[nsporillo]

Not necessarily. Plenty of students have no other legitimate credit options that allow them to not need to immediately start paying down the principal.

During my time I had to routinely apply for student loans every year to cover housing, food, and other living expenses and it made sense because unless I was doing an internship the next semester - I wouldn't be able to make any payments until I was done with school and had a full time job.

Was able to consolidate and refinance all my private loans to a variable 4.5% back in late 2019 and since then has gone to 2.48% which is now less than my mortgage interest rate. Leveraging student loans for financial flexibility opened the doors for me to live a great life during some super chaotic but fun years.