The Tyranny of College Loans

Ned was in conversation with friends recently, and he had cause to remark that this year for the first time, college loan debt exceeded credit card debt, and his blood ran cold at the thought. Here is state government, which is responsible for higher education, refusing to either (1) fund the cost of a college degree for its citizens, or (2) to guarantee a job for successful graduates, which would allow them to have some chance of paying off the onerous loans without bankrupting themselves. Instead we have a system that incorporates the worst of both worlds. Students incur tens of thousands in loans and then can't find a job afterwards, wasting many productive years, years which the 'locusts have eaten.'
Ned asks his friends to consider how much better we would be with, say, ten million more persons gainfully employed, at, say, the modest average salary of $35,000 a year, all paying into Medicare at the rate of 2% of salary, and into Social Security at 13%. We would be hearing no more about the crisis in Social Security for one thing. The multiplier effect would mean that local, state and federal governments would rake in much more tax revenue, and our citizenry would all have the satisfaction of leading productive lives. Then we could go after the Sneering Plutocracy and the Paris Hilton Crowd, and take a portion, say 70%, of their ill-gotten wealth they have flayed from the backs of honest persons throughout the Western World.
But of course, Ned awoke to find, as usual, he was living a fairy tale.