But that said, I would hope that people have enough responsibility to only take loans they intend to repay, and to work within the system to repay them, rather than assert after the fact that the system is broken and so the tax payers should bail them out.
I'll add that as an 18 year old, I had no concept of what borrowing the money...a whopping $1500 which was half of one semester's tuition at a private university...meant. I wasn't sober enough to handle that sort of responsibility for another several years.
The system isn't broken. It's become corrupt. Banning discharge via bankruptcy was sold by saying that doctors and lawyers were the primary source of defaults on student loans. That's not the case today, and the student loan industry is largely built on reselling loans and collections.
The system is designed to leverage massive asymmetry at every point. Even down to, "why aren't you taking out a loan to insure your child receives the education they deserve?"
I disagree with you, btw, since much risk on some loans is passed to the US federal government.
It's childish behavior like running away and defailting that cause student loans to be expensive for the rest of us. Man up, it's not a lot of money.