For some people, taking out student loans is the only way they can attend college. Their parents didn't or couldn't save enough for them to attend a four-year institution, and even if they worked full-time while in school, they still can't afford to pay upfront. Because going to college has been sold as a way to guarantee success for yourself, the student loan crisis has gotten totally out of hand.
Some degrees make much more sense to take loans out for than others. If you're going to medical school, I'm guessing you probably don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for school upfront. If so, you're a total anomaly. Medical schools can justify charging so much because their graduates will go on to be high earners, so they trust their alumni can pay back what they borrowed. But the tricky thing about student loans is that you can't always guarantee that you'll graduate, or that you'll get the income that you're aiming for after graduation. If you take out $200K in student loans for medical school and you drop out before you become a doctor, you still are going to have to pay that balance eventually, even if you're only making $50K annually.
I don't think it's smart to take out student loans for an undergraduate degree, but I understand why some people do it. I understand doing so if you're middle class, but I really don't understand doing so if you're upper middle class or rich. If you have a high income and have spent your child's entire life buying new cars every couple of years instead of putting money into a college account, then you really messed up. Saving and paying for your kid's college education will mean a lot more to them than buying them a $40K car when they turn 16, and you would think parents smart enough to make a bunch of money would understand that.
The New York Post reported that 15 colleges in the United States now cost $100K+ to attend every year. They include Duke, the University of Chicago, NYU, Georgetown, and Smith College. When I was applying to colleges, I thought that it was crazy that Southern Methodist University had $70K tuition. Obviously, that is still crazy, but college tuition is only getting crazier as time marches on. One of the 15 most expensive colleges in the United States is probably the one the student in this story dreamed of attending, until she found out that it would require her to take out $400K in student loan debt to attend. When she told her parents she wasn't going to take out loans, they got really angry because they thought she implied they wouldn't help her pay off her balance. Even though she wasn't saying that, it's a reasonable thing to be afraid of! Do you know how many parents promise to help their kids pay off their student loans and don't follow through on it?