I'll say that institutions exist to primarily to benefit the institutions. same with gov, higher ed etc...
if you are from an economic school of thought that costs never matter then yes, i would say the system is setup to hurt (by costing too much) those kids.
after all i didnt pay $435/semester for fees that solely went to maintain the university golf course to help *my* education. that was for the faculty and board and everyone knew it. for reference that was about 26% of my tuition/fees. not including board.
Nothing is "free". Cause in the long run, you get hurt when there's a extremely high bill, lean, note, debt, etc...And who pays the professor's salaries?