The Federal Government holds something like $850 Billion in Student Loan Debt. According to Google,  student debt is 45% of all Federal Assets not including the Federal Reserve or Land and so forth.
There's little incentive to change the system by either party when interest on that asset brings in a huge amount of money.
"In 2013, it was $51 billion -- almost 2 percent of total federal revenue for that year."
So... march kids into College - saddle them with debt for degrees in worthless fields - rinse - repeat.