Am I the only one noticing the hidden issue?

It's not about loan interest rates versus women's health funding (though people can probably predict my opinion on that).

Why is this an issue in the first place?

I have an idea. It's because every time that government (federal and state) has thrown money at universities to make college more affordable, they've taken that money and thrown it at tenured professors and regents with an 'edifice complex'. Costs for a colelge education, like health care, have FAR outstripped inflation. And from what my daughter told me, the professors work less and less - frequently recycling the same material so they're not working much in between years either.