I can tell you why the loans are not bigger. Because
really many parents sava money for their childrens education.
There are ways to make money of course work part time and study
but, those who do not have parents that pay for anything
are often in bad position regading how big the loan can grow.
I am saying why the loan is so little for many are that parents back them up
financially.
Here is one main budget worry for many parents in USA: How can I save enough money for the childrens studies?
I disagree. I just graduated 3 years ago. My last year of taking classes I could enroll full time at the local community college for less than 3k a semester. Classes at the closest state school were roughly 6k for a full time semester. Of course, that's commuting. You are talking 12k for an associates and 24k for the bachelors...or roughly 36k spread out over 4 years and you could have your bachelors. If you commute and work, and actually throw some money at school instead of wasting it on dumb stuff, its very possible to come in with less than 30k debt with no help from parents.(other than a free bedroom and dinner on occasion, which I suspect an overwhelming majority of parent's won't mind supplying when they see their kid working hard and trying to do well for himself)
Or just do what I did...I spread 2 degrees out over 10 years while working two part time jobs, and eventually one full time job averaging probably 30k during those years. I bought a condo instead of throwing money away at a dorm. Between writing off my tuition and mortgage interest I was getting decent tax returns those years, and at the end of 10 years I had equity in a home and was debt free...where as most the people who opted to go live somewhere on credit for 4 years were in much worse shape than I. There are plenty of ways do avoid student debt that don't involve mom and dad, its just that they generally don't involve living on campus either.
I'm not denying some people luck out and have parents that pay for a good chunk of their schooling but my point is if you view college as what it is, a path to a better career, and don't get caught up in the hype of the college experience and wanting to live on campus at a fancy college and party and not work for 4 years, its not hard to make it through with no, or well below the average debt without help form anyone.
You obviously are wealthy and I am not even near poor for sure. That
said how about those parents that have say many children that want to study?
I'm not wealthy, my parent's didn't pay for any of my college, they made too much for me to qualify for any sort of aid, and I'm not a minority or a single mother so I didn't qualify for any easy to grab grants. They told me when I was young, I better get scholarships if I want to go to college. I screwed around in highschool and didn't get any scholarships, so I had to work extra hard to make up for it later on. I had plenty of days where I was up at 3am to get ready for work and didn't get to bed until 11pm because I had to drive home after my night class got out at 10pm. At 28 I ended up with an associates and a bachelors fully paid for, and that was even taking a few semesters off to avoid total burn out or I could have done it faster. Refer to above numbers...36k / 10 = 3.6k per year. That's not exactly an impossible amount for someone to come up with.
In the end it was a trade off. It really sucked missing out on much of the "college experience." I missed lot's of parties and and fun, but in the long run it put me in a much better position financially for the sacrifices I made, and any one of the morons who dug themselves into massive debt could have chose a cheaper school and made some of those exact same sacrifices but they chose not to.
If people want to have many kids, and want them all to attend college, do you know what they should tell them? Exactly what my parent's told me, if you want to go to college, better get scholarships. Its not a parent's job to cough up a boat load of cash so their kid can go live on campus somewhere and not work for 4 years. The kids can take a non-traditional path like I did, or simply work nights and weekends and commute to minimize their debt load, or they always have the option of going in the military or getting into a trade...neither of those are bad options. The average pay of trades these days is higher than most college grads make anyhow...I know where I work the welders and carpenters are making more than the engineers. I also know plenty of electricians and plumbers, and most of them make more than the average nurse or teacher. Of course the work is a little more manual and the schedule might be more hectic, but its still a good living. The idea that everyone needs to go to college is simply ridiculous, especially with the amount of kids coming out with joke degrees. As a society we have a need for a certain amount of unskilled/uneducated labor, we don't really need people with degrees doing these jobs, it just serves no purpose. If I had a son that at 18 said he wanted to be a welder or a carpenter I'd high five him for being smart with the way things are these days, not push him to apply to 60k a year schools so he can go have the "college experience."