In my mind, college exists to prepare a pupil for a given field and if said pupil for any number of reasons cannot do that upon exiting that institution, why should they pay for it?
Because that was the agreement they made with the institution.
Either way someone is paying for it, it can be the person who got the (partial) education, or it can be someone\s that happens to live in the same state as the person who got the education.
Even if it doesn't make sense to you that people who fail their studies should pay their debts to their schools, it makes even less sense that you would transfer that debt from the pupil to someone who was neither partner to the decision to undertake studies nor a beneficiary of pupil's studies.
I get providing aid to colleges, especially for research and to ensure an adequate number of people go into engineering, science, math, etc. But I see no reason that we should subsidize someone getting a literature degree or just fucking around.
You cannot reasonably tell someone that only they can choose what or is not worthwhile, while dangling a huge carrot in front of them. That you feel it is necessary to dangle that carrot says that you've already decided for them.
You should be free to follow your passion/whims and study whatever they want, love it, hate it, fuck it up, drop out, and try something else. Even more so when you are young inexperienced and finding your way in the world.
> and the only result was them racking up tens of thousands in debt
That's the problem America needs to solve.