Obviously, defaulting on debt is immoral, unethical, unmanly, whatever you want to call it. But that doesn't matter and it's useless to talk about it that way.

Obviously, defaulting on debt is immoral, unethical, unmanly, whatever you want to call it. But that doesn't matter and it's useless to talk about it that way. The reality is that lots of students are taking on way more debt than they can't handle. Because discharging that debt is not an option in most cases, bad debt remains on the books with the assumption that it's good debt and can be repackaged and priced accordingly. Say what you will about morality, this is a financial catastrophe in the making. A huge amount of this debt will never be paid back. 50k at 9% can't be paid back by someone on a Starbucks wage. When letting the government garnish your wages becomes less expensive than servicing the interest on your student loans, only a fool would continue to pay on them. That's not a political opinion, that's math. We need to be realistic about this. Frankly, if people walking away from their student loan debt does anything to deflate this bubble, I can only see that as a net positive.