I think the answer is to work part time moving into full time and go to school part time. Start with the community college and go to the local state college. Take 6-8 years but graduate with no debt and a better perspective on the working world.
Unfortunately, many employers don’t view this kind of student as an attractive one for hire. They STILL want high GPAs and a realtively cookie-cutter student (i.e. 4 year grad; 22 year old) to hire. They know (or should know) this student/hire will only be around 2 years — instead of 10 or more the company built their hiring program around — but they don’t seem to care.
Plus, even today, knowing how useless most undergradute education is, it is still not practical to promote anything but a college degree. If for no other reason than work advancement and graduate school. A non-degreed employee may get along fine in certain areas for their 20s and part of their 30s, but they’ll be regretting not finishing college in their mid-30s and later. That hasn’t changed and probably won’t for a long time.
In many cases, that degree can be earned online while one is in the work force. My distaste is for loans to get an undergraduate degree and for college environments that have become in some situations dangerous and even evil.