Until you come to find out one of the college grads couldn’t get any employment and the one that did (with $100,000k+ in loans) got 3 part time jobs including Starbucks barista and mail delivery. That’s the reality for millions of America grads, not 6 figure SV jobs with stock options and health insurance.
The numbers and realities are devistating, 1 million grads are defaulting on their loans every year.
And your take on the income based repayment programs sounds like marketing and PR. These income based programs have been in play for over 10 years so the first groups of students (in government/non profit work) were in theory eligible to discharge their loans, yet something like 90% of the first batch were denied the discharge because the banks played games along the way (put students into deferment for a month while the banks reviewed student financials on annual renewals breaking the consecutive payment rule and restarting their 10 year clock every time). For the rest of the loan holders (the first batch who isn’t eligible for discharge until after 25 years) will be in a similar boat/rude awakening when their time comes - of the programs aren’t gutted first which has basically been threatened since the program began. Sure these programs exist but so does discharge of student loans in bankruptcy (but there is a reason why almost everyone thinks student loans aren’t dischargable in bankruptcy).