In my opinion, there is a crisis, and there are two types of people behaving badly that create and perpetuate the crisis.

I've heard of students taking out the maximum loan amount every semester even though they needed far less, and spending the difference on pub crawls and fraternity dues and other non-essentials.

And we all know that colleges and universities, especially private for profit ones, are charging tuition that is way out of line to the value of the education. Charging tens of thousands of dollars for licensing in fields like dental hygienist and radiology tech - stuff the community college down the road can train you for, for much less money.

I think we can tackle both bad behaviors with a simple, elegant change:
1) student loans get repaid based on income for a pre-determined number of years
2) if there is still money owed after the years are over, the college or the university pays the lender that amount.

Colleges will be more careful about who they admit, and how much they charge, with these two simple changes.
And the taxpayer won't need to be on the hook as much.

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