A little history to add to the conversation. Federal student loans began under the National Defense Education Act in 1958. This was an idea proposed by Milton Friedman. Federal loan guarantees began in 1965, in an era of other wonderful new beginnings under LBJ.
I attended college and earned a BS degree between 1975 and 1981. I took not one dime in student loans.
If memory serves me correctly, they were for like $1000 and only for certain majors in the sciences. There were no basket weaving courses or art appreciation courses or black studies et al financed.
Proves my point. Open the door a crack for Democrats and they’ll find some way to use it to their political advantage.
Same rough time frame. Co-op engineering student, so I got paid decent money every other quarter when I was working. No student loan debt per-se, but I did take out a loan to buy one of the original IBM-PCs on a great student discount plan late in my senior year, before grad school. The purchase served me well in developing job skills that employers wanted. Paid it off in a couple of years.