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Comment by nibbleyou | Hacker News Reader

I feel the interests would rise to accommodate for all the bankruptcies that inevitably happen exactly 7 years after

If bankrupcy is allowed some reasonable number of years later (not sure if that is 7 or 10, but some reasonable time) then if your education worked out and you're in a good career path and maybe close to buying a home, etc, declaring bankrupcy would probably hurt more than help.

OTOH if you're still poor after those years and don't care about consequences of bankrupcy then maybe that's fair enough to wipe out the debt since the education clearly didn't provide value.

> declaring bankrupcy would probably hurt more than help.

It wouldn't help at all as you are typically forfeiting all but essential assets by declaring it. The only people who benefit are those with nothing to their name except perhaps the home they live in and the car they drive to work everyday.

A house and a car are an enormous amount of assets for someone 7 years out of college. Leaving bankrupts with "only" enough assets to be in the top few percent of their peers is hardly a hardship.

Bankruptcy must be filed with a court and the creditors get a say. You don’t just wake up and say “I declare bankruptcy!”. A judge would look at your income and tell you to get bent, or at best set up a payment plan. They aren’t going to let a financially solvent person get out of debt. Here’s a quick summary:

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education...

I would think that in this case, credit would mostly go to people expected to not have negative net worth after that 7 year limit.

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