This might make sense if there was a concurrent shift in our oversimplified attitude toward higher education.

The past several decades have proven that it's no longer true that every college degree represents a prudent investment. If it did, there would be no need to consider absolving student debt today.

Without reform, absolving debt will remove the political pressure that's the incentive for change.

The 2008 collapse of the subprime real estate market (and the greater economy) is a good analogue. Once it became clear that the main cause of the problem was underwriting standards that had eroded to the point where people were borrowing more than they could afford, the rules were tightened.

In a capitalistic system, applying this thinking to education would mean limiting educational loans to those students pursuing a career where projected future income is adequate to service debt. If we're not comfortable with that, the whole system has to be redesigned.

We should ask ourselves why our discussion is still so hyperfocused on everyone getting a college degree when that has historically not been the path for the majority of students? Where is the dialogue about the improvement of lifelong education or professional and vocational disciplines for the 2/3rds who historically haven't completed a four-year college program? What would happen if we reversed our focus and put the same kind of thought, political and economic capital into creative, robust and agile lifelong learning pathways like apprenticeships, paid internships and low-cost high return internal training as some organizations (like Google) are turning to.

The path forward starts with a "what-if" game.

What if there were no existing education structure? No primary, secondary, or tertiary systems in place with huge bureaucracies feeding an inertial imperative to keep moving in the same direction at all costs.

In the context of today's uber-connected, hyper-technical world, how would we imagine a best practice approach to education at all levels of need? One where individual capacity and desire for growth are considered within the context of changing labour (machine and human) requirements to produce more efficient, agile, satisfying opportunities for workers of all types. So for every individual, education results in more income than it costs.

The dog needs to be wagging the tail. Not the other way around.