| No, I think you're not really grasping what I'm saying. Here: (1) College is cheap, only the few and the wealthy go. (2) More people start to attend college. (3) Supply and demand kick in, increasing costs, ensuring that still only the few and the wealthy go to college. (4) The government doesn't like that poor people aren't able to afford college so they guarantee student loans. (5) Poor people can go to school now, but price spirals out of control. This is my timeline. >The lack of the ability to pay back a loan is a normal check against irresponsible lending, unless you have a printing press backing said loans and can afford to disregard defaults. You're totally right. The problem here is that it's "irresponsible lending" to give a student loan to a poor student, a black student, and especially say a poor, black student who wants to study history. We as a society though want poor students to get more education and we as a society don't want certain fields limited to just those who are already rich. So we guarantee student loans. Then a bunch of capitalists see that we've broken the loan system, pull out their Gordon Gekko hats and start robbing us blind. >The lack of a free market in education is precisely what caused the hyper cost inflation. The US Government created a system of lending backed by its ability to print dollars, which stands completely apart from normal economic reality. The lack of a free market in education is precisely what gave lots of kids who would never have otherwise had the opportunity to attend college that chance. >Another hint: guess who is making nearly all the money off the student loans? Yep, the US Government. They're yielding tens of billions per year in interest profit, courtesy of their ability to magically make dollars appear and to put an entire generation into vast debt. The US Govt is earning about 20 times what the private sector is making off of student loans. Sure, I don't like this either. College should be free. |