I'm usually suspicious of state-phobia/"no big government" themes because there's usually a host of prejudices and nasty fallback concepts undergirding things, but as a person struggling with student loan debt (I know, I know, unlike everyone else on the site amirite) this hits home in a big way.
But as far as policy debate goes, the university system is a trainwreck of financial demand and is only going to get worse. Maybe Peter we need to do other things than college, but that isn't very responsive to historically sedimented structural inequities (I know, I know, meritocracy is best, etc). A discussion of free schools is underway in Britain, but I feel that presents a chicken-or-the-egg problem.
Its not a train wreck, is just mired in a bit of Federal-State quirk-ness of the US system at least the public ones.
The original basis for not funding EDu in the US was due to a clash between the class of the US congress versus returning long haired Vietnam viets and thus they choose the loan route.
We need in the US to end the debate between Fed and State control over the area of college education..if states want control and cannot provide full funding than Fed should not be forced to do so..that thinking got the US with help of banking lobbyists into making exceptions to the Uniform Commercial Code, bankruptcy laws, etc to punish the ones in the middle(the students).
If Fed and state govs do not get their act together...it will be student revolt through non-payment.
But as far as policy debate goes, the university system is a trainwreck of financial demand and is only going to get worse. Maybe Peter we need to do other things than college, but that isn't very responsive to historically sedimented structural inequities (I know, I know, meritocracy is best, etc). A discussion of free schools is underway in Britain, but I feel that presents a chicken-or-the-egg problem.
What do we do?