Definitely not a free market. If the government didn't guarantee student loans, the banks would have been a lot more conservative in giving out loans. In fact, this is easily the biggest factor in the rapid rise in tuition.

The biggest factor in the rise in tuition is easily austerity policies lowering in-state school budgets.

As the government applies ever greater amounts of money to pay for tuition, tuition rises. That's simple economics. You can read about the facts here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/02/22/how-u...

Yes, don't fund students, fund schools. The government shouldn't pay tuition bills, it should ban tuition for schools receiving public funding.

Though I question why an AEI schill should be considered a credible source on anything.

The parent posts detail the ways the government has distorted the free market, and your takeaway was that this is the free market's fault...? So was the '06 housing bubble was the free market's fault as well?

Quite so. It was the "free market" that gave out those loans, it was the "free market" that repackaged the CDOs knowing full well the repercussions in case of defaults, it was the "free market" that stacked rating agencies, regulators, courts, even academia, to prevent their cash cow from going away, or from suffering any kind of personal responsibility for their crimes.

I think you missed your opportunity to learn something because the parent post was being too subtle.

Both student loans and the housing loans leading to the crisis are blinding examples of the government interfering with the risk assessment process of large loans resulting in a failure.

Students get loans they can't realistically payback because the issuers know they are (mostly) safe from bankruptcy.

In the early 2000s the 'gift' of the affordable housing bill was to issue a bunch of mortgages to people who realistically couldn't pay them back either. Leverage against loans by the banks made it systemic, but the root cause of the housing crash was trash loans that would never have been issued if it weren't for the government offering guarantees.

In both cases the government was even less "free" than the market. Interested parties distort laws and regulations to their own benefit.

You are confusing a free market with a government controlled market.