Schools have been given a license to make bad debts without penalty. For them, it is printing money.
Stop excluding student debt from bankruptcy.
No more free money via student loans. School's will have to make fewer, smaller, smarter loans to students likely to be able to pay them off. Student loan interest rates will rise to reflect the risk.
Bye-bye six figure loans to art history, and other unemployable majors.
Student pool shrinks (demand decreases). Prices fall to meet demand.
Loans moderate to reasonable levels.
Simple econ 101, which ironically, is taught in college.
The downside to this is fewer people would be able to attend college, especially the poor, marginal student.
When do you give him the bad news - before attending college, or after racking up six figure debt in an unemployable major from a low end school?
How many other kids get caught in the net trying to give one kid a chance at college? Is that worth it? Because that is where we are now.