Check this article out:

http://chronicle.com/article/Many-More-Students-Are-Defa/66223/

Looking at default rate between 10% and 40% (depends on where students go to school), which is nearly double the reported rate by the government, on the low end, if not much higher. This means people are not able to pay off their student loans and have to go into default. They end up still getting required to keep paying, with wages garnished (and no bankruptcy protection). A kicker here is there is a recover rate around 125% in the area of defaulted loans. In short, the system has defaulting being more profitable than not defaulting.

More people should consider doing a trade instead of taking out a huge personal loan from a loan shark for a second rate college diploma. $40,000 college personal loan can easily spiral out to $100,000 due to high interest rates. 

university education should be funded via general taxation, same with all other levels of education.

you do realize that student loan rates are usually some of the lowest rates out there right?

Why?  University education is corporate welfare, used by corporation to sort and train their workers, so they don't need to pay for it (they offload one of their costs).  Why should tax dollars be used to pay for corporate welfare?  Not saying it shouldn't be done, but would want to have it explained why it should be done.

Thanks to this grad degree in digital cinema I'm going to have upwards of $35,000 in student loans, plus the loans from the university where I got my bachelors. I'm probably going to be paying these loans off for a good 10 years. All I can say is this grad degree better land me a decent career..

I'm getting covered from financial aid and i'm getting money back in like 2 weeks. Lucky me!

no, its part of the education that many young people want to have in order to do well in life, for that reason, like other forms of education its the job of the state to provide it as a service for the people.

university education should both beneficial and enriching to society as a whole, not just the individual, though obviously they gain a qualification and the experiences that come with University life and study.

what degrees people do should be up to them, if all is fully funded, they just need decide what course they like best, corporate or not, that should be the choice of the people.

maybe University works differently in the USA, but in the UK people study what they want to study and generally Uni is considered a great experience for people too, sadly because of the Capitalists students here now have to take on great debt as a big disincentive to those from less well off or less aspirational backgrounds.

there are some easy ways to fund this too, inheritance taxes should be at much higher rates for instance, people shouldnt get money for being lucky enough to be born to that family when there parents die, so technically you cant justify any money they do get, which makes this an easy to raise and very fair tax that also promotes equalities within society.

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Exactly, your taxes should be increased to pay for the university education of everyone else.  Maybe start now by giving all of your money to everyone else :)

im not talking about all anyones money, im talking about a fair amount that you or I should give up depending how much we earn for the benefit of society as a whole.

not my fault if you are greedy.