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You seem to think Yoder couldn't figure these things out. It is not like Yoder was ignorant. He obviously had a high school education before college and a college degree before his master's program. He had to apply for admission to the schools he attended. He had to apply for the loans. Foolish? Maybe yes. But, "duped"? Not hardly.
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Uh, just because he got a masters in a scientific field doesn't mean he is educated enough to make sound financial decisions concerning financing an education. Especially considering that the early decisions were made with little more than a high school education.
Reminds me of a story about a chemical engineering major ex-roommate of my college roommates. He was a brilliant chemist. Had a perfect 4.0 GPA at one of the country's top schools. Had a half dozen patents to his name while working summer jobs for Eastman Kodak. Didn't figure out that he had to remove the plastic wrapper and box from the frozen pizza and almost burned the apartment down.
Point here is that what you and I assume is common sense (don't get yourself in debt up to your neck for a college education), isn't necessarily common sense to some very educated people.
Personally, if they are going to continue to run the college loan business the way they are (see my earlier post on why this is a moral hazard), they darn well better make sure they educate high school seniors on college financing including presenting a financially sound plan for how they plan to budget to pay back the loans they take
BEFORE the student is allowed to sign the first bank loan.
The current system as it is set up is defective in that it allows financially unsound loan practices with the force of air-tight bankruptcy laws to punish unsophisticated young people with a lifetime of debt for a financial decision they truly do not understand the ramifications of. We've made much more protective consumer oriented rules in other lending (yet some people get in way over their heads) because they don't understand the papers they are signing. But at least these people can walk away from these bad decisions and not ruin their lives. It makes the risk of failure a shared risk between loan holder and borrower. Can't say that much for student loans.
I'm not trying to assign blame. Blame is useless. I'm just saying from an analytical perspective that the process creates a financial failure because of certain missing factors (education of borrowers and a perceived (by lender) elimination of risk through tough bankruptcy rules). This combination will continue to lead the unsophisticated down the path to disaster until it is changed.
Unfortunately in this case, the mental health of the individual involved was not factored in to this either leading to a very sad ending beyond most. Let's face it, not everyone can handle the stress of being in such a situation. It is a foreseeable thing from a statistical perspective.