I have a friend in France who is getting an art education for free. Is she going to be in debt for her whole life? I don’t think so. Yes, some jobs pay very well in the US, but not all of them. Average job often pays enough for rent and living expenses plus a little bit. Student debt has interest and people end up paying that interest for many many years.
I’m writing in the declarative, affirmative tone, but it is only my understanding.
No, but she's probably going to pay way more taxes for everything, including income tax, VAT, taxes on petrol, electricity and will earn less.
People who complain about it are concentrated in threads like this, but all real life Americans I've talked with (whom I know for different reasons) said the debt may be annoying psychologically but at the end of the day, white collar professionals can easily pay it.
However, it may be the case that more people go to college in America due to marketing and other influences than actually should. Also, students tend to get pushed through the system and are pampered and have an entitled customer attitude and the colleges have a service provider attitude. The end result may be that even people with bad job prospects move through the system and then get surprised at the end. In Europe, universities quickly fail these students and push them out of the system so the students face reality earlier.
Also, Americans seem to value the "service provider", "resort" type college, with all kinds of non-academic services, personal mentoring, sports stadiums and teams etc. compared to the bare bones approach of European universities.
EDIT: just saw it's an art degree in question. Spending years on studying art has always been the luxury of wealthy people at all times, in all places. You'll have difficulties finding a job (assuming no connections) anywhere with an art degree. The meme of having to work at McDonald's is also alive and well in European countries.
> I have a friend in France who is getting an art education for free.
Unpopular to admit: we need doctors / engineers / farmers more than we need another art major.
As a US taxpayer, I wouldn't want to subsidize just anyone's education. I'd rather incentivize and subsidize engineering / STEM / agricultural science.
You don't get to just get a free education regardless of what you want to study - different work/study has different value to society.
Even in free-tuition countries, there are caps on the number of students admitted to various study programs under state subsidy. The government can incentivize more productive degrees by allocating more spaces to them.
I’m writing in the declarative, affirmative tone, but it is only my understanding.