If I was reviewing code of a junior developer and found a very specific case that would break the code they submitted I'd ask them to go back an fix that bug. If they came back, providing a solution similar to yours, it would look something like this:
if (input == null) {
return;
}
doWork(input);
I would still refuse to accept this situation. Hacking out the error case isn't fixing the root problem. This is similar to this discussion.
The conventional wisdom used to be correct. You used to be able to avoid massive debt by staying in state and attending a public college. This is not the case anymore. I know plenty of people who aren't in as bad of a situation as I am and received similarly low financial support from the government and the university I attend.
Focusing the conversation on "what to do" is not helpful. Focusing on "why do you have to" is helpful.
Why do you have to pay ~30k/year, minimum, to live on campus with the most basic meal plan at a state run college?
The out of state tuition for my college (NJIT) was $6,214 [0] in 1998, the year after I was born. This year the out of state tuition is $32,750. This does not count living expenses or textbooks. The college also mandates you have a laptop with some hardware requirements. Using chronicle's "Adjust for Inflation" tool it seems that my college's tuition grew at a rate of >300% above inflation.
I'm not going to make any comments here as to why I think this is, though I do have opinions, but I will state that "just stay in state" ignores this. This is a trend common to most public colleges. If this trend continues for NJIT (of add ~$1k/year to the tuition for in and out of state) in 18 years, when the next gravypod comes around, they'll be even more screwed.
Yes it is. Full stop. Local community colleges are vastly cheaper than many universities, and the credits match up 1:1. Working full time, getting an AS, transferring to a university to earn a BS is still a very viable path.
Following this path it's not only possible, but expected that one walks away completely debt free with their BS at the end of four years.
Just because you didn't do the right things (or even if you did and still got very unlucky) doesn't mean the rest of us can't have a fruitful conversation about how things will work out for the vast majority of people.
You need to understand this, or you'll forever be trapped making terrible coding analogies on the Internet, not being understood. Literally none of the numbers or situations you cited are relevant to this conversation.
"Just stay in state and go to a public school... also don't be insanely, one-in-a-million unlucky." <- does that feel better to you?