Q. Why keep in place a system shackling students to a lifetime of debt? A. Just follow the $$$$$$
The current system for higher education is a disaster for America's youth which begs the question - What is keeping this system in place? To answer that question all you have to do is follow the money and identify the winners and losers.
SOME OF THE WINNERS:
1. FOR PROFIT COLLEGES. Who are some of the investors in these for profits colleges
Laureate Education which paid Bill Clinton in excess of $16 Million for 4 years (and of course Clinton as SOS gave them MILLIONS in grants).
Investors in Laureate includes George Soros who has given MILLIONS to Clinton Super Pacs
Laureate is backed by several of the biggest names in finance, including Henry Kravis, George Soros, Steve Cohen and Paul Allen. When Laureate’s founder and chief executive, Doug Becker, persuaded these investors’ firms to take his company private in a deal worth $3.8 billion, Kravis’s firm, KKR, took a $487.5 million stake.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/laureate-a-for-profit-education-firm-finds-international-success-with-a-clintons-help/2014/01/16/13f8adde-7ca6-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html
Education Management Corp whose investors include Goldman Sachs (who paid BOTH Clintons over a MILLION in speaking fees).
Just as the subprime mortgage bubble was giving way to a bust that would help trigger a devastating financial crisis, Goldman Sachs, a firm that had been at the center of Wall Street’s rampant mortgage speculation, found its way to a new area of explosive growth: In claiming what would eventually become a 41 percent stake in Education Management Corp., Goldman secured itself a means of tapping into the boom in for-profit higher education. The federal government was boosting aid to college students nationwide, just as a declining economy prompted millions of Americans to seek refuge in higher education, leading to dramatically expanding enrollments at many institutions.
Soon after the Goldman buyout, the newly private Education Management LLC embarked on its most ambitious period of growth — one that has recently brought it crosswise with federal prosecutors, who have accused the company of widespread fraud in its recruitment processes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/goldman-sachs-for-profit-college_n_997409.html
SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE ALLEGATIONS OF FRAUD
Based on a Department of Justice (DOJ) settlement announced this week with another for-profit higher education corporation, Education Management Corp. (the second largest such chain in the US), the Obama administration is doing little to eliminate the incentive for such predatory companies to engage in fraudulent practices. Yes, the DOJ did fine Education Management Corp. and force a repayment of loans to a small group of specified students, but that leaves the company benefiting from more than $9 billion dollars in federal loans owed by students, according to a November 16 article in The New York Times:
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/obama-administration-again-goes-soft-on-penalizing-fraudulent-for-profit-college-corporations
2. LENDERS OF STUDENT DEBT. They are earning GREAT RATES on student debt (which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy). So just your usual cast of financial crooks including WELLS FARGO, which Good Old Boy Warren Buffet, Clinton Backer, is heavily invested in. Yes, that Wells Fargo that engaged in predatory lending to minorities.
THE LOSERS:
1. STUDENTS saddled with HUUUUGE debt (a lot at ridiculous rates) which will take them a lifetime to repay and which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
2. The TAXPAYER because when people default on guaranteed student loans, the government steps in and pays the loan. Isn't that a good deal for those banksters! 
Both Clintons have said disparaging comments about millennials. In my neck of the woods that is an example of what we would call unmitigated gall.
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