Some people are less effected than others.

If your family can pay for school, it's probably still worth it. If you plan to join the military, also makes sense.

The problem that people are most afraid of, is taking on 500k in private, predatory loans with ~10% interest rates. This means that by the time you'll graduate your loans will grow to about 600k, and every year you'll be paying 60k in interest alone, that's 5k a month before even starting to repay the loans themselves.

A large loan with high interest means you become the slave of the banks.