There are very few legislation/regulation-based restrictions between the level of one's income and the repayment schedule/amount of one's student loans here in

There are very few legislation/regulation-based restrictions between the level of one's income and the repayment schedule/amount of one's student loans here in the US though it depends largely on how the education debt was financed. The vast majority of loans are made from a large commercial bank to a private citizen. The bank makes these high-risk loans because the US Federal Government "co-signs" on the loan for the student receiving the funds. In the event of an economic downturn or financial hardship, if the former student has limited income (underemployment) but can pay something, the student negotiates a payment amount with the bank. If the former-student is unemployed or has such severe economic hardship that they can pay nothing, the borrower's loan can go into what they call forbearance. Been a long time for me, but I believe you can have a total forbearance time of 36 months over the life of your loan. If, for a variety of reasons, you default on the loan, the lender can/will submit a claim to the Federal Department of Education and the lender will be compensated for the remaining amount of principle on the loan. At this point, your loan is now "owned" by the Department of Education who has substantially more latitude to get their money out of you than a commercial lender does (they can garnish your wages through your employer and keep annual income tax over-payments). But, getting back to your question, there are no established laws that dictate a lender can extract more from you than you can reasonably pay depending on your circumstances. Lender's are incentivized to work with you for 2 reasons, 1) the loan is guaranteed by the Federal Government so they will not lose a dime of principle 2) the longer you carry the debt, the more money the lender can make from interest. Note: Congress did pass a law that stipulates that student loan debt cannot ever be included in a personal bankruptcy. The loan, theoretically, can and will follow you for as long as you live until you pay it off.