[warmblood]

Many would say that it's actually designed to milk the pennies from the federal government by proxy of the student and parent with a significant markup.

This is somewhat worse than simply taking from individuals because it implies a systemic breakage that someone is taking advantage of, possibly using political influence to keep that breakage from being fixed.

[rlucas]

This. Although I am a believer in and a onetime recipient of federal student aid, there's no denying that there exists an educational-financial-industrial complex which needs to churn through new student borrowers as the substrate for keeping uncle sam's cash flowing. Very similar to the Medicare and 401k industries in a way, given their ostensible social goals, the massive government supplied sums involved, and the need to attach these sums to individual names and lives.