What professions do you speak of? I know many (recent graduate) lawyers, doctors and dentists who are all bogged down by loans. For lawyers, making partner seems to be the main road to riches. But that's a lottery. A dentist I know has taken on even more loans to start his own practice. Piling more debt on top of a sizable one seems sheer insanity to me. But perhaps that's just the risk one has to take these days.