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Americans, how would you feel about making student loans completely illegal? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by nodsocket@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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This would save young Americans from going into crippling debt, but it would also make a university degree completely unaffordable for most. However, in the age of the Internet, that doesn't mean they couldn't get an education.

Consider the long term impact of this. There are a lot of different ways such a situation could go, for better and for worse.

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So education for the wealthy only? Bugger off.

[–] sparr@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

No. I predict we would revert to the status quo of 20-100 years ago, with very affordable state-run schools providing excellent education, and high price private schools catering to the rich. Cheap schools got expensive because we allowed the for-profit student loan industry to run wild.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Assuming nothing is done to curb the recent capitalist tendencies of universities to inflate tuition then yeah it would be mostly restricted to the wealthy. It might be possible that market forces would coerce them to become cheaper again in order to not end up getting shut down from lack of funding from lower enrollment though.

[–] thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 6 points 1 year ago

It's also possible that lack of access to higher education would cause SOME kind of populist uprising, which people then hope would lead sweeping economic and social reforms.

But I'm increasingly pessimistic that populist uprisings in America would lead anywhere other than Christian fascism.