If the powers that be didn't think this would happen than they idiots. But they are not idiots, they are greedy, which leads me to my point which is that they knew many student loans wouldn't be paid back and interest would acrue and a massive productive pool of folks in society would be paying off those loans for their lives, never freeing themselves from the burden.

If student loans were actually friendly why do they often have a 6.5% interest rate? In some cases you could pay for your education with a credit card and get a better deal on student loans.

If they actually wanted people to pay off student loans in a timely manner they would have a much more stringent application process but they don't.

Also, like in my case, they gave me higher interest rates because my chosen field of study was more lucrative down the road (which is not always true but it is STEM). That tells me that this is a for profit system and nothing more.