The student loan system is propping up weak real estate markets in college towns by using guaranteed student funds from student loans to pay for outrageous rents. Many of these communities would not be able to afford their lifestyles (see. Davis, California vs. Woodland, California rental rates) if it was not for the fact they the student loan money is being laundered through attending students, and funneled directly into the local economy through increased rents and cost of services.

At this level it's a scam.

As anecdotal evidence, my father went to Berkeley when there was no student loan structure, and the community was considered a poor real estate investment, since it was commonly known as a 'Student Ghetto'. A term which has since disappeared as rents in Berkeley are among the highest in the East Bay. All on the back of the students financing their housing costs on student loans.

Again, it's a scam.

The students don't get a better education than my father, and while the housing might be nicer, it's debt that they have to pay well into their later years, as opposed to being able to graduate debt free.

My father thinks this is directly attributable to the death of the student free speech movement and other student political enterprises, since being forced to accommodate ones debt takes priority over trying to change the world, or fix the system. In short it becomes a type of indentured servitude, where lower and middle class people are unqualified for good paying jobs without the debt, and with the debt, they are forced into high level debt maintenance, and can't have any other discussions about where society is going, or how it is getting there.