> If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

Do you see no value in young energetic people being educated while their brains are still maximally plastic, and society get maximal value out of the education? Is there no value in handing over our knowledge to the new generation BEFORE they act without it? Is there no value in knowing something the "free labor market" has not priced in?

Rights are something we grant each other. If we see a value in an educated public, we can grant each other the right to get an education. There are no "rights" in nature, so the statement "you don't have the right" is meaningless in matters of politics, where the whole point of the discussion is to figure out if you should "have the right".

Your inner world must be a dead hellscape if you believe that the only things that exist are "prestige", arbitrary "knowledge", or a job.

> Do you see no value in young energetic people being educated

This is what the public school system is for. Post-secondary education was not meant to be for everyone. But the world has changed and universities and colleges only service as the gate-keepers to degrees and diplomas that every employer now has required to get a job (regardless of whether that education is needed for the actual job). It's not that young people passionate about learning as much as they can in a given field don't exist, its that university is not about them anymore.