In reality, credit is not essential for maintaining a pretty standard US lifestyle. I've had what I assume is terrible credit my whole life (judging from the fact that I get turned down for things like checking accounts, and had to debate my bank to get a secured credit card months after depositing the proceeds of selling a company) and I've been pretty much just fine. I rented apartments no problem (pay your rent, get reference letters from landlords), managed to rent cars when I needed them, and simply didn't use credit cards (I still don't understand what the purpose of a credit card is). I got 3 mortgages (in 3 different places) during that time frame too. Maybe it's harder to get one now? Who cares? You're 25, wait a couple years to buy a house.

(Preemptively: for almost that entire time, my family was living basically paycheck-to-paycheck, and our largest expenses were rent and food).

People do leave college and rack up enormous credit card debt. The reason everyone doesn't BK is that there's a social stigma to it, and also, in general, the average American consumer does not have a good idea how the credit system works. Read Patrick McKenzie about this sometime. If more people understood how generous our creditor/debitor laws were to consumers, or how clownshoes disorganized consumer finance was (why would they give a shit? they're judged almost entirely on growth), people would take much more ruthless advantage of it.

But there's also a difference between accumulating $50,000 of revolving credit debt over a span of 5-10 years and six figures based on a decision you make when you are eighteen years old.