How About Fixing the Problem?

I saw a meme the other day that come pretty close to addressing some of the actual problems with our higher education system, and the need for student loans. "These are compounding interest loans: borrowers are struggling because they pay many times OVER what the borrowed and still owe." I agree that the entire system of student loans and the fact that the interest rates and terms seem outrageous. Yet, I still would say that people make the free choice to take these loans out. In many cases to pursue a degree in something where there is little or no chance of actually getting a job that will pay enough to pay the loans. In all other cases of loans being given the lender looks at the ability of the borrower to reasonably repay the loans before they choose to lend. Yet not so in the case of student loans. For example, someone who had excellent grades in HS, is planning to major in a STEM discipline, would seem to be a better risk than someone who was average in HS and is planning to major in Feminist Poetry of the 20th century. That's how people originate loans, it's all about risk/reward, the higher the risk the higher the reward. Except in the case of student loans, the lenders are incentivized to make risky loans, knowing that they are protected from those loans being discharged in bankruptcy, and that the federal government is likely to do more "forgiveness". In all of this, no one on the left is aiming this vitriol at the lenders (or the federal govt), or the institutions who keep raising prices at multiples of the rate of inflation because they know that the lenders will lend regardless of how nuts the prices are. It's a screwed up system, and the notion that a one time "forgiveness" of 10k doesn't even begin to address. This "forgiveness" is simply a cowardly way to pretend to be solving a huge problem while actually doing nothing. It's also a way to buy votes in '22 and '24. If this moves the needle on the midterms, you can bet we'll see another one of these in '24. If you want some ideas, here are a few. 1. Pass a "higher education" tax, and use that to pay for higher education. Tax university endowments, as a part of this tax. 2. Tie the ability to borrow for college to the utility/income potential for the jobs that a given major would lead to. 3. Incentivize students to pursue non college higher education. 4. Have the institutions of higher learning lend only to students that attend that particular institution. 5. Make student loans dischargable in bankruptcy. 6. Regulate the amount and types of interest that can be charged. 7. Tighten entrance requirements for colleges, potentially have tiers that are dependent on different levels of qualifications. 8. Do something like some European countries do where that have a two track secondary system. 9.  Rate degrees based on their future value in the marketplace and use that as a basis for choosing who to lend to.  I do keep seeing people using various European countries as examples of "free college", but I'd suspect that you don't have thousands of people going to free college and majoring in subjects that have little or no value in the marketplace. I suspect that the European countries that offer "free college", probably have quotas that would completely disrupt how higher ed is looked at here, as well as higher taxes. I'm not suggesting that I'm necessarily for any of the above, and would be open to other options. I think that this simplistic "loan forgiveness", vote buying scheme is a really bad idea, and one that is surrounded by lies.