In this case, the overwhelming bulk of the targets of this scam are 17-year-old minors and younger.
They’re subject to years of brainwashing in the schools; expecting them to make informed decisions in their own interest after that is wholly unrealistic.
This is a scam aimed at children, to plunder them financially at the very first moment they are able to legally ink a contract. But most of the scam happens before they are legally able to sign.
This is not college funding. This is financialization and asset-stripping, the worst of the worst of predatory finance, filled with gross misrepresentation and outright fraud at every level.
The term for the debts that result is “odious”. None of it should be paid; the colleges should be liquidated to pay the debts, and clawbacks from administrators and faculty should fill any shortfall.
That is total baloney.