Re: The "I wish" thread
Germany for example uses a free classes system plus a loans if you can't afford a place to live at and etc, a la: 'get half for free, pay back the other half when you're 35' model, with caps that prevent excess debt and a discount if you pay all at once immediatly.
Though every college system at least somewhat forces you to buy pointless books, well, if you want to study something that actually earns you money later.
It's fairly similar in Scandinavia, though of course there are differences between the countries. It's theoretically possible to not take any loans at all, just survive by working on the side, but it's going to dig into your study time, so most take at least a limited loan. As long as you are passing, part of the loan (not half though) is transformed into a stipend.
I only paid about 70 bucks every semester for the *actual* university attendance fee, and that's honestly mostly to weed out people who are completely insincere or something. The loan went to paying for rent (universities don't usually have dorms, but there are semi-public companies operating student villages where the rent price is capped to be affordable and available only to students of that city) food, and books. And beer, obviously.
The idea is that you pay back the cost of your education later in life through taxes. (or, if you want to look at it differently, you are paying for the education of the coming generation, so a carpenter or electrician who didn't study is paying for potentially their children or something, as it were).
