I wish this college loan fiasco was this cut and dry.

The school system is complicit.

Shoving almost everyone into a college track.
Telling every kid that they need to go to college to get a job.
And then, not giving them any financial education. Like, how much does that job pay? Will it pay back the student loans?

The college system is complicit.

Selling degrees that are worthless, and often meaningless.
The colleges should be held to standards, like, is your degree worth anything?
If colleges had to guarantee the loans, they would be much more fussy about who they let in, and useless degrees would be dismissed from system

The US govern-cement/Fed is complicit

They needed more new loans.
And that is what they did.
They needed more liquidity in the system, from a new loan source.
These student loans are why Social inSecurity exists to this day.