It seems to lead to the sort of situation where the only kind of success a poor kid can hope for in life is the kind where they get into the kinds of degrees that offer pay, whereas privileged rich kids have the luxury of getting to go into "useless" humanities degrees and curate our culture and history and whatnot. Only enabling the leisurely well-to-do to enter the latter kind of career path is generally considered a bad thing.

The status quo you're protecting is poor urban neighborhoods teeming with art curators and medieval literature experts?

It's not bad. But it doesn't matter how much tuition costs or what degrees offer pay or not. Everyone will study whatever they want, borrow at 1000% interest if necessary or 1% interest for "profitable" degrees, and then dump the dept as soon as they graduate.

Or am I missing something? Original question, what's stopping everyone from defaulting right after graduation?

What's to stop people defaulting on other unsecured loans, like credit cards? Some people do, but most people don't. Why? Because defaulting on a loan means a bad credit score and suddenly modern society becomes hard - no mortgage, no car loan, no more credit cards etc.

The difference is that other unsecure loans are only given out with some degree of expectation/evidence that the person will be able to repay them. A person with $10k/yr income does not get a $40k credit limit.

On the other hand, college loans are given out with zero consideration of that. You're just as eligible to take out tons of loans as a poor person majoring in underwater basket weaving as you are are getting a CS degree from Stanford. Even though those have very different probabilities of being able to repay them.

To default on a credit card you have to qualify for a credit card. Which generally requires some history with a bank that for youngsters involves a secured credit card to build credit - e.g. a credit card with $500 monthly limit paired with a $500 savings account that allows no withdrawals.

What happens when a lender decides you're unqualified for a student loan?

The main difference is a bank can repossess your house/car/possessions for normal loans thus making back some of the money they leant you (and you losing all of the stuff you bought with that debt). They cannot repossess any bit of the money spent on your education. This is why the federal government steps in because they legally can repossess some of your education by extracting it out of your future earnings.

You're describing the difference between unsecured and secured loans. The parent explicitly stated that they were talking about unsecured loans (where there's no tangible thing to repossess).

Oh wow, reading more into it, some credit cards are actually unsecured (but some aren't [0]). However, credit card companies can still sue you even if it is an unsecured loan and then repossess some of your stuff depending on the state [1].

[0]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-card-bil...

[1]: http://www.natlbankruptcy.com/credit-card-lawsuits/

Nothing would stop everyone from defaulting. There would just be less student loans to default on in the first place. If defaulting was an option, student loans would either not exists or nearly not exist. If student loans didn't exist, colleges would have to drop their cost or not be able to fill seats. If colleges drop their cost, students don't need loans. The cycle ends.

> If student loans didn't exist, colleges would have to drop their cost or not be able to fill seats.

For lots of colleges, I agree. However, lots of people who come from well to do families have their entire colleges paid for by their parents even today with high tuition costs and thus top colleges could still increase feas as rich parents can afford it whereas poor people would have to grind out for years in low paying jobs just to afford the chance to go to the rich schools. Without guaranteed loans, poor students would practically never have the opportunity to go to rich schools.

The entire premise is based on a questionable foundational assumption. The argument goes that you pay for an education but that can’t be taken back in bankruptcy proceedings or recovered when defaulted on. I’ll agree that what people pay for is an education, but what makes that education valuable in terms of employment is the paper that proves you have it. If the college won’t validate your attendance and degree what do you have except an unverifiable claim that makes you indistinguishable from candidates that don’t have a degree?