This is the avocado toast fallacy. Millennials were encouraged to take on these loans on the principle that their high-paying jobs would make the debt service

This is the avocado toast fallacy. Millennials were encouraged to take on these loans on the principle that their high-paying jobs would make the debt service affordable, and that if they didn't take on these loans they'd end up as homeless drug addicts. When those jobs didn't pan out, there was no plan B. The world changed between when the decision to take on the loan was made and when the loan started to become a drag. It has little to do with bad spending habits or adult's mismanaging their finances. An entire generation is paying for mistakes they made as teenagers, which legitimately seemed like a great idea at the time. It's not because millennials are bad with money. The world changed and millennials were left holding the bag in this case. The ones who make HN wages paid off their loans a long time ago.