It's more than that - the company you took out the loan with has probably sold it two or three times, you've maybe consolidated a few, that whole thing has been offloaded to someone else and you end up owing a giant nut to a company you've never heard of that can't even keep in touch with you in a reasonable fashion. Lookin' at you, Granite State. So you borrowed money for school, which isn't like borrowing money for say, a car or something you like, and you got fuckall for it, and now this company says "you can pay up or... you know, postpone things until the future gets better. We'll just add a bunch of interest." So now not only do you owe a fuckton more than you actually borrowed, you're reminded that your situation has not improved in the past year and you've heard it's gonna take years before they can do anything but fuck with your credit rating, and you're not buying a house in this market so who cares? Not shown in this article is the income-based repayment options, which are easy to game and still qualify as "payments." By the time we're done with income-based repayment we will have paid 30% of the principal on my wife's medical loans and about 10% of the interest owed. Over the course of the loan, her $180k in bills will have mushroomed to $2.2 million and you know what? NOBODY is going to feel obligated to pay that.
Anecdotal, but when I dropped out of college, I had a relatively decent time with my student loans. I was raised with the idea that I shouldn't borrow more than I think I could pay back, do what I can to pay on time, and a loan is like any other promise, if you give your word, you have to keep it. So, after dropping out I didn't have much to show for myself, other than a big, ugly debt. I buckled down, got two full time jobs, and started working 70-80 hours a week, paying off that loan as quickly as possible. After about three years, it was gone. I still kept those two jobs though, to try and keep myself out of debt, build a nest egg, etc. Unfortunately, I made some very bad decisions that left me in a financially bad state for a few years that I had to crawl out of as well (life pro-tip people, just because you can afford something this month, doesn't mean you can afford it every month for years, this applies to car loans, apartments, etc.). Anyhow, I came out relatively intact. The thing though? I didn't owe anywhere near what your wife or other people end up owing by the time they graduate, so they struck me as reasonable and managable. If I had owed that much money I would have found myself so overwhelmed it would have shut me down emotionally. I would have taken a hard look at my loan payments and a hard look at that shiny El Camino on Craigslist and make the logical choice. I'd get the El Camino. College already burned me. That car? That car is material happiness bro.
When the equity in your house pays a percentage of the principal on your student loan, you recognize that it's all a big fucking game and the sooner you learn the true rules the happier you will be.