I was fortunate to be able to avoid student loans for both undergrad. and graduate school, mostly because for the last 80 hours of undergrad., I took courses at night and worked full-time (took me 11 years to finish, though,). I worked throughout my college careers, sometimes workstudy, and sometimes waitressing or as an attendant to a fellow student who was confined to a wheelchair. The first two years of college, when I went fulltime and lived on campus, I turned my paychecks from summer jobs over to my dad, who banked them and used them to defray part of the cost of the dorm and cafeteria fees. I was self-employed during graduate school so could work nights and weekends, and attend classes and internships during the day. Didn't get much sleep, but also didn't have any loans to pay back. My parents and father-in-law chipped in and paid my graduate tuition and helped some with the cost of books. The tuition for graduate school per semester in '90-'92 was about 3 times the cost of a semester's dorm and cafeteria bill '69-'71. The tuition for graduate school was 11 times what undergrad tuition was '69-'71.

I don't know what it is like in other places, but where I have lived in North Carolina for the past 23 years, people with college and post graduate degrees are a dime a dozen, and an undergraduate degree is absolutely no guarantee of a job, much less a job that will pay enough to cover living expenses and pay back of student loans, given how high the amount borrowed has to be to finance higher education. (There are some exceptions, especially medical, dental and law degrees.) I do not think one can anymore assume that borrowing money to attend college is a sound financial decision. I know too many out-of-work teachers, people in assorted computer and IT related fields, social workers, etc., or people with undergraduate degrees in a broad range of fields who borrowed money and are employed as receptionists, customer service reps, etc. making much lower salaries than they anticipated, and struggling to pay back student loans.