For the first ten years after college, I had to build a student loan payment in to my personal budget. I even managed to pay my loans back in a less than eight years instead of ten, simply by making a payment every 4 weeks instead of once a month.
That was the cost. My engineering degree and associated increase in earning power was the benefit, and I have benefited. I have not regretted taking out those loans for one minute. I would not have been able to finish college in four years without them.
Of course, I cannot understand why anyone would go $200,000 in debt to get a useless degree in “Inequality Awareness” or “Social Justice” or some other idiotic “major”. I just write those people off as dumb-asses, and I figure life will eventually take care of them - one way or another.
But I don't want to have to pay off their loans.
Good job. I paid as I went with jobs and night school etc. It was hard . But I managed. I wore Tee shirt and jeans and old tennis shoes. I had a very old car. No one ever helped me. I put my sons through undergrad. When they got in grad school they borrowed onlt tuition and we paid the rest and they waited tables/ I have no willingness to pay others student debt— not 1 dime.