>As opposed to what? Controlled by Coca-Cola? Starbucks? -- "Do you have a degree?" -- "I sure do, I graduated with MS in coffee arts (MsCA) from Starbucks University, Phoenix". Or just got a "PhD in applied lobbying from Lockheed".
False dichotomy. There are plenty of things that fit in between "rapacious megacorporations" and "government cronies". Like, for example, unsubsidized nonprofit educational institutes. You know, like you might have found in the 19th - first half of the 20th century.
No, 'going back to the 19th century (-first half of the 20th century)' is equivalent to imagining a higher education system without student loans. Don't see what the big deal is.
The point I was trying to make was that somehow it was easier to imagine time travelling than just looking "across the pond", oh to say Sweden. Or probably other civilised countries.
In the 19th century and the pre-social-democratic 20th century, most universities had no student loans because they charged steep fees in cold cash. If you want to eliminate student debt without eliminating students, you need to look at the social-democratic universities of the post-WW2 era.
that's not true; the pre-interest cost of universities has outstripped inflation many many fold in the last 30 years. The pre-WW2 era colleges were almost certainly less expensive in real purchasing power terms than they are now.
False dichotomy. There are plenty of things that fit in between "rapacious megacorporations" and "government cronies". Like, for example, unsubsidized nonprofit educational institutes. You know, like you might have found in the 19th - first half of the 20th century.