I see your point, but we already have the system in place.
We already know to a certain degree, how many jobs total are available in just about every occupation, and how many jobs are expected to be added, based on reported forecasts of number of companies in each industry, with a fudge factor for start-ups. This info is produced at least annually. We could lose upwards of half of the govt people pushing around mountains of paperwork generated from loan renewals, add-on loans, defaults, etc. Costs of education go down, number of ‘professional students’ go down, quality of graduates increase, and more people can be educated towards occupations that are not already top-heavy and where they can actually find employment.
What other solution do we have to solve the runaway studentloan/educationcost problem, factoring the upward costpush of educational unions’ influence on a “free-market” system?
1) Enough schools with enough slots to accept all these students, whether there will be work for them in the future or not.
2) Government programs to make sure that there's always money available for students who want to go to college to borrow.
The students are encouraged to borrow six figures, and the taxpayer winds up supporting educational institutions that are turning out more graduates that can't find work. When the students can't find work they default on the loans, if they never find work capable of paying down the loans they never repay the loans.
The schools will always have the slots while the easy government money is there, since the easy money means there will always be students to fill the slots and keep the professors and school administrators in the style to which they have become accustomed.
How will this resolve itself? Cut the easy money programs (which we can't afford anyway) and the students will have to pay their own way or choose themselves (no government bureaucracy needed) future professions that will actually allow them to repay the loans. If they can't come up with a profession that will allow this they won't go to school and won't waste the money, because it's now their money that's being wasted, not the government's. The schools will be forced to reduce capacity to that level, and the overpaid professors and administrators will be forced to take pay cuts down to what their abilities actually justify.
Will this be painful? Will this mean some kids who want to go to college won't be able to? Yes, but why should a kid be allowed to go to college just because they want to? Will there be schools that retrench, merge and consolidate and go out of business? Yes, because we have overcapacity, and the only way to cut overcapacity is to cut overcapacity.
Welcome to an America that is not living beyond its means. It might seem tough and unpleasant, but reality is always more pleasant than unreality in the long run.