Student loans seem to be a massive part of the problem of out of control tuition increases. The National Bureau of Economic Research published this study in 2016 that showed that changes to the Federal Student Loan Program accounted for the majority of the 106% increase in tuition between 1987 and 2010. Whether that’s some right-wing scheme to divert attention from reduction of states’ funding of public universities I haven’t looked into, but it seems to me that it’s at least a significant factor on its face.