It used to be that the really qualified students could get a very inexpensive education at state colleges and universities. Then, with student loans, affirmative action, money being spent for things besides actually educating students, and the insane idea that marginally qualified students are better off getting a college education with loans, it has spiraled out of control.
If public colleges and universities went back to providing an inexpensive college education but only for the truly qualified students (top 20% or so), it would get Big Education under control.
Supporting these type of idiotic programs has jacked up tuition rates to absorb every available government dollar and then some. Government student loans are easy to obtain and interest rates are jacked up to support the entire infrastructure.
People majoring in useless XYZ Studies pay the same interest rates as do kids with highly marketable degrees such as engineering or nursing. This includes the risk factor built into these rates which the graduates with marketable degrees will have to pay back their loans as well as those of the defaulters.
Thus, the perpetual adolescents are subsidized and we get more of them.