Realistically though, they really did have no choice but to take out expensive loans for the best school they could get into. Long term, choosing to go to e.g. a cheaper community college or not attending college at all costs much more than loans do (as long as the student works hard during college).

Part of the problem is that high school doesn't teach students a lot of the things they really should know for the real world. For the most part, the first two years of college are spent covering topics my parents learned in high school. The average student doesn't get to the real meat of their degree until their third or fourth year, which I think is a real problem.

But somehow this is how it works. Except in extraordinary cases, this is the path young people need to take to get a decent job.