Great article, and many good comments so far.
Let's take a look at the core issue - the new core issue really: lack of jobs, which was touched on in the article. If we were in a situation where jobs were truly plentiful for everyone, we would likely not be having many of these conversations (or at least we'd be doing so with less urgency.) Aside from the fact that the costs at many schools are exorbitant, the simple fact is that degree or no, you're still (and likely will continue to be) facing a job market with little on offer. Income-based repayment is a great step, but that does not help if somone remains unemployed - and even if they do get something - do these people study for 4-6 years in order to be a Barista?
About the suggestions that these people studied useless subjects: true, many of them did. What, however, would happen if they all decided to go into STEM instead? Assuming they all did amazing, we'd wind up with a glut of people with degrees in "good" subjects, which does nothing to magically create jobs (having a STEM degree does NOT mean you're going to start a company!) - it only helps where there are shortages. Once those are filled, we're back where we started (and wages may get pushed down due to a talent glut.) That's the best case scenario, too. What would be worse? What would the reality likely be? If everyone did rush into STEM, a good portion would fail out (not everyone is cut out for it. Really, some people just do not have the attitude, mindset, demeanor, worldview, interest, etc.) and be left with no degree (or they'd switch to one of those useless ones) and still be debt - right back where we started again. For some real world examples, just look through some other discussions on HN about this subject about people in countries who DO exactly this and they're stuck with unemployed and underemployed STEM grads up the wazoo.
So lowering tuition is great. Initiatives that allow income-based repayment or schemes to just make it free at the point of service and pay for it out of taxes are great, but lack of jobs as the core issue remains. For those of you who believe college should not be considered a job training program, that's wonderful; it means, however, that people going into debt for a great education that does not get them a job is a terrible idea (and we should either move to a free system or tell people to just use MOOC and books.)
Either college is a job training program with high costs and horrible returns (and degrees are first-line filtering mechanisms for jobs), or it's purely for edification and should be free. This world where we pretend it's the latter, but know it's the former continues to end for so many in nothing but tears.