I graduated and found out I'm $200,000 in debt

It is the ultimate responsibility of the person taking out these unsecured loans to figure it out. The school (UConn) may made it available, and can certainly be better about educating their students for success, but the author is the one who took out the loans.

The problem, as I see it, is they cannot "give back" their degree, because they've already gotten the learning out of it. Should the lenders eat the money because the lendee didn't pay enough attention?

Ultimately, this is a structural issue. However, the colleges are indeed catering to people's money and desires. We all only have ourselves to blame for this, because we buy into and develop the "American dream" of college and a picked fence in front of a house we own.