Here are some perspectives on education:

• Education of an individual provides expected benefits to that individual. He or she will have better career opportunities than if he or she did not receive that education. Therefore, the cost of education should be borne primarily by the individual, for instance in the form of debts that must be repaid.
• Education of an individual provides expected benefits to the whole society in which that individual lives and works. He or she will be capable of greater productivity, which will have positive but diffuse externalities for a very large number of people. Productivity increases, however, accrue mostly to the wealthier members of society. Therefore, the cost of education should be borne primarily by the public in general, for instance in the form of tax-funded grants, but these should be funded by progressive taxes on income or wealth.
• Education of an individual provides expected benefits to the individual's future employers, as workers with particular skills are scarce and obtained on a competitive job market. When an educated person is hired (and thus removed from the job market for the moment), there are fewer educated candidates available to the next employer. Therefore, the cost of education should be borne primarily by employers of educated workers, for instance in the form of a payroll tax; or a payment to the educator from the employer.
• Education should not be modeled as a future economic benefit to particular parties, but as a duty of society to its own next generation, based on the benefit of past education: to a first approximation, everyone has received benefits that would not be possible without oneself and one's fellows and predecessors having been educated; therefore, everyone bears responsibility to pay it forward, proportional perhaps to the benefit that they themselves have received.