In one case, people that went to college but were not able to take advantage of the degree would still not have a crippling debt to pay.
But, if I go to college and dick around and fail out, why should taxpayers have to pay my tuition?
If I try breeding chickens and some of them stop laying eggs, should I abandon the whole endeavor and start buying my chickens from the local supermarket because some chicken are dicking around?
All national efforts are going to have some waste, it's inevitable and I think we can more than comfortably afford it. Our job should not be to scrutinize every detail in order to minimize waste (of course we should be doing that as well) but rather to make sure that every wheat seed and every chicken have all they need in order to fully develop themselves to the best of their abilities.
There is a reason we expend so much energy and care in looking after wheat and chickens. It's so we can eat them.
An animal on a farm might be treated well (at the discretion of the farmer) (until they are slaughtered), but they aren't free. An animal in the wild has freedom, but not security.
America heavily favors the latter, or at least it used to, times may be a'changing.
An animal that gives up its freedom for security deserves neither.
I agree that the original metaphor was inappropriate because it compares people to domesticated animals and crops that have no free will and would not exist without the farm, not to mention the personal freedom implications of equating citizens to domesticated animals.
There would be a huge incentive for all of these people to declare bankruptcy, discharge the debt, and then wait around the ~7 years for the bankruptcy to disappear from their credit report. As long as they don't want to buy a house during that period it wouldn't even be much of an inconvenience.
If what you say is true, why don't people graduate college, live large on credit cards for a few years, and then just declare bankruptcy? There's zero consequence to it right?
Edit: This would also put further pressure on banks to make sure the loans are not so burdensome that this becomes an attractive option. Theoretically, anyone could do this with any loan (although taking out a loan with the intention of declaring bankruptcy is fraud and would go badly), but most people don't, because it's easier to just repay the loan than deal with 7 years of hassles b/c of bankruptcy.
(Preemptively: for almost that entire time, my family was living basically paycheck-to-paycheck, and our largest expenses were rent and food).
People do leave college and rack up enormous credit card debt. The reason everyone doesn't BK is that there's a social stigma to it, and also, in general, the average American consumer does not have a good idea how the credit system works. Read Patrick McKenzie about this sometime. If more people understood how generous our creditor/debitor laws were to consumers, or how clownshoes disorganized consumer finance was (why would they give a shit? they're judged almost entirely on growth), people would take much more ruthless advantage of it.
But there's also a difference between accumulating $50,000 of revolving credit debt over a span of 5-10 years and six figures based on a decision you make when you are eighteen years old.
If you just don't have a credit history, then you're an unknown quantity, but most institutions will still take a risk possibly with some security. Everyone starts out with no credit so you have to start somewhere.
This is entirely different from someone who has proven themselves to be a bad risk by already refusing to repay their debts.
You can easily live a normal life through your 20's with a bankruptcy on your record. (I don't have one, but I know people who do.)
Without loans to support exorbitant tuition, prices will have to go down to what people are actually able to afford to pay.
Even on a topic like consumer finance where I consider myself fairly knowledgable.
And there isn't zero consequence to defaulting. They'll still take the couple grand you have in your checking account. And having crappy credit is somewhat inconvenient (for the reasons you mention).
It's about cost vs reward. If you've only got $5k in credit card debt then the reward isn't worth the cost. But if you've got $100k in student loan debt those costs start to look pretty small.
Without an unlimited supply of money, universities will not be able to charge outrageous amounts for tuition and will have to be more in line with what people are actually able to pay. That's better all around.
I mean, if any 18 year old could fill out a form and get a government-guaranteed six figure loan to buy a car. A loan that they were prohibited from ever defaulting on...then Toyota Corollas would probably cost $150k too...
You'd have a lot fewer people going to college. And the people missing out would be poorer and browner.
Now, maybe that would be OK. But a lot of people wouldn't see it that way.
The people who lose out the most in our current system seem to be those in the middle - not poor enough to qualify for need-based aid, but not rich enough to be able to afford it. Those are the ones who end up with the loans. If tuition hadn't been significantly outpacing inflation for the last few decades, they and their families would probably be able to swing the bill.