Debt, particularly student debt, is a loaded issue. So at the risk of karma, I am posting. In the history of the US there has never been a time where it is eas

Debt, particularly student debt, is a loaded issue. So at the risk of karma, I am posting. In the history of the US there has never been a time where it is easier to take on debt. There has been so much tampering with the natural order of the financial system that many natural checks and balances have been altered, levitated, and in some cases nearly removed. Please bear with me here, this is not an anti-government screed. In 2007, per Federal Reserve Flow of Funds; Household Debt to Disposable Income reached 138%. There are also many other data points that show that since around 2006 we reached economic outlier territory. For comparison, in 1964 this number was just over 65%, and in 1991 was just over 80%. So it kind of went up like a rocket. Their information shows some normalization since 2009, but there is grey area there as they began adjusting their methods of measurement when they varied so far out of norm (in their defense this is what any good statistician would do). Even if you have no doubt in those measurements though there is a solid area of outlier in almost every financial measurement of activity since ~2006. This was actually the Fed Reserve goal, so they were successful in what they set out to do. The issue is that money is inextricably tied to national and individual personality. There will be knock-on effects there, and those aren't or can't be measured. In summary, and reaching my point, I would say that this person was one of many victims that the Fed knows will occur on the way, while making things overall better for the many. His personal response to that event is also IMHO normal. I would do it myself if I could (I have over 80k in student debt). That said, in all economic measurements, there is no account for changes in attitudes towards bankruptcy. In fact, bankruptcies are considered a static number in financial equations, X per year, with some variance as the availability of borrowed funds increases. Therein lies the rub. It is really not possible, or at least extremely difficult, to account for knock on effects that may be deleterious to attitudes. I would suppose this is why they don't include those; they are either considered side cases and too small to account for or like in the case of attitudes towards bankruptcy, not possible to measure. It is perfectly reasonable to fix things that seem broken. It is not realistic though to make changes in vital things like money with measurements taken in a vacuum. Particularly in things so deeply tied to attitudes and personality. Final words, if you can't measure it but you still know it's there, you must make sure you do not affect it. We are too far in human history now and know too much to continue to pretend that changes in critical things don't make a difference except in measurable and temporary ways.