In my country, there was a movement that tried to make education free of charge. One of their arguments was that it was going to be actually cheaper for the gov

In my country, there was a movement that tried to make education free of charge. One of their arguments was that it was going to be actually cheaper for the government. This is what the logic was: the student loans system has a high interest rate, and when the loan is defaulted, the government needs to pay. So what the government ends up paying is not only the actual loan, but the loan with some accrued interest. Also, the default rate is high. So in this case it makes sense for the government to just pay directly. Now, following the same mindset, how much does the government pay if there is people without a basic income? is it more than just giving away that money directly to people? If there answer is yes, then probably it's not a bad idea after all. Now, of course there will be issues. The food stamps system imposes some restrictions that you will no longer have if you just receive basic income. Also some people might just do the minimum required to get that income and live at the expense of the government. There might be pros and cons that need to be considered.