Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Student loans are a gold mine for banks. There is no other kind of loan that cannot be discharged on bankruptcy. Think about business loans: every business loan can be discharged on bankruptcy by definition.


The ACA (Obamcare) revamped student loans such that banks no longer got government guarantees for loans they originated. (The GOP unanimously opposed this "Government Takeover" of the student loan system.) This has created a system where the Department of Education makes the vast majority of loans, and offers other companies a small fee for servicing the loans, but they don't originate or profit from them directly- that's all the USG.

Private lenders do try and cherry-pick the very best borrowers out of the federal system; my wife graduated 5 years ago with a doctorate in Pharmacy and >100,000 in debt, and she got many advertisements to refinance her education loans because she was a pharmacist who was paying enough to finish off her loans in 5 years- she was a great bet to pay off her loans in total, so SoFi, Navient and a whole bunch of their competitors wanted her to refinance through them, but only the DoE was interested in paying for her at the beginning of grad school.


But even without this guarantee, this doesn't change the fact that the loan cannot be discharged during bankruptcy (at least not easily). This make such loans much more draconic than business loans.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: