That may be the case. Which points of how student loans or taxes work in the US are relevant?
Student loans represent a bet that your degree will improve your job prospects and that your future earnings will more than pay for your degree. The loan is you paying for your own further education. Society could have paid for it through taxes, like it did for K - 12 education. I would like to point out that I will pay for future generations throughout my working life.
Taxes is a way of providing goods and services for society (read: people in a community) by having society pay for it. Taxes is a pool of resource that people in government are able to spend.
> 2. Your misplaced anger should be pointed at the rotten system that forced you to live on ramen noodles for 3 years even after getting a degree and presumably a good job.
Hmm. It's hard for me to redirect my anger to the system. Let me show my thinking and maybe someone can clear up where my thoughts are going astray.
All levels of Education has a price. I was not producing while I was going through college; I instead was taking. Society could have paid for my education, like it did for my K - 12 education. But instead I paid for my own education, by taking out loans and working while earning my degree. This puts an onus on me to choose a degree that could pay for my loans after college.
I like the idea of bearing the responsibility for later success by my choice in degree. I don't know if I would have the same sense of responsibility if I knew society was paying for my degree.
When I think about paying for other's degrees I think of the students who didn't consider the situation appropriately, and instead chose a degree that has little job prospects and aren't entrepreneurial enough to use their education to further their income. This is a very transactional way of framing the issue but I think this is the right way to frame it.
I suspect that the price of education is so high because of how much easy money there is out there. Everyone can get a loan, no matter what degree they're investing in. Since the supply of money is so readily available, schools are able to demand more for their product. I am slightly mad at that because the market of education was meddled with by the U.S. government.
What is rotten about this system, beyond the U.S. government messing with Education's market forces?