There is an article on Yahoo this morning about some woman who is $100K in debt from student loans, no job, and she keeps enrolling in college courses to defer payments on her loan debt.  She'll likely never dig herself out, and the recent reform of the bankruptcy laws made it nearly impossible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy.

This whole student loan thing is stupid.  This gal wanted to get into "the best college possible" and did so, but at a ridiculous cost.

When I first went to college in 1965, I was a poor kid who was living at home with my widowed mother.  I went to Ohio State, a public university with reasonable tuition costs.  I had a full time job.  Yes, it took me over 4 years to graduate, but only by a quarter.  I earned enough from my job to not have to borrow a cent.  During the last two years, my monthly ROTC check paid my tuition.

If any of you have kids on the way to college, please avoid student loans.  Tell Johnny to live at home if need be, and get a job.  Of course, if your kid really wants to get an education without having a job the answer is to work his butt off in high school and get an academic scholarship someplace.  Or join the Guard.

One of my buddies has a son in his freshman year of college.  The kid joined the Air Guard, got about $10K signing bonus, gets all tuition and books paid, and gets another $10K or thereabouts upon graduation.  And, as long as he can still pass the physical at graduation, he has a guaranteed slot in pilot training.  Meanwhile, he goes to drill one weekend a monthly, and summer camp.  He gets paid several hundred dollars a month for doing this.  Between the free schooling, the bonuses and his monthly salary as a Guardman, he's on easy street.

While my education may possibly have been a bit better at somewhere in the Ivy League, the extra cost and years, of not decades of student loan payments never make that route really worthwhile.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I worked my way through college...  well, for the most part.  I paid my first, and last semester's tuitions.  My mom/step-dad paid the other semesters.  My work money paid for gas/lunch/etc.  Drove about 30 miles to school.  No loans.  I worked 2-1/2 days a week, went to school 2-1/2 days.  
My ex-husband (who makes MUCH more money than I do now) saved enough to put our son through college... we had to pay off his student loans while we were married (which were pretty cheap 25 years ago).  He gave our son the option of living at home and using the money to get a nicer car, or living at school, driving whatever it was he was driving at the time.  He chose the car, and lives at home, drives 50-60 miles to school.  First year, he only had classes 2 days a week, so that helped.  This year, he has clinicals too, on days when he doesn't have classes.  But he won't end up with any hefty student loans either.  

My current husband's kids.... oh boy, IF any of them go to college, they will HAVE to have jobs....  the oldest (17) will go the military route, if anything.

I guess I'm saying I agree with you.  Student loans are ridiculous.

It never fails to puzzle me why people take out loans and then get upset when they are expected to pay it back?

My oldest son has completed 2 years of college at a local school while living at home.  He will finish up across the state, so there will be some loans going on, but hopefully they will be minimal.

My son spent 8 years in the Navy as a way to help with his college. He just graduated in May with his Masters and is still going for more degrees.
He has worked as many as 3 jobs as well. He is a very determined man and I am so proud of him.
My daughter is raising 3 kids on her own. She also worked 2  part time jobs and put herself thru Massage school. She is now working on her Chiropractic license. All done with no student loans.
Student loans I feel can be useful if used correctly. Yet they do have to be paid back.

I paid off my student loans a long time ago, but my ex-wife went back to school a few years before we got divorced. I learned a valuable lesson (finally something went MY WAY) about student loans during the divorce... They are yours forever. My ex has $12k worth and wanted me to pay half. The judge said "nope. you're taking that education with you & he won't be benefiting from it later on. They're all yours".
I was sooooo relieved!!!

My Son was more than perturbed at the enormous tuitions when he decided that he would have a lot better chance to get where he wanted to go with a Masters. He also wanted to attend a "premier University" and was looking at 20-$50,000 here in the States. He wound up at The University of Glasgow. One year of post grad work there: 800 GBP, or $US 1600.00. Wound up graduating and working for the BBC in London until he came back here. They don't kill their students with debt over there.

I guess the other part of the equation is what is the degree in.
My son and I had a talk about what major he would be studying.  He is leaning towards chemistry and says that there is a decent market for that.   He figured it out pretty quickly when he told me his department manager at Lowes has a degree in German.

Yes, avoid student loans. Students latch on to these loans because they want to go to a name brand school, and, they think they're in some sort of race.

Here's how I put my kids through college:

1) Force them to take AP courses in high school.
2) Once they become 16, they can take GECC(English Comp, Art history,...) courses over the summer.
3) Finish all the GECC courses at community college at 1/3 the tuition.
4) Buy books that are one revision old. Once the books become one revision old, they drop in price to $5-10.
5) Take the maximum number of CLEP tests. (usually 8 classes).
6) CLEP/test out of any pre-reqs.
7) Finish at a state school, preferably from home.
8) Always make it a point to visit the school with their latest bill and question fees on the bill. This wont save you any money, but the school administrators need parental supervision too.

The cost of my youngest's 4* year degree was about $21,000.

And yeah, they should work while they're going to school, because they'll learn more about working for a living flipping burgers, or stocking the shelves at Target than they will at school.

* took 5 and 1/2 years, but, it's not a race.