Debt Collectors Cashing In on Student Loans

This article is not a very interesting read but this paragraph captures so much in so few words:

“With an outstanding balance of more than $1 trillion, student loans have become a silver lining for the debt collection industry at a time when its once-thriving business of credit card collection has diminished and the unemployment rate has made collection a challenge.”

Has modern-day-western-society really become so self-defeating? It seems to me that ideas like society or community are now empty shells … on the upside … this is an opportunity to refill them with new and better ideas and contexts.