For the last couple of decades the industry has been in a debt-fueled frenzy of higher executive pay and shinier facilities. The debt has been incurred not by the service providers but by their customers.
People graduate with good preparation to be a schoolteacher, health-care worker, librarian, social worker. That's great. They graduate with many tens of thousands of dollars of debt. That cripples them and messes up their lives.
The so-called reform of the bankruptcy system in 2005 made it hard for graduates to declare bankruptcy. That shifted the risk from the lenders to the graduates.
There was a time when student-loan officers would call university executives and say "Jack here wants to borrow $70,000 to pay your tuition so he can be a schoolteacher. Are you serious? We both know that's far too much debt for the pay he expects. We'll loan him $30K, and you better come up with the rest in grants or lower tuition." Those conversations kept a lid on education prices.
But that doesn't happen any more. Education lenders are dangerous predators and students are their lawful prey. No wonder would-be students are refusing to play the game.