At least in that situation the kid that went to trade school and doesn't have loan debt gets the cash. Trade schools aren't free either. For example, WyoTech'

At least in that situation the kid that went to trade school and doesn't have loan debt gets the cash. Trade schools aren't free either. For example, WyoTech's 6-month welding program is $28,000. My local community college has a one-year welding program and per semester estimated cost of $10,000, so $20k total. You certainly shouldn't be able to run up $30k+ in loans on these programs, but people are definitely borrowing money to pay for them. As for new programs, we should try to avoid the sunk-cost fallacy. What's better for society? Loan forgiveness or not? But, I definitely agree that we should avoid moral hazards by fixing the funding of higher ed as part of any package (otherwise we get to revisit the problem in another generation).