This is what we're dealing with these days. "Ilhan Omar cites rising COVID cases to demand Biden cancel student debt." Now first of all, what does the covid rate have to do with student debt? But worst of all, there is no such thing as "cancelling" student debt. The debt, which is from private lenders, has to be paid. The only question concerns the issue of who is going to pay for it. Suppose the headline had read, "Ilhan Omar cites rising COVID cases to demand Biden force taxpaying Americans to pay off the debts of people they don't even know." Would that have made a different impact?

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ilhan-omar-cites-rising-covid-cases-to-demand-biden-cancel-student-debt

ah the education industry, amazing that it has survived the pandemic

Never let a crisis go to waste . If she wants to help students in the covid era she should be working on a way for students to get at least a partial refund from colleges that cancelled classes and /or went remote .Right or wrong ,part of the out of control fees is paying for that "college experience " ,the campus life with the manicured lawns ,pristine student centers ,climbing rock wall gymnasiums ,5 star dormitories etc. When schools went remote none of that was available to the student .

Yes it is a rort

I do think online classes have a lot of potential, but so far colleges are charging for them about what they charge to sit in a classroom. The great hope is that private schools will begin to spring up and become innovative in both instruction and pricing.

Right or wrong ,part of the out of control fees is paying for that "college experience " ,the campus life with the manicured lawns ,pristine student centers ,climbing rock wall gymnasiums ,5 star dormitories etc.
...and the highly paid retired professors et al. who become college vice presidents or are given other "officer" titles and huge gratuitous paychecks for being a figurehead -- thus adding gold sparkles to that college or university.

and the icing on the cake is that the students are not "taught " by the professors . They hire graduate students to teach their classes ...or "associate " professors . The professor's concern is getting published .

It's what happens when the private sector is effectively shut out. Bureaucracies take over and you get...this.