That $6,000 would be about $13,000 today.

That is a very manageable amount of debt.

Many people have student debts that are 10-20x that, or more. Minimum payments of thousands of dollars a month, and no ability to discharge them through bankruptcy.

You can take on a few thousand dollars of debt as a young adult, realize you made a mistake, grind to pay it off and chalk it up as a life lesson.

We are letting young adults today make mistakes that they will never get an opportunity to learn from, because they will be paying for it their entire life. It is vastly different from your example.