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Framing it as a money problem is narrow, but accurate with regard to what matters here.
There is more to college and learning than making money -- but money is sine qua non in life. If you don't have it, then pain and suffering will cast a long shadow over nearly everything else.
When 18 year old kids with no income are taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans to pay for an education, the question of whether that education will allow them to make enough money to pay it back is pretty important.
> language, cultures, arts, shared values, shared concerns, common intellectual experience.
You can get all of this stuff without going without going to college and spending ridiculous amounts of money. Go to museums, watch YouTube, visit relevant internet forums, buy used college textbooks, etc. I taught myself Spanish this way. It was something I wanted to do, but I knew it probably wouldn't make me any money of it (I haven't), so I'm glad I did that rather than spending $100k+ to learn it in college.
I kind of feel like a sensible solution is to allow easy access to student loans for first two years, then as a student moves into a specific field of study, we start limiting the easy access to student loans and start evaluating loan approvals based on fields of study and the student’s academic success.
Seems like it would discourage a couple of things, one, continuing to rack up debt for degrees with limited income potential, and two pursuing said limited income potential degrees just to get a degree.
Unfortunately, one can't eat any of the things you listed nor keep rain off one's head with them. The things you list were always reserved for those with enough income or wealth to have the leisure to contemplate them, not the commonfolk scrabbling to survive.
When you're taking on a second job because you can't afford to get by with a degree you regret, you don't have time or money to appreciate these.