Yeah a self help book will for sure solve this problem
Again, all you are proposing are individual solutions (which aren't bad per se) for a systemic problem. As for how to pay for free public college, rolling back the Trump tax cuts would surely be a good place to start. Secondary education is in the public's interest, plenty of developed countries have figured out a way to educate their population without crippling them with debt.
The Ramsey bit was an attempt at being slightly humorous. In all seriousness though, if more people followed it, we'd we in a better place fiscally. It's probably helped more people become debt free than anything else.
Anyways, somebody's debt is an individual problem. Even with the majority of the country having debt, it's still a large amount of individual problems. If it was systemic, everybody that went to college would have the same problem. Clearly, that isn't true.
We have several problems.
1: Too many people attending college that don't have to.
2: Lack of knowledge of what your degree will pay you vs what your tuition plus interest will cost you.
3: Tuition artificially increasing because of guaranteed federal student loans.
Debt forgiveness/free tuition is a bandaid that doesn't come close to solving the real issues here.
And no, the tax cuts (WHICH HELP THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE STUDENT LOANS) aren't much of a start. If you cut tuition costs, you have to pay the tuition AND what that tuition money went to pay. The costs don't miraculously disappear, they just become someone else's responsibility.
And yeah, education helps a lot. We have a ton of affordable options. A new house for me would help a lot too. So would a new business, or nicer things for my business. I still have to pay for those. The idea of "it benefits the collective so it must be free" is incredibly faulty.