I've been writing about this for over 20 years - long before the Internet.
I worked with young people who, after college and with their exorbitant loans, had only part time jobs at barely above minimum wage - because they couldn't get a loan to buy a car - because of their loan debt. So they were limited to jobs they could walk too - here in Red country, there isn't a lot of public transportation. Vicious circle.
I postured, instead of getting into tens of thousands of dollars in debt that would take decades to get rid of - think about 1 or 2 year specialized courses in a solid trade, like electrician, welder, physical therapist, draftsman, accountant, etc. - fields where your learning time is concentrated on the particular field of expertise.
Look to Community colleges and Voc schools, apprentice programs, small business courses - or ROTC, CAP - programs that pay for your college tuition. Not everyone needs 4 years of college. An added bonus: students don't come out as programmed Socialist robots. (Remember obummer's plan to force all students who had a gov't loan for college to 'serve' two years for the gov't as part of payback. Look for this to be implemented. Confisticating the college loan business was just his first step to gov't control of students.)
With the advent of the Internet, there are good, accredited online schools where one can study and get a degree for pennies on the dollar of a brick and mortar school. And with online study, you can arrange your own time schedule - day and/or night - while working a full time job.
That would give you 4 years ‘experience’ in the work place, earning money instead of incurring debt, during the 2-4 years of study time getting your degree. Then you hit the ground running, unshackled by immediate debt overload that hangs over your head for years.
It's way past time for parents and students to start looking to the viable alternatives to becoming a debt-slave of the gov’t - particularly now (for 2-3 decades now) that the students rarely see the vaunted professors of the colleges they attend. They don't even realize that they should be taught in classrooms with the professors instead of lecture halls with 600-800 students and a STUDENT teacher. Most parents haven't a clue they're paying upwards to $20,000 a year for this mass-class non-education.
Time to get off the enslavement of the government, most particularly now that all loans will be controlled/held by, the government.
I did this. Took a six month course in welding and got a job. Went nights for four years for a two year degree and transferred to a four-year degree. Got a job with my two year degree and kept going nights to finish a four-year and then a Masters. Funny thing was I never even thought of getting a loan and going full-time. This was during the 80’s and maybe it wasn’t as common then.