There is no "free market system" here. There's an organised debt slavery racket run for the benefit of parasitic rent-seekers who operate with federal sanction.
College loans have taken point on this for the aspiring middle classes. In a very literal sense this system is the exact opposite of genuine freedom and opportunity.
In high school I took economics, precalculus (which taught exponential growth), and history (which talked about financial crises of the past). The information was taught, but the problem is that there was no class to tie this information into life practice.
Things people need to know to function in our society.