You're right. Nobody forced me to sign on to student loans at the age of 17. I did it voluntarily. I couldn't buy beer, or cigarettes, or lease an apartment, and my brain wasn't fully developed. But yeah, nobody forced me to make a foolish decision and give a bunch of money to an inherently corrupt, predatory industry that employs more and more administrators every year while every other industry has used technology to reduce their admin numbers. I just got tricked. And my degree was fairly good as well. I double majored in Mechanical engineering/applied economics. (I know, it's a dumb combination, but I thought I could get a job in the ME field, and found economics interesting.). I couldn't get a job at all doing mechanical engineering, and instead the degree just demonstrated to potential employers I could do hard stuff and math. Something that could have been evaluated far easier with some form of test or hands-on interview that we use in our industry to screen talent.