Its hard to call it "manipulation"... although I'd argue it is widespread ignorance that has caused this problem. It is clear to me that swaths of people do not understand the concept of debt until it is too late. There is clearly a problem in the education system.
Too many people are getting too much into debt. Not on someone else's choice, but on their own choice.
There is also the option of not getting a degree at all, one which is rarely discussed. It turns out that the US Job can't subsume all of the college-level jobs anyway. A degree in Library Science is surely hard stuff, but its relevance in the modern workforce is questionable.
I dare say, its better to just get a job out of High School and start climbing the corporate ladder at Target or Costco, than to waste 4 years of your life on a dead-end degree. (And no offense to "dead-end degrees" either. Lawyers for instance, are contracting. They're currently a dead-end degree, despite the extreme difficulty and prestige associated with the field. But it is surprisingly difficult to get a job now as a fresh Law Grad IIRC).
Nevertheless, those who are $100,000+ in debt benefit from inflation. There are plenty of people in this unfortunate situation and the country should do more to support them. (the counrty should have done more to prevent them from getting into that situation... but that is another story)
This system in which the middle class is by default considered the debtor class is a result of decades of manipulation.