Agreed. Public schooling in most places completely fails at teaching the general population how to plan for their future and learn basic financial responsibility. A first step would be to show students what sort of options will be available to them and what consequences of each option could entail.
But seriously, every article I read on personal debt talks about how to get out of it after the fact. I think we need to do a better job of educating people on this subject BEFORE they get into debt.