[throwaway189262]

These effects are all intertwined. It used to be easy to go to college because it was cheap. It was cheap largely (not entirely) because it was government funded. As more people caught on to how great a deal it was, funding simultaneously dropped while enrollment exploded.

The cost crises led to our crazy loan system.

All speculative, but individual pieces of evidence I've found point to this being likely

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

That is actually an interesting way to put it though. I'm curious though if the number of public colleges we have today existed to the extent in which they do because of the loans or because of the government funding.

Also, in a way of looking at it, the loans are essentially pre-emptive taxation. So theoretically the people who we're going to fund these things are taxed directly instead of everybody, even those who don't go to college and get the benefit from it.

[treeman79]

I argue it was cheaper because colleges were more efficient.

Easy money leads to bloat.

100-200k a year is not a sane cost for most degrees.

Shifting who pays it hides the problem and makes it worse.