Did you pay it off or was leaving the country a form of abandoning your debt responsibility?

Don't get me wrong. I think it's insane to have an education system this dysfunctional. I think some people get institutionalized and just kind of see college debt as how the universe works.

I have partially repaid my loans, but now I have been postponing the repayments while I struggle with the idea of defaulting. I feel guilty doing so, but I also think that when I took on the loans I was too young to understand the implications and, as you mention, was "brainwashed" into thinking this was the only way to go. My family was too poor to pay for my college, so this was my only "choice." So while large corporations and the rich can privatize gains and socialize their costs, we peons are on the hook 100%, with a large predatory capitalist system stacked against us.