I just looked up Washington State University..tuition and mandatory fees for one year are about $6300 X 4 that is about 26,000. I would hope and pray that most students could earn enough through work-study etc. to pay room and board and transportation. So they might have student loans for a 4 year state school of under $30K. Now, they could go for two perfectly fine years at a community college for much less. THey could live at home unless circumstances require them to get out. THey could live with a few friends.

Say you have a $30K loan at the end of 4 years, do not marry and do not have children or other people to support. Pay it off at $500/month (and think of what jobs you are likely to get before taking on a debt)or $6K a year and gone in 5 years. I am assuming a takehome pay of $1500/month and being able to live as a single person on $1000 a month, which I don't know why a healthy person could not. Does not include medical insurance so pick a major that will either teach you to do your own surgery or look for a job with benefits. Maybe you need a teaching degree...good benefits.

I don't worry about anything above and beyond a state college education with the first 2 years at a community college. If they can pull it off, fine, if not, they're still fine. Our problems are complex, and include insufficient funding on a number of levels but it also includes producing people without enough skills through both our ever devolving family structures and our educationally bankrupt educational system. I hope we haven't reached the day yet where young people can't fund at least the room and board poart of their education...through their own hard work and enterprise. That needs to be part of their vocational counseling, which if they don't have and they need some, send them my way. I have helped all sorts of people, refugees from places they had to eat rodents to survive..people from hard hard situations so it can be done. Not always. But quite often. mg