There is a very strong cultural expectation of younger generations providing care for their related elderly. I suspect the stories of why they end up abandoned and desperate are more complex than reported.

Factor label conversions. They get really complicated in chemistry as well.

You also had the work/life experience by then to be better able to filter out pertinent information from the material.

Most college textbooks are written in an overly complex manner and require some skill to extract and process the information from them.

So right out of highschool you could have read the textbooks but gotten very little out of them.

Depends on the state you live in.

First there is the debt collectors ability to sue to collect. This varies by state and the type of debt in the U.S.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/debt-relief/debt-relief-statute-of-limitations-debt-collection-by-state/

The delinquency is on your credit report for 7 years. After that you can request it be removed.

Federally subsidized student loans have no end date. These can not be discharged. This is the top reason that school tuition rates have skyrocketed. The lenders can loan people with no income vast sums of money little to no risk.

I had a roommate in college who married a citizen of another country. He applied and got approval for a work visa in their spouses native country. Before they left they paid off their federal student loans with credit cards. Something like $20-25K. They also had private student loans of around $10K. They then moved out of the country and went delinquent on the debt. They ended up moving back to the U.S. around 15 years later. By that time their credit report was empty.

My undergrad biochemistry course was taught team taught by a microbiologist and a molecular biologist because the biochemist got fired for sexually harassing a few students.

The molecular biologist was a cool guy and taught concepts. I got an easy A in that section.

The next few weeks were taught by the microbiologist. That asshole wanted us to memorize a ton of different pathways on our second midterm (cyclic acid, fermentations, photosynthetic, MAPK etc…). Something like 20 total. I took an F on that one.

Luckily the final was a standardize test that all universities in the state used that year. So I ended up with a B.