For some perspective, my degree at a public state university in the US cost about $20,000 per year. That was almost 10 years ago. There are plenty of universities in the $40-50k per year range.
That's amazing. Another quick search shows up to about $17,000 a year in Canada and as far as I can tell the loans are part government, part private (though rates etc. are set by the government).
From all of that, then, while I can't argue that "The cost of higher-education skyrocketed when the government got involved in the student loan business" (from my original parent's comment) is incorrect, I don't think it's fair to infer that one is necessarily the fault of the other.
Implicitly, of the course, if the underlying problem is more related to the "tuition skyrocketed with the suddenly available capital" comment, then it just comes down to 'greedy higher education' which is its own problem I guess.
