Respectfully, I think you are missing the point. Corporations are just groups of people and human behavior is just human behavior. Everyone has access to public education. Right now community colleges are struggling to retain students while private college costs are out of control. Why? That is not telling people to "get more money", it is telling them to make better choices. Helping people is not just about handing them things. Sometimes it is about navigating difficult choices and accepting things you don't want to in life. Guess what? Being a psychologist was not my "dream job". It was the path I chose because it was open to me and it made sense. When my original plans in grad school did not work out, I pivoted as well. That is life.
I'll give you that about corporations of groups of people doing people things. But groups of people as corporations can take advantage, ruin people's retirement funds, investments, houses, livelihood, etc under the umbrella of a company not a person (as in the 2008 recession) and give them free money to continue? , but give kids loans on their own with terms that offer forgiveness...no we mustn't have that!
I appreciate your honesty in sharing your experience, but not going to lie...that sounds a bit sad in regard to how you didn't perhaps go where you wanted to go career wise. Maybe you took a funded spot from someone whose dream it was too? And hey, maybe you've made peace with settling for second best option and not your dream job and that's all good. But many choose to take the path that takes them where they want to go, and like you, well within the bounds of the systems and rules, as you did in another way.
But, I get it. As the child of first generation immigrants who came here with nothing and couch surfed with family and friends while making a middle class life, I don't understand the struggle of the "poors". I have only been working non-stop since the age of 14 with all of my privileges in life. Similar to all the other elitist folks who shared their privileged backgrounds and attended elitist funded programs.
Good on your parents for building a middle class life for you to have the opportunities; they sound like they did the best with what they could so you could focus on your studies to get where you are. Not that it was within your control, but also what role do you think back then affirmative action played in the life of a student coming in as an immigrant? Did that play a factor in your trajectory into a funded program?
If we're sharing, I've been working in some capacity since 14 as well. From late middle school through high school ,I would describe my home and environmental situation as not conducive to opportunities for being in the place or time to focus on checking all the boxes necessary to get to a fully funded route. Take what you will from that but lets just say was definitely low SES, coming home some days not knowing if we had electricity still on for food in fridge to be good. And quite disruptive environment, coming home some days not knowing what state my parent was in and who or what was going to be destroyed, threatened, or challenged. I knew a lot of latchkey kids like that, and my own high school guidance counselor framed me as a kid who shouldn't have even bothered to go to college. Or being told at home go to college or get out of the house, then being told to leave college to take care of the house or some variation of that.
I knew a colleague a few years ahead of me in doctoral program who got custody of their younger sister while still in high school and worked two jobs, had to drop out and re enroll in a masters, then went back to get her doctorate on federal loans. Neither her nor I got there on our own or through traditional paths, and often there was someone along the way willing to vouch for me, and that other student, to take a chance, give them a foot in the door. I guess I should have just done something else instead of looking for opportunity in the ways I knew how at the time? I was probably the definition of a non-traditional student and even coming into graduate school I was probably a little rough around the edges. I'm grateful i had some mentors along the way as well that played a role in my journey.
Anyways maybe I digress, my point isn't to compare upbringings, just that experiences are going to be different. There were those who had it far easier than me and far harder than me.
Let's not forget that by definition, funded PhD programs are often elitist. You need the environment , time and resources to be competitive to apply to them and beat out hundreds of applications for a few slots with often someone deciding if you'd be a good fit in their research lab which can be a bit arbitrary. But there's nothing wrong with getting there, good for you and for others who did. If funded programs took more students there'd also be more access to these opportunities and less need for loans. Imagine a system where instead of lending out money for those who didn't get in to funded programs, the government instead funded those programs so more students can be in that position.
As for loans, I admit "loophole" was a poor choice of a word. What I meant was that these loans have in their terms and contracts the built in SOL (for private loans ) and loan forgiveness after X years (in federal loans). You paying yours in full and early may have made financial sense for you, but not for others. Your doing so has zero bearing on whether others can or should because, again, the contracts and promissory notes of these loans include ways to have the loans forgiven. There's absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing the terms of the contract.
I certainly didn't buy luxury cars or fancy accommodations with my loans. I took two trains to my part time job and walked a few miles at times when couldn't get there that way for a few dollars in my pocket. I caught rides and took the bus for my entire Master's degree and some of my doctoral degree until finally had to buy a used car for cheap because otherwise I would have not been competitive for practicums and internships to get there. Let's not forget the economic barriers that continue to exist in this field just to actually get licensed.
Some others in my program had family that paid for everything , good for them. I'm sure there's funded PhD students as well as diploma mills students and those in between who never worked a day in their life, and I'm sure there's some in those positions that had it far harder than you or I ever did. But we were all there for a common goal.
You asked in another comment if we can have it both ways a la European model. And I think that we can. Funding education can be expanded, it doesn't need to be held behind gatekeeping due to limited funds in funded PhD programs who only have X funds for X students. Many countries offer free or heavily subsidized college education for citizens and non citizens on tax dollars if you meet requirements.
As for student loans, most are forgivable and maybe in that way this is a quasi-method of funding education for more people who should be where you were academically but life circumstances didn't make that path possible. Arguing that we need to change student loan terms to "make sure" people "pay all of it back" is just nonsense and not the solution to the problem; it's systemic.
We could also wonder why medical schools require student loans and aren't "fully funded." As a field we seem to be moving more and more towards a healthcare/medical professional model of education and yet we still have academic/research "funded" routes. Imagine if medical schools said "you need to do research and work for us for funding but we can only take 5 of you a year."
End of the day, I get the sense we both agree the educational system in the US is not sustainable in it's current form and that diploma mills that take 90 students a year and charge absurd tuition with poor match rates and licensure rates need to disappear. There's a lot to unpack and a lot of variables, which I've said numerous times on this forum. Again it's nothing personal and maybe someone reading these back and forth debates one day will get into a role where they make effective changes to the system. As others have said to, the field needs psychologists from varied backgrounds and experiences as well.