At the same time my student loans were at 8% interest. Guess who cashed out every 401K as I changed jobs every couple of years early in my career. I used it to pay off student loans and purchase my first home.
The sad fact is that it's expensive to be broke. If your debt to income ratio is high, creditors fuck you over. Paying down those student loans has paid me back several times over in lower interest loans for cars and our mortgage
I didn't really start saving money until after I was 30. To be honest I really didn't start making a decent wage until I was 35. To put it into perspective, I put more into my retirement account per year now than I would have in 5 years from 20-35 years old.