I have total sympathy for people who made bad decisions young, or somehow made the "right" decision and got screwed. I also have empathy for the people who have personally sacrificed to pay off their debt only to be told "too bad, you already paid them off nothing for you".
I thought this might get better traction on this, the MMM forum. Because we know that the average american budget has a LOT of excess and waste. The vast majority of people with student debt could pay it off if they were serious about it.
This site gives various estimates for student debt as a percentage of first-year income (
https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-student-loan-debt). It varies, but lets be generous and assume someone graduates with student debt equal to 100% of their first-year income. I did a quick calculation, and at 6% interest with a 10-year repayment schedule, the annual loan servicing makes up around 13% of the debt (and thus, 13% of income). We all know 13% is a pretty low savings rate for mustachians, although for the average consumer sucker it could be seen as crippling.
Now none of this takes into account the outliers. People who make incomes far above or below their education debt. For those people who are struggling, it's great to have programs in place to help them. I'm open to seeing other statistics, change my mind with some numbas.
On another note, the immediate effect of the government simply paying for everybody's higher education is not going to be that great. I just don't think we currently have enough quality educators to send every single HS graduate to college in a way that actually enriches their lives and society. But sure, we have to start somewhere and market forces would likely increase the number of people going into education.