"I think at this point I owe about $40,000. I really, truly, honestly don't want to pay it back. Sure, I realize the responsibility I took on when I signed the papers and agreed to take out the loans, but I should have never had to do it in the first place. I feel some sort of civic duty not to pay them back, as if my small protest will make any kind of difference."
Emphasis added.
I am sympathetic however - people under 35 were sold a bill of goods - we were told "go to college, get a degree, and they will be a good job waiting for you" which turned out to be a load of malarkey - the problem isn't that you need to take loans out, its that student loans are not dischargeable - if normal lending standard applied, you'd see a whole lot less student debt, and the cost of education would likely drop precipitously.
But most of these examples in this piece have small amount of debt, something along the size of a car loan, with generous and long repayment terms - its much harder for me to accept someone crying hardship when they owe less than 40k. Even if the amounts were larger, once you take on the debt, it's yours, you own it, no matter if you want to pay it back or not.