Yes indeed, particularly considering that such a subsidy should in net (though with significant latency) lead to higher tax revenues, more investment in the eco

Yes indeed, particularly considering that such a subsidy should in net (though with significant latency) lead to higher tax revenues, more investment in the economy, more innovation in the economy, all that good stuff which a Government with a long-term view should be very interested in. In fact an effectively zero-interest loan is the very bottom end of what should be offered by the government by that line of reasoning, the top end being completely free tuition. Having a student loan with 'real' interest seems to be a policy drawn from looking at the investment->return (financial and otherwise) of a university education from the perspective of each individual (you want the gains, you shoulder the pain), rather than from the perspective of the society at large (all boats are eventually raised, therefore it's advantageous to invest our common resources in this). My impression is that sadly, over the past 50 years in most western countries, this has been the trend for higher-education funding policy. I'm from the UK, and that is certainly the case there. A side-effect of this focus on the purely personal financial investment aspect of higher education seems to be the newer Peter-Theil style attitude that in fact, university might not be as good an 'investment' as simply going out on one's own as an entrepreneur, once school is over. Whether this is right or wrong for any given individual is not an answerable question, but it seems very sad that this functional, financial aspect of things seems to be treated with more importance than the other benefits of a university education and experience, to the extent that it's now more and more being discussed as the primary (the only?) factor in the value equation of the whole endeavour. I find this line of thinking sad both on the level of individual, and society as a whole. But I'm not saying it's a irrational way to begin thinking about it, given the way policy is going and given the way society is adapting its attitude towards the value of university education.