“It is not necessarily a bad investment if you have a reasonably attainable path to future employment. If the potential reward is at minimum parallel with the financial risk, then it may be worth it.”
This doesn’t work; college costs remain high (to pay academia) while wages are being driven lower all the time. Anyone earning $40K or more (a number I just pulled out of the air) has forces working furiously behind the scenes to either send that work overseas of bring in foreigners to do it. Unless one is employed by the government, those wages required to pay off that debt will never materialize. Never mind paying normal living expenses with the McJobs available now; imagine having those loans on top of that?