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Comment by tn13 | Hacker News Reader

The root of this problem is that the liberals have been paddling relatives good sounding notions such as "everyone needs to go to college" thing and the subsequent government moves to ensure that every tom dick and harry can go to college.

This was about to happen.

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Australia has been through the "everyone needs to go to college" phase, and what we ended up with was a shortage of tradesmen, not a massive student loan debt. 'Having everyone go to college' doesn't mean you need to have these ridiculous loans.

It doesn't automatically follow that a bolus of tertiary eduction has to result in that much debt.

"everyone needs to go to college" phase can lead to many problems depending upon various factors and the kind of government intervention we see for that purpose. In case of US the gov tried to reduce the friction in credit lending to achieve the said objective leading to a student debt crisis.

I think everybody benefits from more education. And public higher education should be a cornerstone of a developed country. But sadly it appears that the USA does not agree.

I don't think it's fair to say that. We have a highly partisan divide right now that causes crippling inaction on some of our biggest problems (including the cost of education), but if you removed that partisan political framing and nailed down most American on the issue directly, I think you'd get an opinion that is in-line with what you said.

America's problem is that we treat our political parties like our favorite sports team, and the parties themselves react accordingly favoring electoral dominance over policy achievements. Case: health-care -- polling shows that most Americans are in favor of the sort of things that the Affordable Care Act basically accomplishes (universal coverage, everybody pays something, subsidization for poorer people). When it's framed as Obamacare or a Democratic Party program, the numbers change to reflect the partisan divide.

It's still stupid, but it's not the same thing as not wanting it.

Seems to me the root of the problem is conservative state governments cut education spending in order to cut taxes. It's a win-win, they get to say they balanced their state budget at the same time that they make their state's citizens more likely to vote for them because of a lack of proper education.

What's your alternative? We always hear this type of complaint from people who take issue with sending masses to college that a information economy requires, but it seems like they never explain their alternative vision for society.

Not the OP. I would role more into high school, maybe extend it by a year, and fund more schools at the federal level to even the playing field. College loans would be available only for careers with higher than average employment availability, and I'd replace unemployment insurance with retraining/relocation insurance and loans.

Everyone gets to drive on roads in the US because we each pay a bit per gallon of gas.

Couldn't we all go to school if we each paid a little bit for it and you just had to show up?

Tell me: where did you get your free car?

The gas tax doesn't fully fund road construction and maintenance. Those of us who don't own automobiles or buy gas are still paying our "share".

BTW, road maintenance costs are mostly due to heavy vehicles such as trucks (and weather). Cars cause negligible damage. So though truckers complain about high taxes, they're actually still paying less than a "fair" amount. So says my transportation professor, anyway.

.. the liberals ..

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