This war was won when the special interests slipped in certain changes to the barkruptcy code circa 2005. Prior to that, student loans could (like any other) be discharged. The government (not wanting to fund poor students) basically created these "off balance sheet" funding mechanisms through their extensions of loan guarantees. Again, this is very much the same thing that was done with the credit g'tees for the Mortgage GSAs.

What's even worse, is that the money just goes right to the colleges inflated overheads. No student ever "sees" the money from the loans. In this case, the cost of the schools just keeps going up so that the loans remain ~80pc of the cost of a degree. Now, how much money is in the Harvard Endowment? Stanford? Princeton? Massive amounts growing far in excess of inflation, and all Tax free. Why are these places even allowed to charge fees for tuition??