> but these loan-dodging students made conscious decisions that they are not taking responsibility for

The entire time I was growing up, I was told it was "college or bust". I was never told that it would be "college and bust", but that seems to be the reality.

Kids were told over and over that a college degree would ensure their future success, that they'd be practically guaranteed to get a career that made paying their student loans trivial, on top of a nice house and a car because that's the American Dream, isn't it?

It's easy as an adult to look back on it and say "wow, that was a big mistake", now that I know how jobs and the economy actually work, but first we had to unlearn everything our parents, teachers, career counselors, and college financial advisers told us in the first place.