You are right, in a sense even though I like the learning process one gains by attending university, the debt that you take on is akin to being given a credit card with a $3000 credit limit and spending it lavishly. Only to end up with a 3.8% interest rate. If i could do it all over again I would have just been working and saving money, built a few online business, then go to university. And i dropped out because I wasn't feeling it so that's worse, well for me.
I think as we head into the future more generations will figure out a way to get out of this destructive loop.
See I'm like you. I would have just built businesses to make a living. Things are changing though.