Does that fix the problem? Will the universities still be allowed to keep doing this and thus create another generation of indebtedness?
I'm no expert, but it sounds like the problem is that we keep giving gov-backed money to kids to spend at schools who are telling them that paying 120k to be a history major is an excellent idea.
These schools are not their friends, and if we want to fix this, it feels like we have several choices:
A. Dictate to kids which programs they can get easy loans for.
B. Punish schools that produce tons of screwed over indebted kids, and hope they begin to downsize programs and costs.
C. Cut out the easy loans altogether, let schools fail, and see what happens.
D. Keep forgiving debt, and watch as angry people who avoided college and the loans vote in radical politicians with axes to grind.
Maybe we could see schools move to some sort of income sharing program, but I'm somewhat confident we'd soon see schools getting kids to sign on deals that are wildly exploitative (like 20 years of 10% of income sharing with the school...).
I know it sucks, but this whole situation sucks - I'm leaning towards A.
Open to more discussion on this.
1. Easy, govt backed loans allow the schools to raise prices without reducing demand
2. Most of this extra revenue is not spent on academics, but rather admin staff, new student housing / amenities, and loss centers like sports
3. Students choosing paths that cannot pay back the debt they take
I think all parties have blame to share, though the schools maybe the most through their exploitive practices
I'm hopeful that new learning paths will emerge so that people can find meaningful, sustaining work without the traditional 4 year degree