In the early months of 2009, as the U.S. economy was reeling from the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting collapse of financial markets, student loan balances had surpassed $700 billion.

One of the lessons of the financial crisis was that individuals, financial companies, and the government should be more careful about accumulating debt. Unfortunately, when it comes to student loans, the government has decided to subsidize profligacy, and the conventional wisdom says we should all encourage it.