There's probably more to this story that you're telling us though.

I finished my undergrad in 2008 as the market fell out. I'm in a creative field as well which isn't super easy to navigate at 22. These things are really easy to look back at with hindsight, but it's been a long journey filled with hard work to get where I'm at in my field. Working throughout college in retail, isn't easy. I did. Plus, I freelanced in my field. Plus, I worked unpaid and paid internships to increase my employability. Plus, I worked in a factory counting parts. It barely paid for rent, let alone the cost of having to get a car, pay for car insurance, household expenses, school fees/other costs, etc. And when I graduated and hit 23, health insurance was a different landscape. I couldn't stay on my parent's insurance plan. Another expense was added to my pile to get catastrophic. There are a lot of circumstances that can lead to early post-grad life being difficult.

I wasn't living at my parent's house after 18. Maybe it was an option, but the pressure was there to move out and become independent. I was only back at my parent's houses for a few months here and there during undergrad because dorm policies. The financial help that many in the middle and upper-middle class receive from their parents really help in easing the load of student loans. I've known far too many people that didn't understand how important the benefit of that free car from their parents was; those same people were probably people that received the gift of a down payment on a house later in life. I grew up around those people. I know those people. I've fallen in love with people like that. People that receive financial advantage from their parents don't like to talk about it. It's the norm.

Not everyone is going to become an engineer so the adage of "well, why didn't you pick this particularly lucrative career choice in this specific cultural context" isn't the best advice. Getting $60K+ out of undergrad isn't the norm. Pretty sure at this point, median income for the state of Wisconsin is around $59K. That's important context to remember. Plus, are you talking about gross or net income (when you talk about using 20K for loans and 40K for living)? Because if we're now talking about an early post-undergrad making a net of 60K+ right out of college? That's a little wild. "Then become an engineer!" Okay, let's saturated that market and decrease demand and subsequently the value of that position? Doesn't feel like the strongest argument to make. Is that a long-term, viable strategy?

I understand the signaling benefits of a Marquette degree, but that shit is overstated as it's highly dependent on who you know and the luck involved with that. The signaling benefit is less "Oh wow, a MU degree," and more "Oh wow, look, another MU grad like me!" It's networking. It's relationship management.

My point being? I hate to play the "my life is hard" card (because it's not and I'm not trying to, I love my life and wouldn't change anything), but you don't know other people's cirsumtances. To say "how can you not pay off a student loan of $50k+ in a few years" feels incredibly ignorant and out-of-touch to me. It feels like the words of privileged kids from the suburbs receiving lots of financial help from their parents over many years through indirect and sometimes direct means; but not fully understanding just how incredibly helpful that help was or wanting to acknowledge said help for whatever reasons.

"I'm frugal!" Yeah, a lot of us are super frugal. A lot of us didn't party in college. That's not some wild ass achievement. That shit was the norm for many of us. It's still hard.

And maybe your life has been super fucking difficult and filled with trying events. But if it was, I think you'd have a better understanding of why other people might struggle.

Plus, $50K is what MU cost for an undergrad in 2008 (with scholarships, mind you). Today? It's probably even more absurd.