There - YOU hit the nail on the head. This isn’t about making sure the majority of future subjects are educated...it’s about hooking the majority of future subjects into debt slavery before they are even out of the gate.
AND - FedGov now gets to pocket the interest spread on these loans.
I’m [hopefully] going to be getting my degree at the end of this semester; one last class. I’ll be exiting academia with ZERO education-loans and close to zero credit-card debt {I may have $100 or $150 on the card; waiting the billing-statement}; this means that I will be at least orders of magnitude freer entering the job-market than otherwise would be the case. {Also, if I fail to obtain a job [and I should consider that possibility] it is less catastrophic than would be saddled with debt.}
I seriously cannot imagine how difficult it will be for those who ARE saddled with such debt; and this leads right into the subject of the National Debt. Aside from any personal debt that may have been accrued, the amount of money owed in the national debt per-person is around $40,000! That’s $40k for every American man, woman, and child regardless of how wise/frugal/lucky/blessed they have been in their life. I have to wonder how popular a “pay $40,000 now and be exempt from income, payroll, estate, property, social security and medicare taxes for the rest of your life”-program would be.