I'm not arguing against student loans, in general, I'm arguing against our specific instantiation of the concept. As others in this thread have pointed out, a u

I'm not arguing against student loans, in general, I'm arguing against our specific instantiation of the concept. As others in this thread have pointed out, a university education is not actually that expensive (roughly $10k/year for a state university; but even less for people who can't afford that, since they would qualify for grants, financial aid, etc.). That is surely out of reach for some people, so what should we do about it? In my opinion, the option we have chosen is the most insane option you could choose (or nearly so; providing free university education to whoever wants it would be more insane). There are so many perverse incentives. We've given 18 year olds the ability to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that they have no way of getting out of. This means that the other party in this transaction (the university) has no incentive to make sure that they're providing an education that A) provides real value, and B) is cost effective. And then we've decided that our children and grandchildren should hold the risk when this whole thing explodes. It's nuts. Especially given that we already have a way for students to earn a free university education by serving in the military. And if we wanted a sane system of increasing access to student loans, it would probably look something like garnishing up to 10% of a student's wages for up to 10 years, after which the student can file for bankruptcy to clear out any remaining loan balance. And get the government out of securing student loans. Students would still carry a significant burden, but lenders and institutions would also have to pay a lot of attention to the economic benefit of their offering, and it would leave me and my descendants out of this whole thing.