I think the solution is to allow student loan debt to be discharged under normal bankruptcy proceedings, on one hand, and to return to c. 1980 costs for a university education, on the other.
The latter requires cuts of administrative salaries across the board in the American higher education system. For example:
> "The university’s highest paid chancellor is UC San Francisco Chancellor Samuel Hawgood, whose salary increased from $795,675 to $819,545. At the bottom of the pay scale are the chancellors of UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside and UC Merced, whose salaries increased from $394,655 to $406,495."
https://www.dailycal.org/2017/09/18/uc-gives-pay-raises-8-10...
In contrast, the governor of California makes $220K or so in salary. In 1980 UC tuition was $300 for the academic school year, plus a student services fee of $419. That sums to about $2500 a year inflation-adjusted today. Today's UC tuition is about $12,500 per year. On top of that, a minimal $20,000 per year for rent + food is tacked on. So if this is all paid by loans, ~120K debt is created for a four-year education - unless you have quite wealthy parents of course, then you get out free as a bird.
In reality what's going on here is the conversion of the American 20th century education system - which put America on the leading edge of technological development for over half a century - to the British Empire education system, in which a small aristocratic class attends exclusive colleges to get networked into the posh system of aristocratic class privilege. Everyone else just becomes a victim of the parasitic investment capitalist sector which collects interest on the debt for the next 20 years (oh yes that includes feeding into 401K boomer retirement plans, so there's that lovely angle too).