I’m sure the system can benefit from some reforms, especially concerning Parent Plus loans and loans to attend for profit institutions. But there are a lot more factors at work here than just the availability of student loans. For one thing, ever since the 2008 recession, state legislatures have slashed funding for public universities. The universities in turn have greatly reduced their subsidies of their professional schools. My personal experience has been with law school. In my generation, you could attend a public law school in your home state without going into much debt because the tuition was super low. But that’s no longer the case. In state tuition at ASU Law, for example, is about 28K/yr and I think that’s pretty typical for resident law school tuition at a public school. The 3 year COA for an in state resident at ASU Law is 180K.
Another issue that affects schools is changing demographics. Many small schools draw almost all of their enrollment from just a few states. For example, my D19 is a freshman at Hope College in Holland, MI. Hope draws 88.5% of its students from Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana. In MI, IL and OH, the total number of high school graduates has declined significantly, presenting enrollment challenges for not only Hope but other colleges as well. I found this rather detailed analysis of the issue on the Hope website: https://hope.edu/offices/frost-research-center/institutional-research/resources/hope-facts-data/studies/2018%20Hope%20College%20Enrollment%20Projection%20Model%20final.pdf