Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the cause is administrative bloat, government-backed student loans that can’t be defaulted on, or space aliens. What is not debatable is that higher education is necessary in an advanced economy, and starving the job market of highly skilled workers is a fast track to companies shifting to other places where they are more abundant.

Either the US will figure it out like every other developed nation has seemed to do, or there will be grave geopolitical consequences. Whether the US political/economic machine can figure it out is a question that only time can answer.