[jdeibele]

Option #1: low-paid job. Probably routine job where you're not expected (or allowed!) to contribute anything that the last person who had the job could do. Live with roommates, rent your whole life, insecurity due to lack of savings, poor (if any) health insurance (US applicable).

Option #2: higher-paid job. Have to pay back loan, which might be a problem if you're just at the bottom of the "you have to pay it back" scale. May have your own apartment or possibly a house, savings, hopefully good health insurance, etc.

I've worked with people who would choose option #1 permanently. Their life was outside their work. They started thinking about the job when they clocked in and stopped when they clocked out. Most of them didn't go to college.

Others did go to college and graduated but didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives. Having the equivalent of a gap year or two (or ten!) after college without worrying about loan payments doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.