I think we should also consider the pressures and advertising from all sides that pushed many kids into taking loans of quantities they didn't truly comprehend with potential consequences that weren't all that well explained to them. We know advertising works great on young people and when someone comes and tells them "Come here, you will make $120K a year out of college, you are the perfect candidate! You can pay off your loans in 2-3 years if you want and still have tons of money!" And then everyone around them jumps on board "OMG thats so great! Of course you need to jump on that now!", but then in reality it is a completely unprepared student with no idea what they are getting into, middling grades at best, signing their name over on documents that can barely decipher, to get a degree in either something incredibly hard or incredibly useless.

We know advertising works well and makes people do and buy shit they don't need or want, and in this case it was primarily targeted at kids during and immediately after highschool who are especially vulnerable.