76BearsFly said:
A successful business should invest in its core assets to make money. Our society's core asset is our incredible citizens. To make a profit, that core asset should be nurtured and invested in. Education and health care is key to productivity by the core asset. Right now the educational system is making money for the Banks with inflated tuition and non-dischargeable loans to finance same. Not prudent from a long-term societal perspective and certainly a failing business plan.
I agree with you. However, I believe most of the problems arose from social engineering. By providing government-backed loans, we created a distortion that disconnected price from value. We should force people wanting to go to college to assess value and price just like they do for almost everything else. When you have government subsidize, including through guarantees that are provided for free despite the guarantee having a value or by permitting the Feds to provide artificially low interest rates to banks, we will see bubbles and price distortion like what we see with college tuition, sub-prime mortgage and private equity investments. If college education is such a strong investment relative to cost, private lenders will be more than happy to provide loans without social engineering by the government.
If I viewed college education as an essential need, I would feel differently. However, I view college education as something that is important but not as essential as primary and secondary education, food, medical and housing. As a capitalist economy where individuals still control production and supply, there will be finite resources if we are to still encourage production. We may disagree on where that threshold is and what alternatives exist (e.g., the opportunity cost of working outweighs the after-tax income or corporate inversion to a jurisdiction with lower tax rate), but at a certain level of taxation, the revenues and productions will decrease.
The real question is, do we become a socialist economy where both the source of production and source supply are owned by the government? And if not and assuming limited resources from tax revenues, what do we prioritize? Why college over guaranteed housing? And if the government were to guarantee housing for everyone, should it be provided on an equal basis to everyone by the government? If not, why not?
I once read a quote that most of the evil in this world is done by those with good intentions. Some are done by megalomaniacs and sycophants in my own party (or former party) but many are caused by those who think only they know what is good and right.