Senate and House Bills are currently on the table to reverse the banking industry's heavily-lobbied Bankruptcy law change of 2005...the one that made private student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy:
Project on Student Debt: Letters/Petitions
If these bills pass, all Sallie Mae, Key Bank, Citi, etc. non-Federal student loans will once again become dischargeable in bankruptcy (which they were since the beginning of time until 2005).
I'm sure lots of you will go off on a tangent about personal responsibility--and I'm all for personal responsibility...
I'll say this pre-emptively--if anyone on here wants to go on a rant about how an individual citizen shouldn't be able to discharge debts they cannot afford, then I want an explanation of why a corporate entity blessed with the rights of an individual is able to do the same exact thing even more easily...
Additionally, if you think bankruptcy is simply a handout--think again--bankruptcy acts as a strong disincentive to businesses to make loans to people who can't afford them...looking back on the financial crisis and worst recession we've had in our lifetimes, it is very hard to argue for wildly unregulated capitalism...controls such as bankruptcy laws might be "socialist" to the naysayers, but rational incentives and disincentives are necessary for the functioning of a free market system...
If you don't want individual bankruptcy as a possibility for irresponsible borrowers, then you should push for stricter limitations on corporate bankruptcy...if I can't declare bankruptcy, Key Bank can't either...enough said...