That is the issue no politician ever speaks about and may be even more important that the loan situation. If colleges were cranking out engineers, chemists, and physicists from all those who were capable then we wouldn't likely be having this conversation.
No, education loans still wouldn't be a Constitutionally valid role for the fedgov but, most of us could go along with it until we found a better solution.
Even if the federal government were removed from the equation and everything was on the state level then nothing would improve.
For example, Im a veteran and in Wisconsin I can go to college "for free" as long as I go to one of the schools in the UW system. Unfortunately, all degrees in the UW system are based on Transgendered Eskimo Feminist Vegetarian Studies with a class related to your declared major, sometimes only peripherally related, tacked on almost as an afterthought.
In Wisconsin, for awhile now, Republicans have total control of government and are led by someone supposedly capable of being president yet, these problems in the UW system have gotten worse if anything.
UW Green Bay has only recently added the Eskimo Vegetarian part of the curriculum but has been known for 40ish years for its classes in why white men are bad and how to be a lesbian. I suppose that one could argue that, at least from a Constitutional perspective, Wisconsin should have to pay to create its own racist perverts rather than stealing funds from the whole of the American people. Yes, answering the question of who pays will help some but doesn't address question of who at the state level is going to fix this problem with educational and how? We cant wait another 40+ years for the magic of the marketplace.
I suspect that as long as government at any level is allowed to participate in funding college tuitions that the problem will continue just with the tax burden shifted.
(FAIL. I hate when I create confusion due to editing with the intent of improving clarity.)