Thats close to what I was going to say: the answer to the prompt in the headline is clearly "don't admit them to college".

But since there is a massive profit motive to admit and keep young fools taking on student loans, I doubt that's the answer the industry would adopt

Or as Munger said "show me the incentive and I'll show you the behavior"

What if we publicly acknowledged it's a key infrastructure to our economy, government, and society?

Wait ... you can't mean ... and pay for it? Am I in a bad dream? Or perhaps a really good one?

that's actually more like a business than what it is today

we already have "degree-mills" from which you can purchase a degree; doesn't benefit society in any way

I mean is it really terrible? Is customer going to return for more degrees? Unlikely. You just need good marketing on high schools to explain new fools why they should pay you money for getting a degree.