Unpopular opinion here - there should be some way to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. Debtors prison was a concept abolished a long time ago in most Anglo-Saxon countries.

Usury used to be illegal in medieval europe for a reason.

The institutions that sold these debts to dumb kids need to be liquidated and long term reforms made to the system to prevent this from ever happening again. The number of higher education institutions needs to be reduced, the entry requirements significantly increased and the resources diverted to more vocational training and shorter courses which leave people with actual skills they can pay for in an affordable manner.

If you go in the Airforce or the Navy they can probably train you in any number of technical subjects in 1-2 years that would take you 3-6 years in the civilian world. This kind of training needs to be widely available to the civilian population.

When you have a declining population you need to increase the efficiency and capability of your labour pool, not fill their heads with marxist slop, indebt them for life and teach them nothing useful.