So how does free community college help students now with tons of debt?

[mythology]

62. Here's how it will help

It will help other people get a higher education level, which will in turn allow them to get a higher paying job. Which will in turn allow those people to buy more things, whether it's a new car, or a house, or a new computer etc, that in turn will cause higher incomes.

Yes it's not an immediate help, but it will help in the medium and longer term.

And I'm one of those people who relatively recently graduated from college. I admittedly only took out loans for my senior year (state school) and then 1.5 years of grad school (private school). But even with that, I still had about 60,000 in debt and I was unemployed for about 9 months. But with 2 of my loans, I expect to have paid off in the next 3 years and I've consolidated the remaining into a lower payment that will take 10 years to pay off.

Yes student loans are expensive. But having a bachelor's degree on average is good over 50% more income than a high school diploma. It's higher for those with higher degrees like a masters or a law degree.