Look at the historical level of public college education funding and correlate to student loan debt.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
> Deep state cuts in funding for higher education over the last decade have contributed to rapid, significant tuition increases and pushed more of the costs of college to students, making it harder for them to enroll and graduate. These cuts also have worsened racial and class inequality, since rising tuition can deter low-income students and students of color from college.
> Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation.[1] In the most difficult years after the recession, colleges responded to significant funding cuts by increasing tuition, reducing faculty, limiting course offerings, and in some cases closing campuses. Funding has rebounded somewhat, but costs remain high and services in some places have not returned.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/12/how-student-debt-became-a-1p... (How student debt became a $1.6 trillion crisis)
> Then, during the Reagan Era and the Tax Revolt of the 1980s, states passed tax and expenditure limitations, restrictions that state governments create to limit the amount they can tax or spend.
> “And that meant that state budgets came under threat,” explains Deming. “And so states that used to basically highly subsidize a college education for many people started to cut back in various ways, either by raising tuition or by spending less.”
> Reagan cut higher education funding and student aid, and college costs boomed as a result.
> The College Board estimates that during the 1980-1981 school year, on average, it cost students the modern equivalent of $17,410 to attend a private college and $7,900 to attend a public college — including tuition, fees, room and board. By 1990, those costs increased to $26,050 and $9,800, respectively.