The problem is it's the federal government, thus you the taxpayer are responsible for defaults, which is a much larger swath of the population than just homeown

The problem is it's the federal government, thus you the taxpayer are responsible for defaults, which is a much larger swath of the population than just homeowners. The student loan crisis is going to be worse than the sub-prime mortgage issue because it won't be easy for our economy to recover from the downturn. The fall out will be both cultural and systemic. The course-corrective measures would be lenders locking out lower-income families from colleges, leading to a faster collapse of our middle class. Colleges will drop tuition rates slightly but tuition is largely sticky, unlike housing prices. This may even lead to some colleges going out of business. Loans will likely be under-written appropriately, but then degrees will be prioritized based on earnings potential, so only a narrow field of study (medical, lawyers, tech, etc) will be eligible for lending. Schools may price degrees differently, and only invest in those degree programs with the largest earnings potential, to the detriment of many other crucial programs. Ultimately college will become an institution to perpetuate a narrow focus of study, and only to those already in positions of wealth, which will further hasten the collapse of our middle class. We may not even be smart enough to realize what hit us until it does.