I dropped out of college when I was 21, in part because I knew two different people with bachelor's degrees who had jobs like delivering newspapers or selling shoes at a department store. Everyone around me seemed to think I needed a degree in order to have a career and that a degree automagically would give me a career. The lives of these two personal acquaintances suggested otherwise.

I am currently personally acquainted with two other people who completed college and they thus are saddled with huge student loans. Neither one is making enough money to deal with those loans, much less justify them. One owes $100k the other owes $250k. Even if you successfully declare bankruptcy, you cannot write off student loans. These two people may never manage to get their loans paid off. I cannot imagine how awful that must be and I used to have more than $50k in personal debt, which I have been slowly resolving in recent years. (Part of mine is also student debt, but not all of it. It is one of the reasons that although I have considered declaring bankruptcy, I have never pursued it in earnest. Part of what I owe has to be paid regardless.)

There is something very wrong with the system here in the U.S. A college degree should not be a path to permanent poverty because you cannot really afford the student loans you wracked up getting it.