So here is my proposal.  Anyone with a student loan should be allowed to have an appraisal done on the monetary economic value of whatever credential they have received.  They should have their debt written down to that amount or alternatively be permitted to surrender the credential in exchange for total debt forgiveness.  The woman with the degree in Minority Womens studies would still have the education just not the credential and the associated debt.  

We have laws to protect unsophisticated investors from certain types of investments.  In order to invest in them you have to show you have net worth to spare.  There should be similar protections for unsophisticated 18-year-olds being encouraged to go into debt that they will have no prospect of getting out of.  Will this mean that all the degrees in Gender Studies might end up being gobbled up by the children of the wealthy?  Maybe.  So let’s require the professors to publish the reading lists since that’s where most of the real education will come from.  Should we stick the banks with this bailout or the taxpayers?  No.  It should be funded by an excise tax on university endowments.  There is probably a lot to blame “Wall Street” for, but this part of the mess, I don’t think so.