Why should a public good -- education -- be provided through a complex "market" of private lenders, for-profit as well as ostensibly "non-profit," & guarantee agencies, all of which receive government subsidies? (Now that Sallie Mae, which used to be a GSE [government-sponsored enterprise], has been privatized, student loan business has become even more privatized.) Why not use tax dollars to fund universities directly, which would be far more rational & straightforward & probably cheaper as well? Increasing dependence upon student loans has already made even tertiary education at _public_ universities a less than fully public good.
Yoshie