Democrats’ policy proposals have sparked a vital and overdue debate on our system to pay for post-secondary education, and how that system burdens and redistributes income. The existing system combines a small share of taxpayer funding (via the Pell Grant) with a large share from the student loan tax. The student loan tax requires the students themselves to pay a percentage of their income for 20 to 25 years, collected not by the IRS but by private contractors for the US Education Department.