Indeed, the program has evolved over time in response to the changes you've described, and the most significant change in the evolution was the introduction of the repayment assistance program.
Effectively, there are two ways you could have come at this at the front end, because, as you know, the dominant principle behind this program is to ensure a level playing field between students coming from lower-income families and those from families with means.
If those from families with means get into trouble a little bit into their career; if they get an illness and can't repay the loan, they are going to have parental support that will ensure that this doesn't affect their credit.
Low-income families, however, don't have that fall-back to turn to. There is, then, a high risk, if you just have a loan program, that those individuals will not go to university or to higher education because they think they will be taking too much risk.