> The flip side of this is that student loans are guaranteed by the federal government, and when tuition goes up, so does loan availability. If financing is guaranteed no matter the cost, then no one should be shocked when customers lose their price sensitivity.

This is not true. Federal student loans have an annual cap and overall cap, anything above that has to be financed with private student loans, which are not guaranteed by the government and have much higher interest rates. They are generally co-signed for by a parent, who is on the hook if the student cant pay.

edit: this is further broken down into subsidized and unsubsidized loans (the former the government pays the interest on while you are in school, the latter they dont): https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsid...