The majority of my loans (about 70k of 80k total) had interest rates above 6%, some were over 8%, and my wife's are about 13%. Considering how low the risk to the lender (in that they can't be discharged in bankruptcy) I would say the interest rates are borderline exorbitant.
the fact that you can't discharge these loans is certainly beneficial to the lender, but it doesn't solve the "blood from a stone" issue.
if you can't make your mortgage payments, eventually the bank sells your house and gets most of the principal back. the interest only has to cover the administrative cost of selling a few houses (possibly at a loss) and then it's all profit.
a certain fraction of people taking on student loans today will never make enough money to pay them off. now the interest has to be enough to actually cover the risk of the lender losing all that money.
even 13% is pretty good for an unsecured loan. according to nerdwallet's loan calculator, this is basically as good as it gets for unsecured personal loans in general. [0]
