@LukeAlmighty they get you when you're most vulnerable: when you're young, and design a system where you "need" the degree for even many basic jobs. Barely 17/18 yo and bright eyed youth without any direction in the world are enslaved to thousands in debt. You don't even want to dig into this lore. It gets worse the more you realize. Like, how people are becoming such slaves for life with tangibly useless degree studies, but the paper they get from graduating is all that matters in getting a desk jockey job or teaching job which continues the cycle.
What? You thought America being an empire of the anti-christ was a meme?