In response to my post titled “Who’s Responsible for Student Loans?” April 28, 2022, frequent commenter Vivian Darkbloom wrote:

At the risk of keeping this too simple, I’d say it’s the person(s) signing or co-signing the loan agreement.

I LedOL when I saw this. It reminded me of something I read when I was 18 and was reading everything I could find by and about Ayn Rand. I can’t find where the original story was printed but Anne Heller, in her wonderful biography of Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand and the World She Made, tells the story. (Possibly the source is in the footnotes but my copy of Heller’s book is at work and I’m at home.)

Ayn Rand had been invited to speak at Yale University in February 1960. Heller writes:

To her surprise, and Yale’s, the flyer tacked to the law-school bulletin board attracted the largest audience in the history of the Yale series; the overflow was so great that the school placed loudspeakers in the building entryway and on two upper floors. During the question-and-answer period, one member of the audience shouted from the balcony, “Under your system, who will take care of the janitors?” She sang out, Young man: the janitors!” and the hall erupted in laughter.

The thing I like about her answer, besides its terse accuracy, is that she was willing to enter the fray. Some speakers might have stood on ceremony, saying “How dare you question me out of turn?” But she seized the day, with excellent effect.