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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

Lots of things benefit society and don't cost $40k per year per person in subsidies - mainly to the upper middle class.

Strange how I never see this line deployed against the mortgage interest deduction or health care for wealthy retirees, both of which are considerably more expensive.

Subsidizing college education, at least, has a reliably positive ROI.

Then at the very least college debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy the way people can walk away from their mortgage.

Agreed. The idiotic law not allowing college debt to be cleared by bankruptcy is the primary reason why college has gotten so expensive.

Then treat college debt like any other loan instead of subsidies backstopped with government bailouts.

> mortgage interest deduction

By far the worst offender.

> health care for wealthy retirees

Theoretically, they paid into the system to get their dues.

> Subsidizing college education, at least, has a reliably positive ROI.

There's evidence at the State level, at least in many states, it does not pay for itself.

> Strange how I never see this line deployed against the mortgage interest deduction or health care for wealthy retirees

For what it's worth, I see arguments like this all the time. Might just be the corner of the information ecosystem you hang out in.

> Subsidizing college education, at least, has a reliably positive ROI.

Maybe it did in the past, where the greatest marginal gains were. Does it still hold true now? Over a third of the US has a bachelor's degree. Is there a reliably positive ROI to society in taking that third to, say, half?

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