Travel expenses can’t be more than a thousand bucks per term at the very extreme. For me flying across country cost a couple hundred bucks round trip twice a year. The median new college grad today makes about $50k right out of school, and more after a few years of experience.

What college did your friend go to where she was promised financial aid and then not offered what she expected? What kind of degree did she get (or drop out of) and what is she doing now? How many years of debt are we talking about? Are you sure the bulk of it is due to travel expenses? That seems prima facie implausible.

I know plenty of people with outrageous amounts of college debt (in the six figures), and have never heard of someone going deep into debt for travel expenses. (For comparison room & board + tuition is typically $50k+ per year, which is like 30–100 times larger than I would expect travel expenses to be.)