How Qualified Student Loans Could Protect Borrowers and Taxpayers. Joe Valenti and David A. Bergeron | August 20, 2013.

“Over the past few decades, student-loan debt has grown dramatically and now exceeds $1 trillion, including more than $150 billion in private student loans. Since the late 1970s, however, Congress has gradually made it increasingly difficult to discharge student debts in bankruptcy. Only a small number of bankruptcy cases involving student debt succeed due to a rigorous “undue hardship” provision of the bankruptcy code that generally allows these discharges only under the most extremely dire circumstances.”