This all started about 40 years ago when the civil rights racket pretty much litigated employment exams to the waste bin of history as being “discriminating” against minorities. So employers needed some other way to guarantee a basic level of intelligence above a high school degree and they started requiring a college degree for all jobs, even those that didn’t need college-level skills or knowledge. This is called “creating false demand.”
(fwiw - exams are still pretty prevalent in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe - and lots fewer people get four year degrees as a matter of course)
Everyone started going to college so people started clamoring for help to pay these bills and the feds stepped in with the student loan scam. Next thing you know tuition started getting inflated just like house prices. Look it up. People were no longer paying out of pocket, they were betting on a future stream of cash flows to make a fixed payment.
Unfortunately, unlike mortgages, student loans are recourse loans - from the government of course - and you can’t repossess a diploma even if you wanted to, so we’re not going to ever see a “correction” in tuition.
You nailed it. You can call it the “education bubble”. Just like political correctness played a role in lowering mortgage lending standards.