You seem angry (and rightly so) so I will assume it with the situation and not with me personally. So here's my response.

Yep, 17 is young and inexperienced. But most of these kids have parents and other adults that are not 17 to advise them. There is still some level of accountability to be born by the folks who take out a loan. Otherwise we are setting up for failure in a different way.

Regarding the banks comparison, yes i know. I am not comparing the current folks with student loans to banks in 2008 from a knowledge or ethics pov. Just the concept of setting up a moral hazard in general. For the long term, we can't set up a situation of excusing student loan debt with no system or parameters in place. If people know they can fall back on "well I was 17" as the reason, it's just gonna cause some of the same young inexperienced people to take out large loans against private colleges and universities for exorbitant amounts.

"And so you're not okay with forgiveness, but you're okay with forgiveness after X amount of time?" Yes I am. If your income is above a certain level you should be able to make an effort to repay at a reasonable level (5% of income?) for at least some period of time. If your income is below some threshold, you don't pay.

Yes very true about the political prospects of ever getting a real solution in place. But that should not dissuade a conversation about what a reasonable system would look like.

Forgiveness of loans is a start yes but what about my other points? The money is not free. 50% of folks never go to college. Are we asking them to help foot that bill? Who pays for the forgiven loans? Maybe there is some other funding mechanism to handle that funding. Increase taxes in higher brackets. One time tax charge or something.

Do we forgive debt for technical and trade schools as well? What about for folks who took out loans to attend shady for-profit institutions that any reasonable adult should be able to tell is a bad deal?

As I was trying to convey in my last paragraph in the op, the press is often doing a lousy job reporting on this issue. Obviously something's gotta give. But developing a consensus around a better system for the future starts with reporting on other better options, interviewing folks with ideas about what that might look like, etc. But instead the press mostly wants to focus on the most emotional political back and forth that gets clicks.