> What we see in practice is that the subsidies cost the government (which is fine -- that's what a subsidy is) but the value is being captured by the school, n

> What we see in practice is that the subsidies cost the government (which is fine -- that's what a subsidy is) but the value is being captured by the school, not the student. And thus it's in the academic class's self-interest to encourage both more lending and more debt forgiveness — and remarkably enough that's exactly what the academic class is arguing for. I don't think that they're acting in bad faith, just that there's little incentive for them to examine their assumptions. After all, from the perspective of a tenured professor or a university executive, higher education is an unmitigated good, his life's work.