> Think about it: if you come out of college with, say, $20k of debt (granting that this might bring down prices) and no assets, bankruptcy is a very tempting option.
You actually have to convince a judge that's appropriate. And the court has a wide variety of tools at it's disposal to reach an equitable decision. From telling the petitioner to get stuffed all the way to telling the creditors to get stuffed.
Can you cite a case of this happening? As far as I can tell, chapter 7 cases are only ever denied for failing to file properly (missing deadlines, failure to disclose, etc), or kicked over to chapter 13 (which would be pretty remarkable in a case involving the little to no income of most students).
If we were being reasonable about student loan debt Chapter 13 or 11 would be more appropriate than Chapter 7. Both of those allow for debt service to be renegotiated.
Student loan debt is a particularly odious bit of neoliberal policy, forcing students to take on debt for something other societies provide for free, non dischargable and guaranteed by the state.
You actually have to convince a judge that's appropriate. And the court has a wide variety of tools at it's disposal to reach an equitable decision. From telling the petitioner to get stuffed all the way to telling the creditors to get stuffed.