I put my wife through school to get her RN degree while working morning tower on a drilling rig and clearing fence lines during the day. Then I went back to school to get my degree in petroleum engineering which took me 6 years to complete due to working full time. We never borrowed a penny. We choose these degrees because we knew there was a market for them, unlike some of the trash they produce or accept now that are nothing more than a piece of paper.
Maybe the professors who “work” about 7 months each year, teach a class or two (with graduate assistants help), take every seventh year off with 1/2 pay, have TIAA/CREF investments added to their salary at 20-30% of their salary and make 150,000-300,000 per year salary could front the students some cash? These professors are the coddled class in every community.