Part of the problem with student loans is that so many people use the availability of money as a private bank account, so to speak. When I was in law school, my goal was to escape with as little debt as possible. So I worked (secretly during first year as students were prohibited from being employed), I lived as cheaply as possible, sold some things to help pay bills (including some guns I miss), and kept driving my beat up car until after graduating/passing the bar/getting full time work/getting post-probationary period pay raise at the end of one year as a prosecutor. So many of the kids I went to school with maxed out their student loans to live well, to buy high-end interview suits, buy cars, etc. One guy used student loans to buy himself a new BMW as a graduation gift to himself. I graduated with around $60,000 in debt, which I will pay off next year. I can only imagine that some of these guys ame out with over $100,000 in debt, only to find that those associate jobs in law firms paying $100,000+ a year are damn rare and hard to come by.
I have a woman that comes into court on a child support case who has been living on student loans for two years now. She uses the loans to pay for cosmetology school, pay her bills, and now to pay off the arrearages she owes in child support. Just plain dumb.