I have a theory that this is one of the symptoms of the psychological fallacy that many Americans hold with respect to financial health. You've probably all hea

I have a theory that this is one of the symptoms of the psychological fallacy that many Americans hold with respect to financial health. You've probably all heard the joke about poor and middle class Americans: "You never meet an American who's not wealthy. They're all just temporarily cash strapped." It's a joke, but there is some truth to it in that many poor or middle class Americans do think in this manner. So the average American is very well aware of the consequences of debt, and the costs associated with education. But they think the lack of well paying work is a very temporary situation. If you talk to an unemployed or under-employed person, they'll say that they just haven't found work YET. (The key word being "yet". Deep down, at an almost unconscious level, the average American believes they will find that job. Or they wouldn't use the word "yet".) This is not just an issue with college debt by the way. This same psychological quirk is what generates the abnormally high levels of consumption across nearly every sector of the American economy. It's the reason American's buy homes that are a bit more of a financial stretch than prudence would advise. We buy cars that are more pricey than we can really afford. Clothes, trips, consumer goods etc etc etc. On a sub conscious, or maybe even on a conscious- level, we believe our financial health will always get better over time. And, at least in the past, most of the times we've been right. So we can be forgiven for believing the same thing now. I'm honestly unsure how we would go about addressing that issue when it rears its head in college financing? Because it is deeply ingrained in us at this point. In my own case, I went to the University of Wisconsin for free. So while I know it's not a popular idea, I really do think we might be well served to look at how we might enable free bachelor's level education for people without requiring them to be freak athletes or super intelligent or whatever.