The government didn’t pay my mortgage. Why should it pass student debt to the taxpayers as a whole? What is it about student debt that makes it so special?
Both student loans and mortgages are contracts in which the parties voluntarily entered into obligations in the hope of profiting in the long run. In neither case is that profit assured. You can argue, of course, that society identifies higher education as the cornerstone of the American dream, but you could say the same thing about home ownership. You can also argue that it is appropriate for the taxpayer to pay for higher education because it leads to economic growth, to the benefit of everyone, but home ownership supposedly leads to a more stable, law-abiding, and affluent society, as well.
The differences between the two kinds of debt are not significant enough to make a persuasive case, at least for me. If the objective here is simply compassion, it should be reserved for the truly needy, not the whiny needy.