2002-2007, worked ~35 hours/week during the school year, more if the academic load was light and I could get them (multiple jobs, not a single one), 40+ hours per week in the summer, so nights and weekends were never free. Also, in my experience the estimates provided by the schools are inflated. Tuition at my regional state school was ~8k/year, so as long as I averaged $10/hour or so, I was able to make things work. Living below the poverty level didn't contribute to what I would call the best years of my life, but it worked.

It was 2002 to 2007. And as a young white American male also with no family money, I worked multiple jobs and figured it out. No loans at all, no scholarships either until my senior year when I managed to land a research scholarship that required 15 hours/week of research with a professor. I missed out on a lot as a consequence, all those "college experiences" that others talked about like parties and such. It was the lifestyle I couldn't afford, not the tuition.

While I would have loved to receive an advanced education for free, I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. I worked my way through debt-free and received my "4 year" degree in 5.5 years by going to a state university and living a reduced lifestyle. Why can't others do the same? Why do they have to go into debt in the first place? This smells more like a problem with irresponsibility and poor life choices than some sort of systemic issue.

I think the fundamental issue here is that these debtors were reckless enough to finance lifestyle, tuition, and course of study combinations that were fundamentally imbalanced. This is a classic personal responsibility problem, apathetic, self-entitled people making decisions in their youth and not wanting responsibility for them later. Why did they use student loans to go to expensive schools and study courses they should have known up front are unlikely to land them the type of salary that can pay back those student loans? I studied philosophy for two years as I worked though my non-technical requirements. I enjoyed that time and loved studying the subject but I knew it wouldn't pay the bills. Two years in I changed my course to computer science. It took me 5.5 years to graduate debt-free. And I didn't benefit from my state's lottery-funded scholarship program. I've watched as my peers that received that benefit pissed it away. And now they're whining about their debt load working for a third or less of what I make and requesting "relief". As far as I'm concerned, they should be forced to pay it back no matter how long it takes.