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I think people have to look at the landscape of higher education for what it is. There seem to be a few options:
1. Attend a trade school and start out with a nice salary for a 22-year old. Then use experience to carve out a nice career.
2. "play the game" in high school, do dual enrollment courses for college credit, get good enough grades to qualify for in-state scholarships and try to cut the cost by 50-75% using scholarships and college credits earned in HS.
3. Don't get the best grades or credits in HS, but go to a community college or JC for two years to get your gen EDs taken care of on the cheap. If you do well there, you could qualify for scholarships or state aid to go to a local state school for your last 2-3 years. This also cuts the cost by 50+%.
4-year college is not a right for all people, but there are many ways to get a 4-year degree without having massive debt. You can do items 2 or 3 above, you can have a job, take less classes and use summer school to fill the gaps. You can work a higher paying seasonal job in the summer and winter to help pay your expenses/some of your tuition during the school year. But, if you don't do well in High school, don't dual enroll in some classes or overturn a bunch of stones for college scholarships - 4-year college (esp at private schools) is going to be extremely expensive.
I have a pretty broad cross-section of financial class friends. My work friends are higher wage professionals and they tend to take option 2. My Little League baseball friends tend to be more middle class and a few of them have had their kids go to the CC/JC route and then finish the lass couple years at a state school. There's no reason to end college with 70+K in student loan debt if you aren't wealthy enough to afford it. And just giving a blanket amnesty to people who didn't plan properly is extremely unfair to the 22-year olds who applied themselves in High School or went to a JC, worked while in school and pinched pennies to minimize debt.
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