My friend had this issue when health issues required her to drop out senior year. No degree, but saddling debt. The deals you make are always temporary and often misunderstood. If 90% of borrowers aren't doing something, there's a reason.

The best thing that she was able to do was to declare chapter 13 bankruptcy, which shut down the collections bullshit and trickery and let her pay debt down. In her case, the student loans picked up a prorata share of her payment which put a dent in the balance.