Student Loan Bankruptcy in Chester County
I have written consistently about the difficulty of having student loans discharged in a bankruptcy filed with a Chester County bankruptcy lawyer. Student loan debt is now at $11.52 trillion in the last quarter of 2013. The Huffington Post calls it a ticking time bomb.
An interesting angle on student loan debt was proposed in the San Francisco Chronicle. The op-ed writer states,
Monthly payments on student loans should be a percentage of the borrower's income, after essentials like food and housing are covered, instead of being fixed.
Even Forbes, a conservative bastion of the media, states,Interest rates on student loans should be nonprofit, which means equal to the Fed's discount rate, currently 0.75 percent.
Some Senate Democrats are pushing for a "plan to support a longstanding effort to make it easier for borrowers to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy and a new federal grant program aimed at creating incentives for states to chip in more money for higher education".Reforming loans does not necessarily mean eliminating loans entirely. Loans themselves can mitigate catastrophic risk to an individual if the repayment options are better. If student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy – you know, like other loans – it gives a potential last resort exit valve to unburden an individual who is struggling to pay. More broadly, any system that ties the level of repayment to a student’s income accounts for the risk of not being able to find a job or having a health emergency. If a student who chooses to become a teacher, rather than a financier or consultant, he or she benefits from a repayment scheme based on income.