[orwin]

You are ignoring the elephant in the room, and that's capital. Cultural capital.

I'm from a rural area. Luckily, i'm not in the US, so me and my peer don't have outstanding debt, but i was around when the "Revolving credit" (also called "credit revolver" in my country) came full force in my area. Well, actually, revolving credit were here for already ten years. The suicides came full force (hence "Revolver". Get it?).

All adults. Mostly women, but not only. I was 13 when the first one offed herself in my village. She was around forty, and i knew her kids. "It takes money to make money" and all this crap worked well until that time. They were rational: their parents contracted debt in the 50s and 60s to build their business/farm or build their houses. Why couldn't they do the same? But the inflation was 10 to 15% at the time. They had no financial education, and the only example they had was from a time where everybody indebted themselves and it worked well. We had shows talking about "lever effect" and praising how clever the company was to indebt itself.

Circa 2005, the procedure to bankrupt yourself in my country became way more accessible and nowadays the revolving credits are less predatory.

Still "Expecting individuals to think rationally at 18 is completely valid." have nothing to do with endebtment.