> Under the current system... holding universities accountable.
No, universities are not accountable, they have optimized for repeat customers just like books, and now the autograders for the online class systems. There's almost no bargaining power here. Its a take it or leave it system.
> But if we don't think students are able to make that decision.
We already covered this under the previous statement. The decision doesn't do anything.
> The problem with student loan forgiveness...
The problem is there's no risk for the loan originators, you can't discharge the debt in bankruptcy court, even if there's fraud at the university, you are still responsible for paying the enron amounts. Its debt slavery for life until you can pay it off.
> Right now a lot of benefits go to the student.
Have you looked at graduation rates? Some of the better colleges are slightly above 25%, and don't get me started on the weed out/dropout factory classes they allow the teachers to structure.
Ever seen a 3 unit class that requires 30 hours a week of study with a probability of passing that may be 0.3%^25th power, or negative because of defective Pearson Vue autograders... with Khan Academy lectures to the modules linked instead of the teacher actually lecturing? Seriously I can't make this up, just withdrew from it ($1,000 in books/tuition/material at week 4 80% of the class is failing). Absolute ridiculousness. If you want to fix education, you kick them in the gut where it hurts, the money.