Borrowing is generally a bad idea.
The Federal Student Loan Program is a perfect example of unintended consequences. Loaning students a bit of money so they can get an education sounds like an excellent idea. Unfortunately it has had some seriously bad consequences. Not the least of which is raising the price of education. It also has lured many students into borrowing money for education that they will never be able to pay back. It has corrupted educational institutions (especially for profits) to distort the value of what they re providing. It is a mess.
There is more than 1.2 trillion dollars of student debt. Which sounds like a lot but is less than the new wealth created by the government handouts during Covid. Or put another way is 3% of one years gross national product.
My suggestion is three fold:
Stop all federal student loan programs. Admit the program hasn’t worked as planned.
Forgive some debt for some of the worst cases. (a Debt and Equity Reconciliation Commission)
Make the schools who benefited the most help pay for the forgiveness.
Implement these programs over a ten year period to give all of the institutions time to adjust.