Woman takes 70k federal student loans in 2008, pays total of 60k, still owes 70k

2) Cancel existing student debt up to, say, $50K. (Eg, see Warren's plan)

3) Start treating trade schools as an equally worthy pathway as a college, and stop promoting the myth that college is the best way to succeed in life.

4) Organize actual trade schools for software development, with accreditation, full-time staff, etc. Again, with free tuition (and again, see Germany's V.E.T. programs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system ).

There are many pathways through life, and 'programming' is a wide topic. I can think of any number of programming careers where a four-year degree would be useful. Foremost are those who want to write software for specific field, where knowledge of that field is essential. I imagine it's much harder to write something like Mathematica without a pretty deep background in mathematics, and getting a mathematics degree is likely to help more than going to a code camp.

Replace "Mathematica" with "quantum chemistry" or "aerodynamics" or "astrophysics" any number of other topics.

Or, perhaps someone, you know, wants to be a programmer but is interested in other topics as well so wants a broader education instead of a deeper one.

This is an extremely optimistic definition of adult, no? I didn't go to school in the US, but if I had I imagine I would have been under 18 while applying to college and applying for student loans.

You could argue that the students are adults in their later college years, but it being the "best worst choice" to graduate and continue receiving your student loan is nowhere near the same thing as having made an informed decision at the start.