>Another solution is to let you go to school for free and then pay a percent of all your future earnings back to your college, or at least in to a pool that pays for the next generation's college.
We basically already have that system. If you get federal loans (which most people who take out loans do--90% of all loan disbursements) you can sign up for an income based repayment plan.
You pay back 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the federal poverty limit), for 20 years.
If you make less than 1.5x the poverty limit, you pay nothing.
Absent public service loan forgiveness (which we may very well soon be, if Republicans in Congress get their way), the number is actually 30 years and the forgiven amount is taxable income. Additionally, income-based plans often result in payments that don't even cover interest, so the debt continues to pile up quickly.
Meaningfully different from the original suggestion.
It's only taxable up to the point of solvency. If you have a sizeable loan forgiven and you haven't made enough money to pay it over 20 years, you likely won't have enough assets to end up owing very much.
Also it's very likely congress will intervene in 10-15 years or so when a huge percentage of voters have this problem.
>income-based plans often result in payments that don't even cover interest, so the debt continues to pile up quickly.
If that's the case, you will never pay it off and we're back to debt cancellation after 20 years.
We basically already have that system. If you get federal loans (which most people who take out loans do--90% of all loan disbursements) you can sign up for an income based repayment plan.
You pay back 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the federal poverty limit), for 20 years.
If you make less than 1.5x the poverty limit, you pay nothing.