> There is no evidence that students were actually doing this in any significant numbers.

premature optimization is the root of all evil. Seems like we shouldve actually shown that kids would do that before putting it into law

They wanted to permit/compel all students to get loans. When you set the bar on the floor like that, you need to handle the obvious case of people who are given loans that they could never pay off normally.

In American tradition, it was handled with the worst possible compromise that would enrich already monied interests.