These are good points and make me want to go back and yell at the study authors for pointing fingers at 2005 while ignoring the REPAYE Act. I think it's better

These are good points and make me want to go back and yell at the study authors for pointing fingers at 2005 while ignoring the REPAYE Act. I think it's better terms than even you said -- 10% of discretionary. Discretionary is AGI minus 150% of the poverty rate... a real hardship borrower--say the barista with a million dollar pottery degree--could easily qualify for a $0/mo payment then have all loans discharged after 20 years. (That forgiveness would result in a massive tax bill, however...) My only remaining quibble is that while private loans might be 7-8% of all loans, they're still large in absolute terms, and seem to cluster around the most problematic areas of education, like unaccredited schools. Yet somehow they seem to have the benefit of both worlds, nondischargability without income based repayment, unless I'm missing something. May not be the cornerstone issue here, but still seems like the policy on private educational loans could be better. After your comment, poked around, this history seemed especially useful to fill in some of the gaps I had on the policy history here: https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-loans-bankruptcy-discharge https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-... Thanks, you changed my mind.