Some initial thoughts on the declaration by the Biden administration regarding student loan forgiveness:
I think this may be cover for a collapsing college system in terms of enrollment and students not paying back their loans. Many people obtained degrees that were not useful in the workplace (I don't think college degrees should be a requirement of any job, expect for maybe a couple). Pastors/priests should have degrees to show that they adhere to the faith if you will.
This reminds me of Obamacare in some ways with forcing everyone to pay for something that is collapsing. I think that Obamacare was cover for a collapsing hospital system, and the COVID response may have been the same thing.
A lot of training should be done on the job site. As far as I know, engineers learned engineering at the workplace not too long ago and not at schools. The colleges and the universities are an entrenched lobbying group and want to have the guaranteed federal money to justify high tuition. The federal government should have never been involved in this business.
This is also a tax in disguise. If you think about it, many of these loans were never going to be paid. So, the forgiveness will be taxed next year as income as far as I know. So, the borrower will have to pay tax money on this (an unexpected surprise for many).
Lastly, I don't think the executive branch has the unilateral authority to grant this forgiveness. It should be struck down by the courts in a sane world, but I don't think that sane world has existed for a long time.
P.S. Colleges like Hillsdale College that don't take any federal funding may be the future of college in the United States. I would personally recommend a college that does not take federal funding to avoid the evils of DIE policies and other initiatives.
From what I've read the feds won't be treating the loan forgiveness amount as taxable income. Some states might depending on their laws. Going to your larger point: The problem with college is that it used to act as a signal that a graduate had a certain IQ level. Employers started requiring degrees in lieu of the actual IQ tests they had to stop using because the racial makeup of the failures wasn't politically correct. The signal doesn't work anymore because the flunk outs have the same racial makeup as the people who were failing employer IQ tests in earlier decades so the colleges have been passing people who can't demonstrate competency. Because of this college graduates are now a dime a dozen and employers know they they don't mean jack shit when it comes to identifying good employees. That's why most degrees aren't worth shit anymore.
The other problem is that student loans are federally guaranteed, so lenders be they the government itself or private companies have no incentive to make sure that the student will get a return on their investment and thus be able to repay the loan. The ideal student loan program would have no government involvement. The lender would make decisions based on the student's IQ and major. That way the student gets a return on his investment and the lender makes money on the loan. You know, like any other lending decision. If some airhead woman wants to major in grievance studies she can do it on her own dime. This has the nice effect of starving the bullshit departments. Colleges should be in the business of education, not creating woke activists.