> When students have "skin in the game", i.e. they are paying for it, they will work to get their money's worth out of it.
For one, Europe's academic system works well enough to disprove this zero-sum ideology.
Making everything financialized has two serious downsides: first, it excludes a bunch of people - those who financially cannot afford to take the risk of failure (because you can't discharge student loans in a bankruptcy) even if they get a stipend, and then it leads to humanities and "niche" subjects being either killed off entirely as the chance of ever earning back the student loan is very slim, or the only students for these subjects are those who "come from money", both of which has negative impact for society at large.
I went through free K-12 public school. The caring about getting educated was performative, not reality. Neither the teachers nor the students particularly tried.
For one, Europe's academic system works well enough to disprove this zero-sum ideology.
Making everything financialized has two serious downsides: first, it excludes a bunch of people - those who financially cannot afford to take the risk of failure (because you can't discharge student loans in a bankruptcy) even if they get a stipend, and then it leads to humanities and "niche" subjects being either killed off entirely as the chance of ever earning back the student loan is very slim, or the only students for these subjects are those who "come from money", both of which has negative impact for society at large.