It is also expensive because the debt is very hard to get erased through bankruptcy, so private companies are now offering more money to people than is actually needed. So universities see this $ and raise prices.

Kinda like how tax breaks on housing initially help people, and then the market adjusts based on the new inflow of $.

This is just another way of saying that people go to school to buy access to the network, not for education itself.

> If private enterprise was really this efficient, and government was really that inefficient, we should have seen ample evidence for that by now.

Food. Consumer goods. Telecommunications services. Transportation. Clothes. All things that have gone down in absolute prices and relative amount of family income to be provided.

Education / Housing / Healthcare: all deemed "up to the State" and that takes increasingly more from people at ever diminishing returns.

We can have a long and serious conversation about how hard the Government should be involved in regulating these things, and how we could set up systems that ensure that these become universally available and not just for middle/upper class. We can even have a conversation about things that should be controlled by the Government even if it means a high cost to society. But to deny that things managed by the State are more expensive overall is a clear sign of ideological blindness.

>If private enterprise was really this efficient, and government was really that inefficient, we should have seen ample evidence for that by now

There's a wealth of clear evidence for this in the economic data in Eastern vs Western Europe, East Germany vs West Germany when Eastern Europe was under Soviet rule. The countries under Soviet rule were significantly poorer and to this day most still haven't caught up with their Western European counterparts.