That may be a problem, but it's a bit beside the point I was making. Whether or not college costs & therefore debt is increasing as a result of easy loans says nothing about the job prospects of graduates from bachelor programs. Even if we posit a world where the loans didn't exist, college costs were lower, and therefore just as accessible as it is today then we still have the same underemployment problem. If such a change instead resulted in more students learning a trade, we still have to same downward pressure on trade wages because the labor supply increases relative to demand.

With or without government subsidized loans, there is a jobs market issue.

Unless most majors generate signal instead of human capital.

It's a problem for sure but education costs have been high-inflation for a long time. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866194

It is that in addition to the fact that they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy under the majority of cases (nearly all).

You can’t mandate that banks must give loans to all student applicants regardless of collateral, and at the same time permit bankruptcy of those loans. Those two things are in direct conflict. Literally every graduate would simply declare bankruptcy (Since anyone who is both a graduate and borrow would by definition be broke). You’d be a fool not to. There’s literally no downside to bankruptcy if you’re a broke 22 year old with a brand new $250k debt and a degree in anything.

Your choice are:

1. everyone can get a loan regardless of wealth, but they can’t file bankruptcy

2. Let banks only give student loans to qualified applicants (i.e. rich kids with co-signing rich parents) but permit bankruptcy.