OK Boomer

 Something I hit over and over about student loans and the repayment thereof is "just pay them."

With what, sir?

Minimum wages?

Because the degree is valueless.

Not because it is a worthless field, like black women of south Toledo studies, but because degrees from that school are worthless.

Why would someone attend and graduate from a worthless school?

It happened while attending classes.

The small, reputable, business college was purchased by a larger education corporation and then that corp was bought by an even larger one.

Criminal proceedings around unfair and predatory loan practices happen.  Students were encouraged to over-borrow thinking they were being loaned "just enough" to cover the tuition, books and fees.

Because of those purchases, the accreditation was in flux and even if the student was aware that the value of their degree was waning, there was little to no chance of transferring to a different school with credit for classes already taken.

Hello again, sunk cost fallacy.

So, at the end of four years, you have a degree that's got almost the same value as your high school diploma and a pile of debt you will never be able to service.

Not because you're a deadbeat, but because the decisions of others devalued the thing you borrowed money to pay for so much that all you got out of the deal was the debt. 

A debt that cannot, ever, be cancelled via any normal means.

For fuck's sake, we let someone who takes out a mortgage for a house in a known flood zone cancel that debt via bankruptcy when the flood makes their house a plain again, but never student loans.

Why?

Because some rich fuckers took out loans, hid their wealth, and went bankrupt on them then went on to be lawyers and doctors.

There weren't many of them, but it got a lot of publicity.

The, "we must do something, this is something, we MUST do THIS," kind of publicity.

Did this fuck the rich people who started the problem?

Nope.

While it did force them to repay the loans, they could have done that without the job their degree gets.

Did this fuck most everyone else?

Sure did.

Something every single "work harder, smarter" person forgets while condemning lots of folks is that timing and luck are factors in success, and no amount of hard work can compensate for them when they fall the wrong way.

Your personal success is a factor of your hard work, smarts, timing and luck.  It might not apply to someone else.

The situation that you succeeded in might not even exist anymore and they way you succeeded might be impossible, or even illegal, now.

Even if that path is still there, an accident or illness can, forever, derail you.  It doesn't even have to be you who gets hurt or sick.  Having to care for a loved one can derail it too.