This resonates for many disciplines, even in engineering, I found my college course (pre-University in the UK) to be much more useful than most of what I did at University but there is a mixture of universities wanting the income; some companies who insist on degrees at least as a crude measure of ability; peer or family pressure etc.

At least when I graduated in 1998, I only had loans of around $8K, since the course back then was free to take, in the US, I can't believe the sums involved but when you see the gravy train and insecurity in some institutions, it is no wonder they rinse their students for as much as possible.

I think we are seeing more routes now into work that look more like traineeships especially in comp-sci and other technical roles.