They encouraged and enabled loans for plenty of nonsense degrees that were never going to lead to employment enabling payback of the loan.
It at least used to be a free country. If people wanted to study for other than a professional trade license, take their chances on being able to do well with what they chose to study, or other than the motivation of improving their hiring chances at all — that’s their business.
It was foolish of them to take on debt that they a) didn’t know they could repay and b) was by contract not covered by our bankruptcy system. And that’s the deal with freedom. You can’t have freedom without the foolish being free to be foolish.
Once more, the government should be entirely out of student loans, and then the market will take care of itself. The sorry truth is that smart people can find gainful employment almost anywhere at any time. Stupid people are exactly the ones who shouldn’t be taking out loans for college. Not only are there options for getting a college education without such loans, but they are exactly the sorts of bad risks that the private banking system wouldn’t opt to bet on either.
So what is your excuse for being a massive pinko on this issue, tossing around the term “odious” as if that makes you an expert when it really doesn’t apply here at all? If there was outright fraud, it can be handled by our legal system. But there wasn’t outright fraud. Just stupid and greedy people looking for their frivolous, six-year spring break to be paid by someone else.
And apologies, FP—it is t who loves to throw the term ‘odious’ in here as the basis of some sort of priestly knowledge.