The reason college costs rose at an order of magnitude greater than rate of inflation is precisely because the government took over student loans and handed them out like candy.
The universities could charge anything they wanted because the dumb 18-year olds they were exploiting would borrow whatever it took and hand it over to them.
I am all for student loan forgiveness if it comes out of the endowments of the universities who exploited them.
It's worse than that.
My fourth kid is graduating this May, I'm 0/4 with student "loans" so far (but I have 3 more to go). My third child, however, was "granted" a $5000 loan she/we never applied for or requested, it took almost a year to get it off the books, the college office looked at me like I was insane because no one had ever refused the "grant" before, and, after all, "no payments for four years!"
There's a lot of talk around here about lazy kids, irresponsible kids, stupid kids, etc., and they exist for sure, but the FedGov to college money pipeline has become very slick, totally non-transparent, you can walk into orientation and walk out with a loan that you've been told is a scholarship. All in all, this has turned into a FedGov subsidy for political indoctrination that winds up tagging the people least prepared to deal with the scam with huge bills they are not prepared to pay.
I agree that ending Federally guaranteed student loans which are not dischargeable in bankruptcy is an important first step - but the massive money tide is flowing the other way and I don't see a reversal any time soon.