Student debt is half of the problem. Really, the problem is that the primary source of funding for a university is the state. Over time, states have reduced t

Student debt is half of the problem. Really, the problem is that the primary source of funding for a university is the state. Over time, states have reduced the amount of money they give to schools because they can increase tuition to make of the difference. Since students are forced to then take student loans from the federal government, it in affect becomes a scheme for the states to milk money from the fed, but saddle the debt on students. So, yes, student loans are a problem, but the larger problem is that the states have proportionally removed money from the universities. As to how to fix it, it's complicated. If the fed wants to continue to pump money into universities, they could federalize them, but it would be a huge transfer of power to transfer control of universities from the state to the fed. There's accreditation, the board of regents, and a variety of other organizations that would then be federally controlled. On top of this, since a university is such a large piece of a local community and requires infrastructure to support it, it makes sense to manage it locally. Further, the state would probably just play the same game if a university was federally controlled and still milk money. Really, the states need to realign their priorities and increase funding for the university system if they want stuff like this to stop. Removing federal student loans would help alleviate some of this pressure, but there's still pressure on universities to move to adjunct faculty to reduce costs as well, which is what the article was about.