Everyone understands soaring student debt is a problem: burdened with $1.3 trillion in student loans, young people are unable to start businesses, buy homes and start families. The high cost of housing and meeting regulations to launch businesses add additional burdens, but the weight of $1.3 trillion in debt right out of the starting gate is crushing.
The “solution” being pursued by the federal government is obvious: take over most of the student debt and then eventually bury it in the zombie-loan graveyard (i.e. defaults are ignored but the debt isn’t officially written off), write it down via forgiveness programs, or some other mechanism to reduce the burden.
If this wasn’t the plan, then why has federal ownership of student loan debt skyrocketed from zero to $900 billion in a few short years?