Trades? I'm a self-taught programmer who started getting paid at "market rate" for mid-level dev a year before my colleagues graduated. For me coding is pretty much a "trade" and boot camps are like "mass apprenticeships".

I'd imagine other trades have similar avenues of employment as well. Maybe if we stop trying to convince people that a 4 year college is the only prestigious career path (even 2 years of community college + 2 years of a 4 year gets a stink eye sometimes!) they'll stop trying to force themselves into inescapable debt.