As someone who grew up in the low income bracket of America I totally agree with your first point, it is amazing how easy it is to simply work hard and get some

As someone who grew up in the low income bracket of America I totally agree with your first point, it is amazing how easy it is to simply work hard and get somewhere like I have, yet people throw that chance away all the time. Your second point, however, I think is not so much about students thinking they can be whatever they want and more about not succeeding in their first choices. Most of the people I went to college with tried to be engineers or physics majors or something similar but didn't put enough effort in and instead of simply dropping out decided to change their majors to something easier because "you have to get a degree" is such a strong idea by our parents generation that most kids will accept the debt knowing they will never find a good job simply to not look like a failure. I'm not saying this is any better, but this in my experience seems to be the more common reason for so many people getting those degrees.