Used to be. Doctors and lawyers would go through a decade of school on loan and then discharge it all and start a lucrative practice. That's part of how we got here.
Purely anecdotal, but I have a friend who went to veterinary school. The school had a literal class teaching all vet students to use IBR forgiveness to get their debt discharged.
It's not quite as abusive as what could have happened when student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy- it takes 20 years and you're taxed on the forgiveness- but I thought it was quite perverse that the institution charging towering sums of money is teaching the students in blanket fashion how to avoid paying it off.
>The only "news article" [1] I can find that references this mentions 0.3% of student loans were discharged through bankruptcy in 1977 [2].
It actually says something much stronger - it says that 0.3% of the value of all federal student loans given before 1977 had been discharged through bankruptcy, not in 1977. In 1977 wouldn't make sense because the amendments making it impossible to discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy were made in 1976.
Just because someone talked about potentially doing it doesn't mean it's true either. If it was three quarters of all 20 year old's would have quit school and worked on their band full time.
Some time ago I was dating an American med student - filing bankruptcy was basically her plan once she is done with studies and residence. She mentioned it's fine to take a hit for ~7 years as she won't be earning much during that time period, and then it should pick up quickly.
It's been effectively impossible to do that since 1976, so while that may have been her plan, I'm not certain she would have been able to follow through.
Can you substantiate this claim? "Doctors and lawyers who strategically go bankrupt to avoid paying student debt" sound like made up boogeymen... boogeymen who perfectly justify parts of the US' 2005 bankruptcy reform.
