There are a variety of reasons:

• Thinking that everyone should go to college. College is a competition. Supply far exceeds Demand, there are just so many “college” jobs available each year.
• The school selection protocol is flawed, ignoring “affordability.”
• Thinking if everybody is doing it (taking out student loans), it must be OK. Borrowers just don’t think about the commitment.
• Many college students have bought into the idea that a college degree is the golden ticket to a prosperous financial future. They have never seen the “college outcomes” data, and they don’t anticipate any problems repaying their loans.
• Most college students don’t do the planning, creating a four-year financial plan, targeting a starting job and assessing a starting salary, and estimating their future monthly student loan payment.
• To an eighteen-year-old something that is going to happen five years in the future (a bill for student loans) isn’t real.
• Things don’t go as planned. For example, most college students don’t finish their bachelor’s degree in four years.

IMO, eighteen-year-olds should need a cosigner to get a student loan. IMO, the federal student loan system needs underwriting standards.

Notes

Only three of ten students who matriculate graduate and score a well-paying, professional job.

There are a wide variety of Rules of Thumb for planning the acceptable amount of a monthly student loan payment. I recommend 8% of monthly take home pay.