It’s weird in the UK. I think framing it as a £50k (ish) loan is bad but also the loan structure is bizarre. It’s basically a tax on being a graduate which for some reason is higher (over the 30 years you have it) for people who make a medium amount of money than for people who make a smaller or higher amount of money.

Ultimately it doesn’t particularly punish people for getting a degree which isn’t worth much because if their degree isn’t worth much then they are less likely to have to pay much of the tax. And I think people are still statistically better off going even if you take the tax into account.

I find it weird because I can’t work out what it is trying to punish. At least with income tax there are arguments that better paid people are able to contribute more and so they should. But with the student “loans” it seems like it’s trying to discourage people from getting a degree which confers them a moderate advantage in income. It doesn’t seem to discourage degrees that are in some sense not worth the government’s money. I guess one way to look at it is that they wanted something that looked like loans but wasn’t burdensome and also had an interest rate that wouldn’t go to 0 if the base interest rates were very low and that’s how we ended up with the system.

It’s also means tested which seems fair but I think can be quite hard for the families on the various boundaries.