The payment is a crucial part of the conditioning. A crucial part of the psychological mechanism involved with creating the nu-Leftist involves punishing them. It's a variation of Stockholm syndrome. The person who is programmed must invest a certain amount into something. It's the cognitive dissonance that causes them to become programmed. By doubling down on what they believe they have invested value in, they convince themselves that they have received value - in fact, they MUST have. So the belief must be enforced and violently defended, otherwise they'd have to deal with what ultimately amounts to a significant loss. College can't be a loss. It's ruining me financially. It must have been good. Since college is good, it means the things I learned there must be good. After all, it's the zenith of intellectual life. To convince myself of my superiority with respect to the un-college-educated, I'll have to also resist them (and therefore, their beliefs/values) at every turn. This is how I don't face the fact I got financially fucked for something I shouldn't have even wanted.