Comment by crossbody 4 days ago
I'd reword the question: "was college paid for via higher income taxes for graduates (and others) or via a more direct approach of student loan taking?". I believe the latter but I don't see the fundamental difference. It's the same student loan but hidden from sight, as it's packaged as higher tax %
The students bear costs but no benefit to themselves? No higher wages?
My point is that it doesn't matter in principle if one takes a loan and pays it down over time vs. one is taxed at much higher % and that tax "pays down" a phantom student loan of "free" education.
It does introduce a risk and hence the incentive for loan takers to choose their degree wisely though. Which should lead to better allocation of labor but at a cost of some personal risk.
I actually included the graduate as a beneficiary ("a well-paid, highly taxed contributor" or "the graduate" in the counter), but more importantly:
The entirety of society benefits from a well-educated populace. That's one reason even those without children pay for public education.
Following that, if everyone benefits, why is the graduate taking on all the risk (via a non-dischargeable student loan) instead of spreading the risk across the entirety of society?
This can only be true if the society gets richer over timer from this process. Considering that EU has actually become poorer and the gap is becoming larger every year passing, your theory of benefits from a well-educated populace is not well funded.
In the EU, the risk has been loaded onto everyone but the benefits are meager at best, and inexistent in practice. This is the typical problem of socialist system where everyone bear the cost but the benefits are only distributed to those in power or those who could manipulate the system for their own benefits.
If that wasn't true, France wouldn't be in the political turmoil and economic disaster that it is today. Unsurprisingly, France has been dominated by marxist adjacent ideologies, co-opted by the "resistants", the real winners of WW2. The US won on the ground but largely lost the ideological battle, we are now seeing the result of that invisible battleground.
> The students bear costs but no benefit to themselves? No higher wages?
Nobody said the student achieves no benefit. We keep saying that the student does not capture all the benefit of their own education in higher wages, but bears the entire cost.
> don't see the fundamental difference
You're kidding. The former means all higher net worth individuals to take on both the cost (via taxes) and the benefit (a well-trained workforce for businesses, well-paid, highly taxed contributors for the state, an educated populace of voters, graduates with stable work and in-demand skills). The latter is another example of America's "Everyone for themselves" theme, with students bearing the entire cost of their education, while the graduate, public, state, and businesses reap the benefit.
If the benefits are spread so widely, why shouldn't the cost be?