Interesting article but it left out one important point
Which is typical in WSJ reporting. There was legislation pushed through a couple years ago for student loan reform. Prior to that, 100% of the "private bank loans" were federally backed. Thus the banks took on zero risk and were able to tact on a few percentage points of interest and skim billions while providing absolutely nothing in return. It was as clean an example of corporate welfare as you can find.
Other than that the article was pretty good.