That's essentially what my daughter did last year and it helped greatly. Focussing on seriously reducing the debt load and then getting back on the academic track would seem to be a prudent approach. Just my $.02...
One Semester of making an extra six or seven hundred a month can work wonders...getting in debt builds up badly but the opposite is true, the more you pay down the faster it goes...like a roller coaster going downhill. Even if at the end of that semester he still has debt, if he has been doing things how he should, his minimum pmts should be less meaning he could now easily make it work (and keep paying down debt) going back to school and living on a bit less income-as long as he doesn't slip back into his old ways.