Student Debt: Lawmakers Reconsider Ban On Discharging Student Loans

Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) has introduced legislation to make it easier for borrowers discharge student loan debt.

Wall Street Journal:

The growth of student debt is stirring debate about whether the government should step in to ease the burden by rewriting the bankruptcy laws--again.

In 2005, Congress prohibited student debt from being discharged through bankruptcy, except in rare cases, because of concerns that many young graduates--who often have no major assets such as a house or a car--would be tempted to walk away from loan obligations.

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal

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Comments

[MiMi LLawsonn]

09:50 PM on 04/30/2012

...I was finally approved disability....which does not amount to much at all...I have called the college place several times and tried to explain the situation...and I am sure that the person on the other end of the phone does not believe a word that I am saying...I only wish that this was indeed a "story" and that I have truly just made all of this up...but this is not the case at all...and since I am no longer able to work...I guess this bill is one which never get paid...interesting how some things happen, isn't it?????????

[MiMi LLawsonn]

09:50 PM on 04/30/2012

This article caught my eye....as I was wrongfully denied my workers compensation claim and also the company denied my disability benefits as well...I had planned to make sure that IF something were to happen that I would not be caught with a lot of bills to pay without having some sort of *income* to off set the bills that I was responsible for....it is FUNNY that I thought I was covering all of anything which might happen to me....or so I thought....nothing happens the way we expect it to...Well...as I said I was wrongfully denied my workers compensation claim...and my disability benefits as well...so I was left with NO INCOME until the appeal was over...and it seems that NC SUPREME COURT did not have time to review my appeal...I had been paying one of my children's college loans...I continued to pay them until I was notified that my appeal would not be reviewed...I stop making the payments on the college loans...and I guess the loan will never be paid...it seems like everything is a vicious cycle...http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-647077 ....it is very strange that for anything and everything that anyone does anymore....a person must get an attorney...well...they also cost money too

[Moravecglobal]

07:09 PM on 04/30/2012

Chancellor "charge more instate tuition" Birgeneau legacy at UC Berkeley is a sad one. University of California Berkeley (UCB) Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau is outspoken on why elite public universities should charge more. With Birgeneau’s leadership UCB is more expensive (on an all-in-cost) than private Harvard and Yale. Cal. is the most expensive public higher education in our country.

Birgeneau would like to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving him every dollar asked for. The Chancellor’s ‘charge more’ instate tuition skyrocketed fees by an average 14% per year from 2006 to 2011-12 academic year. If Birgeneau had allowed fees to rise at the same rate of inflation over the past 10 years they would still be in reach of most middle income students with the help of affordable student loans. Increasing Cal’s funding is not the solution.

UCB is a public university designed to give maximum access to the widest number of instate students at a reasonable cost: with a mission of diversity and equality of opportunity. Unfortunately Birgeneau diminishes the principles which underlie our state and our country: equality and inclusion. Birgeneau’s and Provost George Breslauer’s senior management decisions deny middle income Californians the transformative value of university education.

Birgeneau’s tenure as Chancellor is a sad unacceptable legacy. University of California Berkeley is now farther and farther out of reach of Californians.

Email UC Board of Regents [e-mail] and your Calif. State Senator and Assemblymember.