Part of the debt problem has been the dearth of students going into high demand majors (mostly STEM). We on hacker news know the benefit of a engineering/computer science degree and being even marginally good at it comes with great rewards.
STEM degrees are expensive - considerably moreso than, say, English degrees. This is especially true for professional degrees like engineering.
So yeah, your odds of employment out of school are much better than the English major, but your debt load has increased significantly as well. Getting a STEM degree can mitigate the effects of our ludicrously overpriced education system (i.e., you've got a shitload of debt, but at least you're chipping away at it, as opposed to not making your payments at all), it does not avoid it.
http://students.sfu.ca/calendar/for_students/undergrad_tuiti...
On top of that, majoring in something technical will also likely require more fees -- lab fees, computer fees, etc.
Oh, and your book costs will be higher. Textbook prices have tripled in the last ten years, so now an English Major is paying what I paid for Computer Engineering back in 2000.
Incidentally, there are very few engineers in NC State's contingent of occupiers.