There are still many state schools w/ scholarships that are low priced; or upper tier schools if the family doesn't make enough money.
It's not like they're taking out loans to buy their way into Dartmouth. They're taking out reasonable amounts of money to go to a reasonable school to get a reasonable job.
The "unrealistic idealists" in this situation are the people who think it's the student's fault for planning on getting the job that was more or less promised to them by society. And when they are woken up by the fact that there aren't jobs waiting on the other end, the rhetoric seems to be, "these stupid kids listened to what every adult in the country told them for the first 18 years of their lives!"
It's shameful to act like kids should've known better than to pay for a quality education. What the hell kind of society actually places that blame on children?
Now, the alternative is the same thing. Now adults are telling kids to go to vocational schools. Okay. By the time they get established in those fields, those jobs will be gone too. Then we can blame the kids for listening to us again!
Despite the statistics, there is no obvious choice here. Why are the wise old people encouraging young people to choose the path their generation just got screwed out of? This generation of students has only ever heard of our parents longterm careers getting vanished by computers or foreigners.