Since 1976, Congress has progressively amended the bankruptcy laws to treat some types of student loans differently from other unsecured debt. In 2005, student loans originated by private companies — loans granted only to credit-worthy individuals and risk-priced at origination — were added...

Bankruptcy reform in 2005 restricted debtors' ability to discharge private student loan debt. The reform was motivated by the perceived incentive of some borrowers to file bankruptcy under Chapter 7 even if they had, or expected to have, sufficient income to service their debt. Using a national...

Bankruptcy reform in 2005 eliminated debtors' ability to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy. This law aimed to reduce costly defaults by diminishing the perceived incentive of some private student loan borrowers to declare bankruptcy even if they had sufficient income to service...

The widespread discussion about the market for law graduates ignores an essential fact: it's not a single market at all. Employment opportunities vary dramatically across schools, yet tuition prices fail to reflect those differences. As a consequence, many schools with the worst placement rates...

A sample by Iuliano (2012) estimates 169,774 student debtors filed bankruptcy in 2007 but only 213 debtors (0.13%) also filed a costly Adversary Proceeding attempting to prove that repayment of educational debt would impose undue hardship. In 50% of these undue hardship cases student debtors...

Over 300,000 student loan borrowers have applied to the Department of Education for administrative relief from federal student loans on the ground that they were deceived or otherwise victimized by their schools. The Department adopted relatively borrower-friendly rules for this process in 2016....

Multiple extensions of the federal student loan forbearance program since March 2020resulted in a temporary payment pause that lasted more than 3 years. We examine theimpact of long-term forbearance on the evolution of borrowing by distressed individuals.We observe substantial increases in...

Since 2010, all federal student loans have been made directly by the government. But before that, most federal student loans were made by private creditors such as banks and backstopped by the Department of Education (ED). More than 10 million Americans still owe more than $238 billion in loans...

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were approximately 7.7 million student loan borrowers in default on approximately $168 billion in federally-held student loans, including Federal Family Education Loans (“FFEL”) and Direct loans. Though borrowers have in theory been able to get out of...