Yesterday’s Forbes on Fox hyped the doubling of student loan rates from 3.4% to 6.8% on July 1. Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard wasn’t just all for the doubling, he thought that even that amount would be “way too low.”

Karlgaard opened the discussion by saying, “We’re looking at a trillion dollars in possible student loan default, so even 6.8% is way too low. College costs a lot. I was able to go to Stanford University, but only after I spent my first two years at a community college three blocks from my home and while I lived at home. So I had spent nothing my first two years and still have a degree from a pretty nice college. There are so many ways today that we can cut the costs of education without asking taxpayers to fund these low-interest loans.”

Liberal panelist Rick Ungar disagreed. He said, “If you create a situation where only people who have a lot of money can go to the better schools, and let’s face it, the better schools are the most expensive schools. Ivy League schools cost a lot of money. What does it do to this country if only people who can afford it can go to those schools? This has a long-term horrible effect.”

Host David Asman made no bones about which side he was on, in case anyone wouldn’t have guessed. He said, “I got into Columbia in graduate school, but I couldn’t afford to go to Columbia so I went to Northwestern and I did very well at Northwestern, but I had to make a choice based on how much I could afford. Isn’t that natural Steve?”

Asman was addressing Steve Forbes. Predictably, Forbes added his voice to the chorus. “It is David, and people have to make these trade offs.”

Panelist Morgan Brennan called those sentiments “penny wise, dollar foolish.” She continued, “There’s two reasons that I don’t think we should let interest rates rise. The first reason is we’re only talking about subsidized Stafford loans, which are paid for by the government as long as the borrower is in school, so these are essentially raising the rates on taxpayers. …The second reason is because unsubsidized Stafford loans and private loans, this does nothing to affect those.”

Sabrina Schaeffer got right back to the program, but with a twist of blaming the government for high tuition costs in the first place. “It’s government intervention that has allowed all these colleges and universities to drive up their tuition costs to these obscene levels that do push out on kids that can’t afford them.”

Bill Baldwin, however, spoke up for privatization. “You don’t have to sucker punch the innocent students with a doubling of their interest costs. …You have the colleges guarantee the debts.”

Karlgaard was OK with that. He said, “I think that’s probably a pretty good idea. …I would go back to the point with online opportunities and the underused community college resources in this country. There are so many ways people can bring down costs, and still have a first class education.”

And the heck with leveling the playing field.