Hmm... I think the most important part of funding education in this manner is to link programs or schools (possibly even the college level) to the degree taxed. This would have the intrinsic effect for limiting the degree program to the employment base that will be able to utilize those jobs. The reciprocal funding should then be able to manage gradual changes in employment demand - and large demand shifts could be funded through government or corporate "scholarships" which would be in effect a future tax credit. You could also allow for traditional payment for those who wish to make it through school without future tax burdens (i.e. I had zero debt at the end of my degrees - a combination of scholarship and work).

As a more critical immediate reform for education funding/loans, I think there should be a loan cap based on some multiple of the average yearly income expected for that degree (and that multiple shouldn't necessarily be greater than one). I think it's borderline criminal to allow young kids to pursue a degree while simultaneously loaning them money that you know will be many times their expected annual income - and then making sure that there's no way out of that debt - not even bankruptcy.

It appears that using Google can be harder than you thought. It seems that you have to ask a question to get an answer - such as "what is the average cost of adoption?". It's about $30K for a domestic US adoption BTW, and that doesn't include the "false starts" where an adoption falls through part way through the process. Or providing siblings. I guess these guys didn't think to ask Google (or a lawyer) "would the state override what seems to us a perfectly legal and sensible contract"? Should there have been a lawyer, well I guess that depends on your perspective for interpreting "should".

You appear to have found one of the government solutions to the problem of matching kids who really really need parents to parents who really really want a kid - they give a loan for 10% of the cost. Classic. (Yes I know there's sometimes other benefits from other sources to help out - but they don't always pan out either and the process is long, hard, and usually involves a few heartbreaks along the way).

Personally I always thought Mars Direct was a much better plan. I heard Zubrin talk about it once - seemed reasonable, not dependent on TV ratings, and you already had some proof of concept and a base of operations before you ever launched people at the big red rock. Of course the details is where you keep the devils and I think Murphy would be all over this one.

I can see a place for heroic leaps for science - including the possibility of a one way trip off the planet, but I'd have my doubts about the sort of people who would sign up for less than even a one cheek effort just to walk around a bit before needing a rescue which would never happen on time

What's worse is the precedent. Sure, as a culture we may be willing to put in a moon-shot effort if some legitimate (but corporate) Mars colony suffered disaster (which could be corrected by prompt Earth action). It's far less likely that we'd mobilize the effort if we're already practiced at letting "space junkies" die on their own recognizance.

I think you'll find that the sentiment is pretty equally shared by Christians who are willing to actually study and think about their scriptures. After all, it makes it pretty hard to talk to someone about what one finds important (i.e. religion) when you're called by the same name as a vocal group which is (rightly) identified as deniers of reality. Augustine (an early church father and pretty universally acknowledged formalizer of Christian doctrine) wrote in AD 400:

If we think of these days which are marked by the rising and the setting of the sun, this was perhaps not the fourth but the first day, so that we may suppose the sun to have risen at the time it was made and to have set at the time the other luminaries were made. But those who understand that the sun is still shining somewhere else when it is night with us, and that it is night somewhere else when the sun is with us, will search out a more sublime manner of counting these days."

AUGUSTINE - UNFINISHED LITERAL COMMENTARY ON GENESIS 14 (43)

This literal 24 hour reading of Genesis is not a new phenomena, but it will continue because it is natural for people to either lazily read, or to avoid questions which may fundamentally challenge their faith (they would say: better a saved ignoramus than to face the dangers inherent in asking questions). The latter can be recognized as an attitude which is actually strongly criticized by the New Testament writer Paul.

FTFY. Preclinical, phase 1, phase 2, and phase 3 at a minimum

A simple dog? Dude, first of all have you ever tried to take apart and repair a dog? It's so tough that I've never seen one on iFixit - but it'd probably get a score worse than a MS device. Secondly, they require a complex biological fueling system; the waste stream? Bio---hazard!