Bakersfield College hosted its first segment of The Renegade Roundtable on Oct. 5, an interdisciplinary panel that discusses political and timely social issues with students and other staff faculty. The panels members consisted of Savannah Andrasian, Dave Moton, Javier Llamas, and Joe Saldivar, who are all professors and educated instructors in their own right.

This month’s installment discussed the topic of loan forgiveness, primarily focused on the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for single borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year or couples earning less than $250,000.

This sparked heated discussion among the panel on whether or not they support the bill with many of the voices present, including Moton, who believes it is only a bandage for a much larger problem presently at hand.

The panel also gave insight on some of the tuition models used throughout the country currently. “There is a public university in Indiana, Purdue University, that will pay for your entire tuition and room and board until you graduate. Once you receive a salary, they take out 5% for 10 years, which in the long run, is a lot less than what we are paying now,” Saldivar explained. “And they don’t just take it out of the blue, the 5% isn’t enacted until you receive your first paycheck.”

The goal is to someday achieve free higher education. Similar to Norway’s fully funded public Universities, but Andrasian believes that with America’s current capitalistic structure, it will be a long time before we can achieve it.

The next Renegade Round Table will be on Wednesday Oct. 24 in the Levan Center from 6:00 to 7:45 pm for those who’d like to attend. The panel will include Michael Harvath, Steven Holmes, Erin Miller and Neal Stanifer on the Discussion: Does Our Society Send Too Many People to College?