From an Australian perspective, US loans are in an unfortunate middle ground where they're not dischargeable in bankruptcy and are protected by your government,

From an Australian perspective, US loans are in an unfortunate middle ground where they're not dischargeable in bankruptcy and are protected by your government, but are owed to private companies and must be paid off regardless of your income. Making them dischargeable from the start would have stopped a lot of problems from forming, since borrowers could just default, thus lowering the average education fees due to downward pressure on loan amounts, and tightening lending requirements. Nationalising loans and only requiring repayment at high incomes would make them easier to deal with - the repayments just out of your tax, are only added at high tax brackets, and lower your borrowing capacity. Sitting in the middle of the two sides is the problem.