You can take out student loans to pay your living expenses.
It is quite possible the extra 275K of debt is living 50K per year for three or more years while going to school in California, then letting it ramp up with deferrals and interest.
I understand. The issue is that if you can borrow to pay for living expenses rather than get a job then clearly you can rack up excess loans. Calling them student loans is misleading and a misnomer. I suspect that a significant amount of so-called student debt are people borrowing money who have no intention of seriously going to school or paying the money back. It is like saying that the foreclosure crisis was made up almost entirely of borrowers who told the entire truth about their income and expenses on their applications and were not involved in house flipping or other real estate investment schemes.
While not applicable for “Lisa”, the completion rates of students in State 2yr and 4yr Colleges are appalling. With many never coming back for a second year let alone graduating. The issue of student loans needs a much harder look than the kind of silly story in the article.