Neither of my parents had college (or... high school) educations. I heard my whole life that getting a degree, any degree at all, would guarantee me a serious starting salary and set me for life. To them, a degree was basically a magic power they didn’t have.

Concerns about debts were dismissed with comments like “it’s an investment in yourself, the best kind!” I’m kinda flabbergasted by folks saying “you knew what you were doing when you took the loans!” the hell anyone did.

First off, 17 year olds really cannot conceive of a 30+ year repayment period... they have no basis to even understand what 30 years IS. Secondly, you’re talking about sums of money that are beyond conception for a lot of families.

If I tell you there’s 4billion stars in the milky way, it’s a functionally meaningless statement. In all likelihood you’ve barely got practical understanding of what a million is, let alone a billion, and 4 of them? Feh.

If you/your family was in a position to NEED the loans, they were also most likely in no position to UNDERSTAND the loans. Cancel the living hell out of these debts.

I should add that though my parents were kinda “black sheep”, my grandfather was supremely educated, my grandmother on the other side was a successful business owner. I wasn’t totally in the dark/unworldly here, but those things were still beyond MY understanding and experience.

And btw yes, talking about kids making these decisions at 17- I think it’s disgusting we let recruiters into our high schools, JROTC is an absurd program. That’s how they got me, I’m exceedingly lucky my service ended as early / untraumatically as it did tho I still can’t fly.