Claiming survivorship bias really makes it sound like we are talking about something much riskier than getting a college degree. I didn't survive, I planned. I got a two year degree from a local community college for a fraction of the price that those same credit hours would have cost at a university. I then went on to a modest in-state University to complete my four year degree. I can't put a sexy Ivy League college, or private college, or even a top-tier state university on my resume now but I didn't graduate with crippling debt. That was the trade off I made.

Starting your professional career in debt is nobody's definition of "crippling debt". Whether 39k is too much student loan debt really depends on what the expected future earning potential is for a given degree. A quick search turns up plenty of resources that can help somebody make decisions about how much student loan debt they can comfortably or safely take on. Here is a teacher's guide[1] (it's a PDF link) from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau one could use as a starting point.

[1] https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_building_...