It's not like people are forced to take student loans.

[nadinbrzezinski]

151. Alas this requires taxes

Nations that get it have higher taxes and quite different spending priorities.

Today in the plane flight was having a similar conversation with a Mexican couple. As I put it to them, we need a two fold cultural change. We need a change in policy...aka what we invest in, education, infrastructure, healthcare...neither health care or education shoud be primarily for profit. Health care still is, and education increasingly is going there.

But we also need massive changes in the civic culture, and an end (will take a generation or two), to the me culture.

Believe it or not Mexico shares this me,me,me and has shared it for over two to three generations.

But that might change faster down there. As is, as I pointed to somebody else in this thread, they opened 150 universities (public) in the last sexenio, that is presidential period...we are cutting. Trends are not good...for us.

As to kids who deserve it...some kids are not ready to go to college at 18, fine...trade schools are fine. We need electricians and electrical engineers. Some kids will go back to college later in life, and some are ready at 18, some of this has to be GPA based, and we should learn from other nations and include some form of social service, internship, in public service at the end...whether ths is trade or college...see the needed changes in civic culture, and the creation of the we.

But I am not blind to trades and their needs...heck, I use trades people regularly.