I’m a retired prof. As for students who have debt but no degree, my former university gladly encouraged this. Because of sagging enrollment, the university would admit freshmen who were not academically prepared for college. (More than half of freshmen were enrolled in remedial math, for example.) Every year, more than a third of freshmen flunked out or dropped out, many of them having taken on student loan debt. The university’s basic feeling was, “Well, even if the students don’t stay, at least we got some money out them.”
Yes this is why when my 4 teens applied to colleges (my last is waiting to hear back from hers on admittance decisions) I paid special attention to the 6 year graduation rate. It’s a mark of quality.