All this talk about student loan forgiveness is an unnecessary solution to a problem that’s not really that bad: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/upshot/an-international-f... Average BA holders in the US graduate with $28,000 in debt, versus $21,000 in Sweden. The Swedish system is basically like our income-based-repayment, which we have had since the 1980s. Except, as you’d expect with Sweden, there is less paperw…
When making comparisons with Sweden or other countries the cost of healthcare, housing, food, and transportation should be taken into account. Healthcare and transportation costs are much higher in the U.S. I think too we also have a higher per capita income and I don't know how things balance out. One thing for sure though. I'd rather be poor in Sweden than in the U.S. There is also the fact that many students who s…
Moreover, American cost of living is the same in Sweden as in the US (the GDP per capita in nominal dollars is identical to the figure in purchasing-power-adjusted dollars). You may need a car, but housing is cheaper in most of the country.
As to healthcare, making comparisons is difficult. 2/3 of college graduates have employer subsidized healthcare. For those people, you need to look at the median employee premium portion, which is $2,200/year. (There are also out-of-pocket costs, mostly for drugs, but the US figure of about $1,000 is not much different than the Swedish figure of $800 on that front).
The employee premium paid by the typical college graduate is much less than the extra taxes that same person would pay in Sweden. The median college graduate earns $51,000 in the US to start. The median employee premium of $2,200 is 4.4% of that. The tax differential is almost certainly higher than that. (In Sweden, all of that is taxed at 30% county tax, no federal. In the US, the first $12,000 is tax free, and the rest is taxed at 10-12% federal, plus maybe 4-5% state and local, plus 7.65% FICA).