If you want to offer student loans to people with low incomes (as almost all students are and many of their families also are), you’re not going to be able to offer loans with traditional finance-based underwriting standards. If someone can only qualify for a pre-paid credit card or payday loan, is a lender going to step up and offer $100K+ in education loans?

I don’t want higher education open primarily to the already-wealthy. I don’t want to deny loans to students whose family will not co-sign loans for them, etc.