Why Doesn't the Republican House do something about it instead of fostering false accusations and doom and gloom predictions, something they would be proud of, not just dirty politics as usual.
There are things that both parties could do, but for the most part the problem is that colleges and universities can rely on companies to require a college degree even if it is absolutely, completely, and totally irrelevant to the job. In fact, I have a friend who works for a university and whose bosses have asked her to finish her degree in women's studies so that they can promote her to higher admin positions. When I was an undergrad and would work part time for the advising department the advisors could get away with telling students to think about grad school as they had a better chance of getting a enough money from teaching fellowship, scholarship, or other venues to make close to minimum wage but have their education paid for and end up looking better on paper for a job after. Moreover, I saw large numbers of those who hadn't been in school for over 10-30 years going back to school to get a degree they didn't need to compete with those with less experience but who had pieces of paper saying they had learned something about an irrelevant topic.
For years, it has been a buyer's market for employers. They can, in general, require a college degree (along with other skills/experience that are relevant but can be set higher than needed) and find a pool of applicants meeting these from which to higher. Until companies stop requiring a college degree when none is needed and/or start taking certification courses and the like more seriously colleges/universities can demand the tuition and fees that they do and know that parents will pay, students will go into debt for years, and in general that they can depend upon people handing them absurd wads of cash for a largely worthless piece of paper.
There was a time when it looked like things might change. Vocational schools, online universities, etc., sprang up and offered a cheaper and more convenient alternative to spending 2 or 4 years getting a degree in psychology, sociology, history, classical languages, etc. However, mainstream universities fought back. They began to create continuing education colleges such as Harvard Extension school, Boston University's Metropolitan college, the online and continuing education courses offered by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Lowell, Boston, & Dartmouth. These offered students certificate courses, online courses/degrees, and the possibility of obtaining degrees from "real" universities. They did this before most employers were able to start taking online universities seriously and they matched the prices of tech schools offering certification but offered consumers their "name brand" ("Boston University" rather than "IT Tech", regardless of how meaningless this distinction is). As a result, they were able to maintain the fiction that they offer something superior to the burgeoning online universities and other alternatives.
At the same time, they created or contributed to free education. MIT has "channels" on iTunes, YouTube, and their own site which are videos of actual MIT courses complete with supplementary material (at least on their own site). Ivy League schools like University of Pennsylvania offer free courses via e.g., courser.org and often with the option to pay some cash to get a signed and certified piece of paper authenticating that they passed. Thus online universities had to compete not only with extension/continuing ed. colleges & programs offered by mainstream universities but also the ability to take courses for free. In other words, they now offered only a piece of paper for a huge price tag to separate them from someone who studied even more and for free. The fact that almost all degrees amount to is a piece of paper obtained solely to get a job that is irrelevant to what they learned (and often to immediately forget) continues to be ignored.
Finally, there was a time in which politicians really could have made a difference. When high schools in the US started to become popular and public, the question over what they were or should be intended for came up: should they be oriented towards vocation, or should they be designed to prepare students for university/college? Unfortunately, the side supporting the latter one. Universities/colleges are for most just
really, really expensive vocational schools that don't actually teach a vocation but do require a time commitment anywhere from 4-8 times longer. The vast majority of students go to college to get a job, and the vast majority of degrees are irrelevant to any field outside of academia.
Similar problems exist elsewhere. In the UK, for example, the only real difference is that the loans are (pretty much) all from a government office.
, I'll reap what I sow and pay back what I will inevitably owe in loans. Which, by the end of my (hopeful) Masters program, should be up to $60,000. 
