> "To break even on an extra 100k within 10 years of graduating" Why are you limiting yourself to a 10 year window? The average career last 30+ years. Over a t

> "To break even on an extra 100k within 10 years of graduating" Why are you limiting yourself to a 10 year window? The average career last 30+ years. Over a time period that long, it's much easier to recoup the initial investment costs. > "The student could drop out... get pregnant, go to jail" Ironically, many of these dangers are much more likely to occur at non-elite universities, due to peer-influence and peer-pressure. This is actually a great reason to attend elite universities where you'll be ensconced in a ivory-tower-bubble. > "A debt burden like this taken on by young people seems to me to be incompatible with the concept of free society." I guess you and I define freedom differently. A society where only the ultra-wealthy attend elite universities, doesn't sound nearly as free to me. Allowing extremely bright middle-class kids to invest $0.25M in their education, so that they can optimize for their millions of dollars of lifetime earnings, as well as get the education they've dreamed of, sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Would I prefer it if elite schools like Harvard weren't so damn expensive? Of course. But the current situation still sounds far better than getting rid of student loans entirely.