Debtor's prisons were real and need no quote marks. As late as the 19th century, if you owed debts you could not pay, you could be literally imprisoned in a workhouse where your tiny wages went to pay off the debt, often far insufficient to make headway paying it off. The poster is not insensitive, but rather has a better history education than you.
The dilemma is that in order to pay off your student loans you need decent work, but in order to get decent work you need to pay off your student loans.