In the short run, a lot of unscrupulous financial institutions that catered to questionable schools will end up being punished. Long term, kids will have a tougher time getting loans to any schools that lack good track records for graduation. Which means they might have to go to cheaper community colleges. Which really won't be bad for the small colleges of the USA.
The tiny percentage of the problem that is represented by truly unscrupulous schools promising things that were untrue has already been solved by targeted debt forgiveness. And I don't think that has hardly anything to do with the main problem or "problem" that they are trying to solve.
The main thing is just people who decided they must go to a $100,000 college and were stupid enough to actually do that and take on $100,000 in debt in exchange for nothing but an average four-year degree. Anyone who is that dumb, I don't think they are probably a very good fit for college in the first place.
The whole student debt forgiveness debate is ridiculous. We all make bad financial decisions sometimes. That doesn't mean your debt should be forgiven. It would be extremely unfair to those who pay the price for doing dumb things if every once in awhile a few of them have total forgiveness.
In addition to that (which is good enough in my opinion), then you have the whole question of why the person was dumb enough to pay FULL RETAIL PRICE for college in the first place! That would be like claiming I need transportation therefore I
must have a maserati. And poor me, and pity me for having to pay for one. But that's also ridiculous, given that community colleges are so dirt cheap they're almost free nowadays, and that's half your college right there. Many of them are partnering to actually offer four-year degrees and that's been happening for several years now.
Then you finally transfer to a state school for your last one to two years max, during which you go part-time in the evenings and work full time. Anyone with half their wits and a limited budget would do what I have just described.
Now for the last point. Not only everything that I've said up till now, but we haven't even talked about scholarships yet. If you're a halfway decent high school student and test taker for college entrance exams, at least 20 to 30% of the little bit that's left should be being paid for by scholarships and grants.
What are we down to now, 5 to 10,000 Max to finish a college degree?
Keep all this in mind when the person who thought that they were smart enough to go to Harvard is bitching about having $150,000 in loans....