I happened to come across a Twitter squall about student debt a few hours ago, and it prompted me to share a couple of things. Maybe they're obvious, maybe they aren't. Here they are.
First off, it strikes me that whenever we talk about student debt, we should split debtors into at least three categories:
- Folks who rack up huge debt by going to business, law, or medical schools. The size of their debt is often eye watering—upwards of $100-200,000—but it's usually an eyes-wide-open mercenary decision to take out these loans. I don't especially think we need to worry about this, with the possible exception of believing that medical school financing is nuts and should be reformed. More than half of all student loans fall into this category.
- The ordinary folks who go to ordinary universities and get a bachelor's degree. This includes a fairly wide range of debtors who have attended anything from Harvard to a commuter college. Generally, the size of the debt we're talking about for these folks is $20-40,000 or so.
- All the poor schlubs who go to for-profit "universities" and end up with debt that doesn't really do them any good. Partly this is because their degrees don't help them much and partly because a shocking number of them never finish. So they end up with $15-30,000 of debt and the same crappy, low-paying job they could have had all along.¹
I don't care much about #1. I have some sympathy for #2, but I'm not super outraged about it. And then there's #3, which just pisses me off.
You might disagree with my ranking, but at the very least we should all be careful to specify who we're talking about when we write about canceling student debt. It's usually #2, I think, but I'd sure like to see us pay more attention to #3.
The big problem with the mechanics of student debt is that universities are run by states but we're trying to fix it with federal action. I'm not especially sure how to square this circle in any kind of efficient way. If the feds keep offering more and more money in the form of scholarships, grants, and loans, states will just hoover up all the money by increasing the cost of tuition until they reach the maximum amount students are willing to pay. There's no simple way to prevent states from doing this, and so far there hasn't been a limit to how much students are willing to pay.
This leads to my second question about canceling student debt: what happens after we cancel it? A whole bunch of college graduates will be deliriously happy, but what about the class of 2022? And 2023? Their debt hasn't been canceled and the whole rat race starts all over again—with no great solution in sight.
This doesn't make much sense, does it? But what's the answer? We can't keep canceling debt year after year, since that amounts to just giving students money. But if we don't, then everybody up to the class of 2021 suddenly has no debt while the classes of 2022+ are screwed. I don't know about you, but if I were part of the class of 2022 I'd be pretty unhappy about this.
I've mentioned before that I've never dived deeply into the student debt issue because it doesn't make my top ten list of important problems. That said, there's an obvious conflict when you think about student debt from a 10,000 foot level. On the one hand, a highly educated populace is good for all of us, which means we should make higher education as accessible as possible. On the other hand, cheap university educations are financed by the general public while the recipients are almost entirely people who are going to benefit handsomely from this taxpayer provided largess. Is this fair? Maybe not, but on the third hand, all these taxpayers will benefit from the generally stronger society they get when more people are highly educated. This is too subtle for most people to appreciate, but it's still real.
So it's kind of a mess, isn't it? It was easier after World War II, when cheap higher education helped lots of working class people in addition to middle and upper class folks. But everything we did back then worked superbly, and today university education is overwhelmingly the preserve of the middle and upper middle classes.
Taking all these contradictions together, I come out on the side of offering fairly cheap higher education. The problem is that I think this can only truly happen via state action, and states simply don't agree with me. Unless I'm missing an exception, every single state has enormously raised the cost of public higher education, and they've done it without much pushback from the electorate.
So what's the permanent² constituency for canceling student debt or reducing the cost of attending university? Revealed preference suggests, unfortunately, that there really isn't much of one. This is a big problem, no?
¹President Obama tried to do something about this, but President Trump immediately reversed it for no special reason except that he hates Obama.
²The temporary constituency, of course, is families with 16-year-olds along with the 16-year-olds themselves once they become 22-year-olds. But the family constituency fades as the kids grow up, and the kids themselves are a small and ever-changing population that can usually be safely ignored.
Kevin, I think you might want to look into the writings of Paul Campos (CU Boulder, LG&M, "Inside the Law School Scam") and others, on "the law school scam". It is very accurate to describe the way that law schools market their programs to prospective students as criminal fraud, except that the courts have said it's 100% OK to lie to those prospectives. Literally there was a case where some NYLS grads sued the school b/c the stats on grads' job placement were all false. The judge ruled that prospective law students were "sophisticated consumers" and thus should have known that the law school was lying to them, etc, etc.
Seriously, you should look into it.
Yeah, and only by racking up those debts can students from really low-income brackets get that sort of training but the debt can saddle them permanently.
It's not a gamble at that point, it's usury.
What they ought to do is allow students to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. That would tend to make lenders more leery about lending as much to students, and clamp down hard on the for-profit universities feeding at the trough of student loans.
A lot of them are older students or students who struggle with conventional universities. To their credit, the for-profits at least often realized that such students need classes they can work around a full-time work schedule, and aren't just about catering to 21-year-olds who are on their parents' health insurance and only working part-time.
My wife is a medical Dr. The change/the rule against bankruptcy easily cancelling debt came, in large part, from the actions of medical students.
A person in their residency is not highly paid, yet could have huge student loan debt. Some in residency utilized bankruptcy to materially reduce their student debt. Of course, THEN that person can start to practice medicine without the majority of their student loan obligations.
The aforementioned scenario was impactful in the legislative change to the bankruptcy code for student debt.
What they ought to do is allow students to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. That would tend to make lenders more leery about lending as much to students...
Curbing access to sheepskins isn't a "solution." The United States is already beginning to lag other high income countries in terms of education attainment. If you want a well-educated, high productivity workforce, it's best to accept the fact that public money is called for, and provide every American with a no-debt way to get a college degree.
I have very little confidence that the US government is going to provide a no debt way for people to get a college education. But allowing bankruptcy again would be a relatively cheap fix if you can get it through Congress.
The bulk of student loan funding comes directly from Washington now. So, doing as you suggest would, in fact, equate to the government's providing a "no debt" way to get a college education. And it wouldn't be cheap. I dunno, seems more straightforward to simply avoid the debt in the first place.
Economics 101.
Student gets a high value degree, takes a year off to backpack in South America, declares bankruptcy, gets rid of most of his debt based on his absence of income and assets, and then gets a high paying job.
People are not stupid.
Except he then has to spend the next seven years with a bankruptcy filing on his credit.
Please retake economics 101.
We need more STEM majors. We do not need more film majors.
People who get useful degrees make enough money to pay back the cost of their education.
People who get prestige pieces of toilet paper destroy value because the cost of their education exceeds the return from it.
If you make college free you remove the economic signals and even more people will get low value degrees.
What we really need to do is to remove the federal guarantee on student loans. Lenders should lend based on the student's academic track record, school, and major.
Students will rapidly discover that some majors at some schools are only possible if you pay for them out of pocket. They will avoid those majors and schools. That is a good thing.
Students will discover that if they do not have good grades and do not appear to be on track to graduate they will not be able to get loans for their next year in college. There will be less partying, less fun, and more studying at colleges as the hard core partiers drop out and the borderline kids buckle down to keep their loans.
Except that since Obama cut the bankers out of the subsidized loan process back in 2010 the 'lender' you think will be 'more leery' is the federal government itself for the overwhelming majority of the lending.
You'd have to actually legislate the 'leeriness' into enforced legal standards.
But yeah, there should be some limited (medical debt emergency?) ability to discharge all or part of student loans in bankruptcy.
"... But what's the answer? .."
Don't give out student loans.
Don't give out student loans.
Agreed if what you mean is "arrange it so it's not necessary for any American to borrow money to get a college degree."
My age cohort and I benefitted from cheap tuition. My friend and I lived at home, worked part-time, and commuted to UCLA where we paid more for books and parking than tuition. Today, we're retired *women* PhDs who contributed to society in different ways. Thank you for looking into who borrows and who pays. And when.
Free public tuition is not actually complicated.
+1
I'm totally on board with free tuition at public universities, but tuition is only a small part of the cost of college.
You believe this? When was the last time you paid tuition?
To take just a basic example: full in-state sticker price to attend SUNY Buffalo is about $28,000, only about 1/4 of which is tuition. The rest is room and board, textbooks, fees, etc. So even if Buffalo were "free" (which it actually is for lower-income families) you still have to pony up about 20k a year to attend full time.
People seem to forget that college students still need to, you know, eat (if only beer and ramen), pay rent, buy books, bus passes, medical insurance if they're not covered by parents, etc.
So even if Buffalo were "free" (which it actually is for lower-income families) you still have to pony up about 20k a year to attend full time.
You mean that school doesn't allow commuters?
People seem to forget that college students still need to, you know, eat
High school students also need to eat, but nobody's suggesting government pay for that.
You're suggesting that all - or even most - Americans already live in a location within commuting distance of a school that offers the major they want AND that most such students live in households that can continue to support them fully for four years?
All three of my sons lived at home while commuting to school. But it's not a serious option for at least half the country.
I KNOW this.
For example, in-state tuition for a semester at NC State is $4500. But the official estimate of all costs is just under $14,000 for that same semester. And those official estimates seriously lowball housing costs in a very hot housing market...
IF the goal was to help poor people, then there are MANY more progressive ways. For example, why not use the Treasure and repay/buy up all the payday loans or loans on used cars.
If someone makes an imprudent borrowing decision, do we really want to set the precedent that the Fed Gov will solve the problem? If you do this once, how can the Fed Gov not continue the practice?
How is trying to get an education an impudent decision?
Depends on what you get an education in. For example, studying film at Columbia is financially disastrous for most students - you end up as a barista with a Master's Degree and 100K in student debt.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773
Seems pretty imprudent to me.
Simple solution.
Eliminate the government guarantee on student loans and all forgiveness options (ie. public service).
If you do that then lenders will lend based on likely ability to repay in the future and abusive schools and majors (not all for-profit - https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773) will be restricted to students who can pay full freight on their own.
This problem was caused by government intervention and the easy solution is to get rid of that intervention.
Save the patient by amputating the head?
How is this amputating the head?
Students who buckle down to get engineering degrees, computer science degree, who are pre-law, etc. will still get their loans.
Students who are getting trash degrees or who don't maintain their grades will find that they have no loans and cannot pursue a course that destroys value.
Seems good to me. Can you explain your objection more clearly? Do you feel that society needs more baristas with masters degrees in film from Columbia?
agree with you. I witness myself how easy it was to borrow money from the government to pay for my children tuition. Just a few clicks and you were financed.
Too easy money means many student do not think twice to the cost/benefit of their choices.
Yes, the cost of tuition must be lowered. It is very easy. Cut all the crap ie slash the number and salary of the administration. Cut the sports by 80%. Are we in college for education or for a Club Med experience with many sport's activities.
I refused to send my children to "cool" privates universities at $40000 year. They all went to State U with a $15000 price tag for the same diploma.
Dumb choice should be rewarded.
Local governments provide free education up through high school. Governments in other advanced countries provide free college and even professional education (for those selected on merit, not necessarily for everyone). States used to provide low-cost college for most people (again on merit). In effect there has been increasing privatization of college in the US. This is the problem, not increasing intervention by government. The federal government has been taking up part of the burden that states used to carry.
You have not provided a single substantive argument.
What is wrong with my proposal? What negative effects would it have? Why do you think it would not have the beneficial effects I suggest?
Your proposal reduces the cost to students of choosing majors that do not generate a sufficient return to pay for the cost of the education. That encourages more such majors. More English degrees, History degrees, Film degrees and fewer STEM degrees. How is that good for America?
Michael Friedman - your solution would materially limit access to higher education for many middle and lower income Americans. Few banks are game to lend money to an 18 yr old, with no credit history or colleterial....
If you cannot discharge student loans in bankruptcy and you are heading into a decent college with decent high school grades and test scores and planning on a decent major then lenders are eager to lend to you. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_Finance, https://www.upstart.com/, many others.
If your grades suck and you plan to major in something that does make money then you will be out of luck. But that is a GOOD thing. You are not helping a middle or lower income American by letting him borrow $100,000 to become a barista.
Not all worthwhile majors end up in a career with an ability to pay the loan - teachers, social workers, therapists among other careers have high education costs but low pay after graduation. Also it's foolish to discount a major across the board as the job landscape shifts a lot so once hot majors bust -- architects after the housing bust for example or folks with humanities majors who have success in the tech sector.
On paper my academic credentials would hint at a "would you like fries with that" career but majoring in history and taking a bunch of math, statistics and science courses set me up to be very good support person for various Oracle programs over the years, currently supporting an Oracle Federal Financials implementation.
If society wants teachers, social workers, and therapists then it needs to pay them enough to cover the cost of their education.
Hiding what we pay them by using forgiveness programs is a scam - it means we are hiding from taxpayers what we actually pay for these people, presumably because we do not think the majority of Americans would agree.
It also exacerbates inequality by funneling many poor but prudent students into low paying occupations because they want their loans forgiven.
I note you took the math, statistics, and science courses. In the world I suggest, you might have found that lenders told you that you had to major in math or a science and you could minor in history if you wanted. Would that have been so terrible?
Re: antiscience’s comment, see http://www.jtexconsumerlaw.com/V15N3/V15N3_Professional.pdf
The first step the Federal government should take would be to pass a truth-in-lending law requiring each college and professional school to report publicly and accurately on student costs, debt, and employment and earnings of graduates (applicable also to each college within a university). Federal auditors would verify accuracy, and false reports would be penalized by reduction in faculty research grants. The report format would be designed to be easily interpreted by prospective students so that they would be able to intelligently choose institutions and programs. I think this would change the incentive structure radically for states, in terms of their funding decisions.
Well, insofar as the USA is overweight in its education approach to university versus technical education and its technical education seems to be excessively dominated by not-very-well overseen private for-profit education that is scammy, your reform area is likely best in that area. Other countries do private for profit without the issues you have - or at least less - so it is likely something that oversight and as cited above, transparency in standardised economic outcomes reporting could help address.
Of course the highly literate and expressive Uni grads, although a minority of age-cohort and by statistical average rather economically privileged in comparative outcomes will whinge on as they have since Unis emerged and lobby for privileges... but that's human nature.
This is a good point as well. There are a lot of technical jobs that really don't require a 4 year degree but do require specialized training, and there are lots of examples (Germany being the canonical one) of how to ensure that training is available to those who need it.
+1
I don't see why the Federal government can't subsidize state universities via a matching fund scheme combined with tuition limits. That is, a state university that is funded by the state at $X/student might get another $X/student (or a multiple) as long as X is big enough. That way if a state decides to lower funding because the Feds are putting in too much money, well, they can't, because it costs them that Federal money.
And don't forget, state universities are actually pretty popular. Scott Walker lost re-election in WI in no small part because of the damage he caused to the state university system.
Aiding state universities doesn't sound like a very hard problem to solve. And state universities are a very good way to provide a good education to a large base of students.
I thought this sounded like a promising idea:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2019/what-elizabeth-warrens-free-college-plan-gets-wrong/
Thanks for the link. Not a bad idea--the federal gov't. pays a flat fee to cover tuition nationwide--and colleges can participate, or not.
I was thinking that business and professional schools could be paid by a tax on income above some threshold (2 or 3x poverty level?) for a period that is 2x or 3x the years spent at that college (full time equivalents). A bit more complicated, and mainly for schools catering to wealthier clientele.
Of course, the devil will be in the details.
Thanks for going beyond the surface as most have when discussing tuition. Especially the fact they're generally State run and funded. So Federal bailout of loans doesn't solve anything long term.
The main crux is that States have reduced their share of funding over the years and thus deferred costs to the individual. Which in turn lead to individual loans making up the difference. Seen it estimated 75% of the increase in tuition is based on State funding reduction.
Basically, citizens need to be demanding their States fix the issue instead of the Feds.
+1
Basically, citizens need to be demanding their States fix the issue instead of the FedsZ
But it's a problem that is national in scale. Seems to me only the federal government has the fiscal freedom to tackle the problem. The global economy doesn't care what kind of structural excuses we care to blame for the problems of flagging education attainment and excessive household indebtedness.
“but I'd sure like to see us pay more attention to #1.”
Did you mean to say that you want us to pay more attention to #3?
I think category #1 should be expanded and split.
1A - professional graduate degrees that normally make sense financially: medicine, highly-ranked law and business schools, some technical degrees, fully-funded PhDs
1B - graduate degrees that rarely make financial sense, which look like category 3 except for the school offering them: low-ranked law schools, master's degrees in most humanities, the various sort-of business-related Masters degrees that advertise on billboards..
very true, but remember, most teaching positions require continuing education which typically leads to a master's degree in the humanities.
Student loans are a way of semi-socializing the cost of higher education. Government subsidizes the loan, but the party that benefits directly, the student, pays the bulk of the cost. However, making the loan non-dischargable is a way of making a person who did not benefit bear the cost. That is, a student who is not able to use his education to get a good job still has to pay. Make student loans dischargeable.
These are federally guaranteed loans. Accordingly, the interest rates charged should be very low and they are not. The whole program is socialism for banks.
I would hardly put Harvard and its ilk in the category of "ordinary universities" in terms of their impact on student loans. I have no sympathy for someone who took out $250K in loans to attend an "elite" university when a far cheaper state university option was available.
Also, most PhD programs are as much a scam as for-profit universities. A good rule of thumb--if you have to pay more than a token amount for your PhD it's probably not worth jack squat. Decent PhD programs find ways to employ their students and reduce their tuition.
No-one takes out huge loans to go to an Ivy League school like Harvard anymore. You're either rich enough to pay cash, or you get financial aid that covers most, if not all, of the cost without loans.
And yes, you should *never* pay for a MA or Ph.D, especially in any humanities or social sciences field. Any program worth its salt will fully fund you. Again, grad programs at Ivy League and comparable schools will not only cover your tuition, but provide grants for living expenses, summer research, conference travel, etc.
No-one takes out huge loans to go to an Ivy League school like Harvard anymore.
They do for graduate degrees.
The moratorium on loan payments has demonstrated that the debt is not the issue its the INTEREST RATES.
Why do federally guaranteed loans have a 7% or 8% rate when you can get a collateralized mortgage for 2% to 3%? The Federal guaranty removes the risk to the banks and and lower rate is an incredible improvement in the ability to pay the debt back. Maybe some modest additional servicing and processing cost is involved, but these rates are simply bank subsidies.
Well, unlike a house, you can't exactly repossess someone's college education if they default. That makes it higher risk. Without the federal guarantee, students loans would basically be like credit card debt, with correspondingly insane interest rates. At least you could discharge it in bankruptcy, though.
That’s part of the problem. You can’t discharge student debt through bankruptcy. Lenders are guaranteed the money at high interest. 8% is common.
That was my point -- if lenders charged market rates based on personal credit scores, income, etc. it would make sense that you could discharge the debt through bankruptcy. Student loans are given to anyone who applies, however, at a subsidized (though still high) rate and the tradeoff is you can't get out of them.
Changing the interest rate on loans so that it matches CPI is probably the easiest change.
It is not the initial loan amount that drives most undergraduates into penury. It is the compounding interest in the first few years after graduation, when incomes are so low that the income-based repayment plans can't chip away at the loan totals. There are too many people who have made payments for a decade, only to have an outstanding balance that is higher than when they started. That is bonkers.
Every other "reform" runs into huge structural issues. Free public tuition won't work well in a country where private colleges make up such a large share of the system. There is no way public universities could scale up by 25% overnight. Free public tuition would suck the brightest out of the privates, making it much, much harder for average kids to get into state schools. Even if public capacity increased, the increased speed of private college closures would severely damage a lot of rural areas economically.
Pushing lenders to only make loans for high-paying degrees will really mess with our labor supply. Teachers, therapists, social workers, etc. are in high demand, but starting pay is often abysmal. The US also has far more ways for people with poor academic records to enter higher ed than most nations. Many proposed reforms will make it much harder for people to get those second chances. Is that really what we want to do?
Perhaps a system similar to Australia, where people pay a percentage of future earnings would also work here. It would retain a lot of indicidual spending on higher ed, so the hit to private colleges could be slower or smaller.
Finally, I also don't see how writing off current loans solves the long term problems of higher ed financing. We need a solution that works going forward.
Let's not forget that in many parts of the country, it's not just tuition that makes college expensive -- it's having to live in an expensive city while trying to study full time. A lot of students take out loans just to cover rent and other expenses while they're going to school in a desperate attempt to finish their degrees on time. Even if you have a part-time job to boot, it doesn't cover everything. Living at home isn't an option for a lot of kids, either (particularly when home is a dysfunctional place that's going to interfere with your studies).
I'm a fervent social democrat who wants the US to enact a much larger public sector. But even I don't think government can be all thing to all people. If the US can provide reasonably universal access to debt-free university education, that's enough. Footing the bill for living expenses (in addition to tuition) on a mass scale is a bridge too far. The vast majority of Americans live within reasonable distance of a post-secondary school that allows commuting, and there's also remote learning.
Reminder: The whole POINT of subsidized college loans (and Pell grants) was originally to primarily cover living expenses while in school.
And the whole reason the system was set up to favor loans over grants was precisely because - as you put it - 'footing the bill for living expenses on a mass scale is a bridge too far'.
You wold force people to mold their careers and future lives to the chance of whatever meager curriculums might be offered by the very few post-secondary schools within commuting distance. You would write off everyone whose family situation does not allow an extra 4-6 years of living cost-free in the family home.
Bottom line is that living expenses don't magically disappear and are the largest hurdle most people face in getting a college education.
All of this comes back to growing income inequality, among institutions as well as families. The richest, most elite universities -- the Ivies, well-endowed liberal arts colleges -- are now offering loan-free financial aid packages to all but their richest students. So if you can get into Williams or Princeton, hey fantastic, you're probably going graduate nearly debt free because you're already really rich or the school paid for you. You will go on to be a rich doctor or something and leave a generous bequest to your alma mater which will provide more aid to the 5% of students who can get into that school and the cycle of life continues. If you're not an academic superstar, however, and not rich, and your options are lower-tier public and private schools, financing that education is a lot tougher. And so is paying off those debts once (if) you graduate.
Recent book: Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt, by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Harvard University Press 2021.
I just started it. Can’t comment so far.
"Maybe not, but on the third hand, all these taxpayers will benefit from the generally stronger society they get when more people are highly educated. "
On the fourth hand, America is still unwilling to be honest about the difference between educated, indoctrinated, and credentialed...
I've seen no evidence that higher education is of much value (to individuals or to society) beyond 5..10% of the population. Anything beyond that appears to be essentially about credentials, not about a population that can think "better" in any domain.
The consequences of forcing (or trying to) 1/3 of the population through college give rise to many of the pathologies of the US. Not just this college debt stuff, not just the problems with credentialization, but all the elite over-production problems, the creation of a massive pool of very average individuals who believe (because they have the credential, and have been promised as much) that they deserve extraordinary live -- and who spend the rest of their lives searching for the villains denying them their due.
Meanwhile on the other side, we have a growing contempt (especially among the left) for those whose skills and strengths are not college-based, from nasty stereotypes and "jokes" (all the crap that the left refuses to accept in any other context) to insistence that all these problems can be resolved by yet more training and college -- if it hasn't worked for the past 50 years, well, what does prove?
Like so much in US society, the real problems are not at the superficial level argued about by the two wings of US tribalism, they are something deeper, something which neither side wishes to admit or confront, but which results in the paradoxes and incoherence that generates the visible arguments.
It's not a both sides situation nor is the problem that we are too educated. The problem is the worship of stupidity in certain circles and the ridicule of a good broad education that leads to a productive, flexible employed skilled in critical thinking and communication.
The problem as I see it is the garbage areas of higher ed: second rate business and law schools that charge way too much in tuition as well as the for-profit scummy trade schools. Those are ripe for major reform.
It used to be thought that an educated citizenry was valuable to the state and the country. A typical liberal arts curriculum was thought to produce educated/enlightened young people. A college degree was not necessarily a job requirement but was seen as enriching the life of the student and their associates. Homer and English writing skills and history and math and science and maybe a second language we’re all seen as worthwhile. Now we get people, including educated commenters here, who deride general education as a foolish pursuit. That strikes me as narrow minded and detrimental to society as a whole. All of college should not be vocational training.
And let’s be real about declining state support for higher education: Reagan and Hayakawa and Walker and many others wanted to cripple higher ed for political reasons to stick it to student radicals and to students generally. That started with Vietnam War protests and anti-nuke and Civil Rights protests. College students were at the forefront of many such social action movements. So hitting them with crushing debt was one way to weaken those activities.
No, not really. The culprit, since Reagan, is tax cuts. The whole protest movement was dead by the time he was elected. In fact, many of those boomer children who protest the war, man, became Reagan Democrats. And the consequences of reduction in state income can be hidden for a while by cutting educational funding and coasting on prior investments.
A typical liberal arts curriculum was thought to produce educated/enlightened young people. A college degree was not necessarily a job requirement but was seen as enriching the life of the student and their associates.
This is truer than even in the American context: the university-educated are rejecting the GOP in ever-larger percentages.
"I think this can only truly happen via state action"
Why? I mean, we're not going to spend the money on it, but what is wrong with a national university system? It is the norm in a lot of other countries.