Although I feel bad for people who were lied to and told they needed a degree to be a success, but never told how to intelligently look at the pros and cons, I really hate when people borrow money and then complain and/or refuse to pay. Not repaying a loan is no different that theft. Since student loans are guaranteed by the government, they are stealing from average Americans, many of which are worse off than they are and/or already were responsible and paid off their own debts, but are being enslaved paying off less responsible people’s debts.

We need to totally reform college education in the US. The federal government needs to get out of the business of guaranteeing student loans. Students need to be taught how to analyze the trade-offs of a college education. They need to look not only at how much more they will make after receiving a college degree, specifically for the degree they intend to attain instead of averages. A limited number of degrees, like engineer, lawyer, doctor, and architect, have significant benefit and can only be entered into with a degree. Many more have a small increase to income, but that increase is frequently not enough benefit to overcome the lost income while in college, the cost of college itself, the cost of living expenses during college, and the cost of interest on the student loans. A few degrees, primarily victimology degrees like women’s studies, gender studies, and African American studies probably make them less likely to earn a good income. What employer wants to hire someone who spent 4+ years learning to be a victim, find fault in others, and sue companies?

If banks had to deal with the cost of defaults and not just the benefits of earning guaranteed interest, they likely wouldn’t finance expensive degrees in fields that don’t add much to future income and that may make the person unfit for most jobs. This would prevent people getting into this mess in the first place.