I didn't mean that to sound as bitter as it probably did, but I'm glad I got the point across. What's often left out of these amateur discussions we have is th

I didn't mean that to sound as bitter as it probably did, but I'm glad I got the point across. What's often left out of these amateur discussions we have is that education loans are non-collateralized debt. There's no asset of any value to repossess, and except for a few specialized programs where you owe a few years in the military or troubled school or free health clinic, not even a pledge of the very thing this loan is supposed to return value on, i.e. the person's own labor productivity. (And even in those cases, if the person reneges and suddenly becomes liable for the cost of their education again, they're still probably eligible for the same kind of forbearance and forgiveness programs being pushed for the more general student-loan indebted population.) That's a (if not the) key reason this kind of debt isn't dischargeable.