[gwright]

If someone takes out a loan, goes to school, and then has to pay off the loan is that also "indentured servitude" in your mind? It just seems like two different ways to finance a purchase (training) that has a future value.

The ISA's that I'm familiar with don't bind the person to a particular employer, have minimum salaries that are required before the payment is taken out of paychecks, etc. It seems very different than "indentured servitude" and much closer to a loan.

[klabb3]

Agreed, at least if comparing to American student loans, which certainly come with the same philosophical/ethical "servitude issues".

ISAs seem to align incentives between lender and loan taker better than traditional loans, (although as pointed out not perfectly). More income = more money for both. Most people who are getting training/education likely aims to maximize their income in a 1-2 year time frame.

Now, which one is actually the best deal varies from case to case. If you pay more dollars on average in total with an ISA, that'd be expected but hardly the fault of the ISA issuer. That's just an unfortunate side effect of debt and risk calculations that are true across the board.