Its all on them personally. No one coerced or forced them to take out the loans. Pid all mine back faster than necessary to get that junk off my back as soon as I could.
Same here - also stayed at home to save money and did worked close to full time to while going to college.
Had a friend that racked up low 6 figures in student loans while going to college on a full scholarship because his GF, then wife, now divorced, talked him into it to furnish and pay for their off campus rental house. Then she had them forbear their loans for almost a decade because “they couldn’t afford it”.
The real shame for many who have these loans is that they were already on fullride scholarships for sports, and had no legimate reason relating to education for their loans.
When I was in Guyana, the school administration called me the second year from East Carolina University and told me my son’s admission pack was being held up pending my signature on the “school loan application”. My wife and I paid cash gobbling up our foreign service paychecks, along with the college IRA’s to pay in full his education, without any loans.
After some dicussion, they told me that the student loan application was given to every student and they expeceted them to sign and get their parents to sign for them and I continued to refuse. They tried to impose their sales BS upon me by guilting me for depriving my kids from having the money other kids were spending. HA!