>People go into debt for the credential because employers require the credential.

The beautiful thing is that making the debt dischargeable fixes all that.

Nobody will write a loan for your slapdash STEM program that doesn't actually correlate with earnings.

Same goes for a basket weaving degree from a prestigious university.

>Learn a trade, get a CDL (~$5k), etc.

Spoken like someone who's never been with spitting distance of either. They are not at all easy money compared to office stuff. The trades are all regulatory captured by the professional associations, licensing bodies, etc so you'll toil for 4-10yr making peanuts while you destroy your bodies and sometimes you can't even make the big bucks without going into business yourself and taking on huge risk. CDL jobs are all 60hr a week slogs, more if your company has someone overseas editing the E-logs which a good chunk of them do.

If you can hack it an office job that requires "real math" is almost universally better.