and makes them feel as if they are not as good as others. If the recipient feels as if he/she actually worked for their help, the damage is not as great.

By: Santana

Santana — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:07:49 +0000

I am one of these Boston graduate students with 3 kids currently leaning on the Church Bishop Strorehouse for food. We never thought we would need it. But with the financial crisis my scholarship was cut down 80% and the savings we had were wiped out due to the weakining of the currency in my home country. Before we started to use it we strechted all other sources we had: personal assets, student loans, family and friends. We have being enduring the Boston weather with no car and all winter clothing we have were gotten them from Children Clothing Exhange here in Cambridge.
We were really blessed to have Church Welfare system to help us when everything had failed. We hope in the future we can bless others as we were blessed over this time.