I went to college in 2007. Lived on campus for only two years. $2300 each semester for the first year, $3400 each semester for the second year. And those were lower end dorms. Not crazy, but not cheap. I wanted the experience and thought I'd be making $60K-$70K once I graduated.
The economic recession (that we never truly recovered from) was in 2008. I do not feel like my opportunities were as good as they should've been by the time I graduated in 2012. Contracting/temp jobs were a big thing back then. At one point I worked in health insurance and saw young people get hired and fired like nothing.
A lot of us will admit that maybe we shouldn't have gone to college right away, or shouldn't have taken on additional costs. It's all hindsight bias. We're told to own a situation that wasn't 100% in our control.
I've been paying my loans for over a decade. A lot of them are private, so I'm stuck with them no matter what. I'll own it, but I'll also recognize why some people just want some relief. If all college grads were making $100K then there'd be no call for student debt cancellation.
There are job postings out there that require a bachelor's and/or master's degree and pay less than $20 per hour. It's ridiculous, especially when the costs of goods and housing are only going up. People may have signed up for the education but they didn't sign up for an economic shellacking.
Owning the crisis that the United States is in has to come from both sides. Whether 10k or 50k, the problem would still be present for the next generation. I think 50k would have been amazing but beggars can't be choosers.
There's a fine balance between my wife working her way through school for 6 years and graduating with a masters debt free and a student who partied their way through school majoring in a liberal arts degree that put them 100k in the hole. Completely forgiving the latter would be unfair for my wife.
Schools have to get cheaper for one thing and more information has to be given to prospective students. Heck, we need to be open to trade schools too.
I don't agree school should be free. If it was free, no student would have skin in the game and slackers would have no reason to take it seriously.