美国国家公共电台 NPR Turns Out Bankruptcy Can Wipe Out Student Loan Debt After All

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Many Americans who get overwhelmed by student loan debt are told bankruptcy¹ is not an option for them because you can't get student debt reduced or wiped out through bankruptcy. Well, now more judges and legal scholars are saying that's a myth, and bankruptcy can be a way to help. Some advocates want Congress to act to change the laws so student debt is treated the same as any other kind of debt. Here's more from NPR's Chris Arnold.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE²: A few years ago, Lauren (ph), who lives in Queens, N.Y., had a big problem. She graduated college with an art degree just as the Great Recession hit. She had private student loans with very high interest rates. For work, all she could find were retail³ jobs. And by 2016, her loans had ballooned to about $200,000. She remembers thinking...

LAUREN: I can't afford to actually pay my bills and eat and pay my rent. Basically, I was financially handicapped. I mean, my student loan payments were higher than my rent was.

ARNOLD: So Lauren started to look into bankruptcy. She doesn't want to use her last name because she thinks all this might hurt her job prospects⁴.

Now, bankruptcy is not fun. Your credit gets destroyed for years, and you have to be in pretty dire⁵ financial straits for it to even make sense, but you can get your debts reduced or erased⁶ so that you can survive and get back on your feet. But the lawyers that Lauren called said, look; basically, with student loans, it's different.

LAUREN: They had told me things like you have to have a disability where you're not able to even work. And I was like, well, but that doesn't make any sense.

ARNOLD: Many bankruptcy judges and legal scholars agree. Jason Iuliano is a law professor at Villanova University. He says over the past 30 years, Congress has made it harder to discharge student debt. You need to meet what's called an undue⁷ hardship standard. That also means more work for your lawyer. But he says that's created this misperception that it's nearly impossible to get help for student loan debt through bankruptcy. Iuliano did some research, and...

JASON IULIANO: What struck me as a really surprising statistic⁸ when I first uncovered it - there is a quarter of a million student loan debtors⁹ who file bankruptcy each year.

ARNOLD: They do that because they have credit card debt or other debts, and they can get those reduced or erased. But trying to get their student debt forgiven...

IULIANO: More than 99% of the student loan debtors in bankruptcy just give up without even trying.

ARNOLD: But he's also found that when people do try and they pay a lawyer to jump through the extra hoops¹⁰, about half the time, the person gets some or all of their student loan debt erased.

IULIANO: So I think that's really important for bankruptcy attorneys to see that there are judges out there who are willing to grant undue hardship discharges and that people are much more likely to obtain relief in bankruptcy for their student loan debt.

ARNOLD: Just this month, a judge in New York discharged $220,000 in student loan debt for a borrower. And in her ruling, she criticized the fact that even many lawyers, quote, "believe it impossible to discharge student loans." She added, quote, "this court will not participate in perpetuating¹¹ these myths."

ROBERT LAWLESS: Well, I think we're reaching a tipping point with what the bankruptcy courts are doing.

ARNOLD: That's Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois. He hopes that more people are able to get help through bankruptcy, but he says the rules are still too restrictive. He took part in research on the issue for the professional organization the American Bankruptcy Institute, which recommends...

LAWLESS: That Congress rewrite the rules on student loans and bankruptcy and make it so after seven years from when the loans became due, they would be treated pretty much like any other debt in a bankruptcy case.

ARNOLD: There is at least some support for that in Congress.

Harrison Wadsworth is a consultant¹² for the Consumer Bankers Association. He says most student loans are issued by the government these days, but for loans from private lenders, loosening the rules could push up interest rates.

HARRISON WADSWORTH: Lenders have to be more careful about making loans and probably have to charge more for them.

ARNOLD: In Lauren's case, she eventually found a lawyer and, going through bankruptcy, she got her debt reduced from around $200,000 down to around $100,000, and the bulk of that at a 1% interest rate.

LAUREN: It's still a lot of money (laughter).

ARNOLD: Yeah.

LAUREN: Yeah. So for me, like, I was extremely relieved. It is significantly less, and I'm actually able to, like, make the payment. And because they lowered the interest, I'm actually paying off the loan.

ARNOLD: So Lauren says she can recover financially, which, Lawless says, is what bankruptcy is there for.

Chris Arnold, NPR News.

1 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

4 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

5 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

6 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 undue   

adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的

参考例句：

• Don't treat the matter with undue haste.不要过急地处理此事。
• It would be wise not to give undue importance to his criticisms.最好不要过分看重他的批评。

8 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

9 debtors   

n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never in a debtors' prison? 从没有因债务坐过牢么？ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

10 hoops   

n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

11 perpetuating   

perpetuate的现在进行式

参考例句：

• Revenge leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of violence. 怨怨相报会导致永不休止的暴力。
• It'set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. 它的目的只是要根除异端邪说，结果却巩固了异端邪说。 来自英汉文学

12 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。