I was talking to a young man whose brother had just gotten about 10k. He said his brother’s friends had run out band bought cars and “party” supplies with the money. His brother had rented a very nice off-campus condo. (I lived at home, drove a 20 year old beater I spent every weekend working on and worked half time too. I graduated with no debt but there’s no way you could do that at today’s inflated prices.)
No, you can’t pay the student loans at the insane interest it is right now. Grad of 06’ with a grant. I took on a loan in my frosh’ year and could barely pay it off and never did it afterwards. The rest of the semesters I did every “odd” job (don’t judge me on this) from strip club dj to driver to escort service driver for cash.