1. It's not that hard to have $5000 of earned income in a year. Also, IMHO, people who never hold a job until after they've graduated from college are deficient in many ways.

2. The Roth suggestion was just one example. There are many investment options out there. Just make sure the return will outpace the interest on the student loan. Paying 5% interest on a student loan and earning 2% return on a CD, for example, would be pretty stupid.

3. If all of this is too complicated for someone, at the very least, take out the student loan and pay it right back immediately (a few months later). The original objective here was to build credit, not earn money, so by doing this you can add something nice to an otherwise blank credit history. You will pay a tiny bit of interest and maybe a loan fee, but I believe you can avoid those as well by only accepting subsidized student loans.

4. Note that all of this talk about loans is only for federal student loans. You will have a net loss if you try to do any of this with private lenders like Chase.