Federal student loans themselves have always expressed the tension in parent poster's dichotomy.
On the one hand, we could fund college for only those who need the help.
On the other hand, that would be a political shitstorm because people with means wouldn't receive as much (or potentially even any) benefit.
So the system now has lots of loopholes and sliding scales, so that everyone gets some benefit and supports it. Replace states with families, and it's the NASA approach to political support.
Personally, I think the removal of objective testing is dumb. It may be income/background correlated, but it is objective.
You can address the disparities by providing benefit to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
More critically, you want a system that doesn't allocate money to 'dumb/lazy but also from an advantaged background'.
On the one hand, we could fund college for only those who need the help.
On the other hand, that would be a political shitstorm because people with means wouldn't receive as much (or potentially even any) benefit.
So the system now has lots of loopholes and sliding scales, so that everyone gets some benefit and supports it. Replace states with families, and it's the NASA approach to political support.
Personally, I think the removal of objective testing is dumb. It may be income/background correlated, but it is objective.
You can address the disparities by providing benefit to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
More critically, you want a system that doesn't allocate money to 'dumb/lazy but also from an advantaged background'.