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Prepare to be sorely disappointed because I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this WILL happen.

I talk to almost nobody under 40 who does not crib and whine about their student loan burden. How it is deterring them from starting a family, buying a home, etc. The howling is especially severe from guys in the tech field who are $30-40K in the hole and working in a cube next to an H1B holder who got his education for free in his home country.

I also know some parents (including some very conservative parents) who have said they’d vote for the first candidate who promised to get them out from under their kids’ PLUS loans.

You can see where this is headed. The political tidal forces will just be overwhelming. Car companies and the real estate industry will lobby hard for it. Someone WILL be elected to power on this promise, and we should try and ensure it is not the radical Left.

Some bad ideas are inevitable. I don’t see any way this does not happen in my lifetime.

Agreed. Don't take the dough if you don't want to owe.

For the first ten years after college, I had to build a student loan payment in to my personal budget. I even managed to pay my loans back in a less than eight years instead of ten, simply by making a payment every 4 weeks instead of once a month.

That was the cost. My engineering degree and associated increase in earning power was the benefit, and I have benefited. I have not regretted taking out those loans for one minute. I would not have been able to finish college in four years without them.

Of course, I cannot understand why anyone would go $200,000 in debt to get a useless degree in “Inequality Awareness” or “Social Justice” or some other idiotic “major”. I just write those people off as dumb-asses, and I figure life will eventually take care of them - one way or another.

But I don't want to have to pay off their loans.