I was talking to my friend, a Bucks County Bankruptcy Lawyer, and we were discussing the plight of filing a bankruptcy for an individual who has a ton of student debt.
The tough thing is -- it is very, very hard to get student loans discharged in a bankruptcy. It is a shame, actually. A person must be unable to work (for the rest of their life, essentially). About one in nine student loans are behind.
As the Center for American Progress notes,
In any event, it is very difficult, although I've done it before. It would just be terrific to have a change in the law to make it easier.Some members of Congress have proposed legislation that would again permit private student loans to be discharged more readily in bankruptcy, effectively making student loans equal to credit card debt. This is a start because there are major concerns with the private loan market, including interest rates as high as 19 percent. But the proposal ignores the reality that not all private loans are bad and not all federal loans are ultimately good for borrowers. Case in point: Federal student loans are available for programs that have very poor employment outcomes. Moreover, not all federal loans have the same borrower protections across loan programs. Income-based repayment options, for example, which take into account a borrower’s earnings and ultimately forgive the remaining balance after years of payments, often make it easier for borrowers to meet their living expenses and pay off at least a portion of their student loans. But parents using Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students, or PLUS, loans to borrow for a child’s education are generally excluded from using the income-based repayment benefit.