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Comment by terryschiavo22 | Hacker News Reader

I fail to see how this solves the root cause of the problem such that we won't see another student debt bubble arise again in 20 years.

Students loans must be dischargeable via bankruptcy. Until that happens, student loans will continue to be an issue. I feel like Warren is just attempting to score political points here because her poll numbers are dwindling.

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> Students loans must be dischargeable via bankruptcy. Until that happens, student loans will continue to be an issue

Cancelling existing debt and stopping issuing new loans (redirecting federal aid from loan guarantees to eliminating tuition at public universities) would, I think, cure the problem without making loans dischargeable in bankruptcy.

> Students loans must be dischargeable via bankruptcy.

How many fresh graduates would not be bankrupt immediately upon graduation?

Assuming a traditional college student, declaring bankruptcy at 22, with no credit history to speak of, on the one significant debt you have ever been granted, will destroy your credit for at least a decade.

Also, many loans are co-signed, so it isn't just the student affected by bankruptcy.

> Also, many loans are co-signed

Which suggests an industry will simply pop up of lending to parents. Probably wealthy ones.

Anything that doesn't address the ticket price is simply squeezing around air in the balloon.

I never declared bankruptcy, but I did look into it. As I understand it, it's a legal proceeding and you can be denied the request if a judge concludes it's a frivolous claim.

> How many fresh graduates would not be bankrupt immediately upon graduation?

Student loans can be made more easily dischargeable in bankruptcy without being treated as general unsecured debt immediately.

How will there be another bubble when there is no tuition?

Because people will still want to go to private universities, same as today.

To the extent that college serves as a signaling mechanism, people may want to go to private colleges even more than today.

Most of the levers available to eliminate public tuition can also be leveraged to restrain private tuition. It's not like expensive private schools don't lean heavily on the feds for funding, both student and research.

Besides private universities, public universities also charge fees for numerous things. In some states where tuition is controlled by the state, this is how universities get around tuition caps when they need more funds than tuition and taxpayer dollars can cover.

Tuition is only part of the costs of going to college. There's room & board, books, various course fees and charges that aren't actual tuition.

Rather than discharging them in bankrupcy, why not just index the payback according to income?

You know, it's not as if we can't do both.

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