Originally Posted by Val
I think that a lot of the comments espousing college costs and debt as personal responsibility reflect the American "you're on your own" attitude to society. Personally, I think this ideology misses the point that college education in a population benefits society as a whole

According to you college education benefits society, but that's an opinion that others may not share. It's certainly debatable as to what percentage of a population should be educated to what degree, and at what cost.

Originally Posted by Val
Also, I don't get the distinction between personal responsibility with respect to paying for college (or a trade school) and lack thereof in K-12 education.

A legal distinction has been made. It may be arbitrary, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Originally Posted by Val
And what about paying for roads, street lights, the fire department, or the police? If you're going to embrace personal responsibility, you should embrace it all the way,
not cherry pick.

Why do you say that? A middle ground is often a popular option.

Originally Posted by Val
So if you want light outside your house, you should pay for streetlights yourself. And if someone robs you, it's your fault for not having a more secure house and you should pay for the cops to do an investigation. Ditto for your house burning down because of, say, wildfires. Even if the fire was started by someone else and spread to your place, why should my tax dollars pay for putting out your house or stopping the fire before it gets there? I mean, seriously, your house benefits no one but you and your family and maybe a friend or two. BTW, why should my tax dollars fund your kid's K-12 education? Etc.

IMO, there's no difference between the societal need for public fire departments and the societal need for college-educated people. These people typically pay more taxes than they would have otherwise and spend more money in restaurants and shops. They write new software, solve old problems in science and medicine, and so on. Sure, they benefit personally, but so do fire fighters and the people who pave the streets. It's not like those people are working for free.

You don't see a difference between a government that:

A) Works to discourage theft, property damage, and other crimes while giving victims a way to recover damages in the form of compensation

and

B) Pays to educate the population for 16 or more years, with dubious benefits?

You might find this interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

There are those who see the duty of government is primarily to protect negative rights. It's a pretty clear-cut distinction that allows for a middle ground between anarchy and authoritarianism that isn't arbitrary.