State of the Student Loans

In the State of the Union address, Obama proposed that after college students would only have to pay 10% of their income on student loans and that after 20 years their loans would be forgiven-- only 10 years if they worked in the public sector. Under this proposal students would have the peace of mind that they won't be paying for college for the rest of their life and that they won't be overly burdened by the payments each year.  But Congress will have to back this up with a fair bit of money.  The following example will illustrate:  Let's say that you attended Harvard University and paid for it with student loans.  At an annual tuition rate of $36,828 a year, that's a total of $147,312 debt from getting a bachelor's degree.  Now if you end up in a job that makes $40,000 a year, every year you would have to pay a maximum of $4,000.  Over 20 years you will have only paid back $80,000, and the bank/government/whoever-gave-you-that-loan is out $67,312.  Of course many students would pay back their loans, but some won't, and the money will come from the taxpayer.  I'm not sure how I feel about paying for someone else's student loans.