Should my wife attempt student loan discharge at time of bankruptcy?

[wipetheslate]

Boy if I could go back 10 years I'd do things very differently. Instead of judiciously making my credit card payments, I'd have focused on getting my student loans paid off as soon as possible. If necessary, then I'd only have had cc debt to worry with in BK. Hindsight's 20/20, as they say.

The wife of a friend of mine who is an academic is a lawyer. One day my friend and I were talking about student loans and he said his wife always told people to use credit cards instead of taking out student loans because of the bankruptcy issue. But schools and the government make it seem like easy money--borrow now and then pay it back when you're making the "big bucks." Well, for a lot of folks the big bucks never come.

As far as your wife goes, yep, you generally get screwed in this case by being married if your income is high enough. Although if she is not able to use her education because of her illness, that still may be grounds for discharge of the loans. It all depends on how much trouble and stress you want to assume.

That said, on a calmer note I guess people in our income bracket should simply augment the loan repayment plan until things like the cars are paid off and then hurriedly pay off the student loans at [(shorter term "X") = current payment + 50% of monthly sum of car payments].

And I always go about advocating against any expensive schooling whenever I get the chance. Even if you are healthy and do finish school, my institution and the companies around where I live don't help their grads and don't hire locals.

[chrisdfw]

Student loan discharge in bankruptcy is not the only option.

Consider some other options
1. If these loans are federal loans, you can apply for IBR, file separate tax returns and could conceivably result in a calculated payment of zero dollars a month.
2. Federal loans have the ability to be cancelled for disability, which is easier outside the bankruptcy process if she is disabled. Loan cancellation is an adminstrative process that does not require all the stuff that a bruner test does