Unfortunately, you cannot discharge student loans in bankruptcy. This was altered as part of the bankruptcy reform passed in 2005. As a result, it's placed many students and their families who borrowed too much in a very unpleasant position.

If you have mostly government loans, you shouldn't have as much of an issue. Government loan interest rates are lower, and recent modifications allow them to be forgiven after you have paid them for fifteen to twenty years. Any remaining balance can be then be nullified. The terms are more favorable to you as a consumer than private loans as well.

Unfortunately, government loans rarely cover the full cost of education. This leaves many students borrowing from private lenders like banks, Sallie Mae, etc. These institutions have predatory practices. The best strategy for dealing with them is to try to consolidate all private loans together at a lower interest rate.

Then, you simply face the monumental task for slowly paying them back. Try to make more than the minimum payment and knock the balance down as quickly as possible. Remember, there's no way to get out of these loans, unlike virtually every other type of debt. Good luck.

You should try to pay them back. I owed a lot of money and it was difficult to pay back. However if people stop paying back their student loans new students will not be able to get loans. Most people need student loans. They could not go to university or college without them. The system would get really messed up if they stopped giving out student loans.

Spend as little money as possible and work at paying the loans back. If you have a job you can also spend some time making money on the internet. As you pay off the loan the amount of interest is reduced so more of your money goes to reducing the money you owe. If you do not pay it back you are hurting the bank that lent you the money, other people that want loans and the schools.

I was not making very much money but I paid off the $20,000 plus interest that I owed.

You can file for loan forgiveness or even file bankruptcy on loans but you will have to file bankruptcy the traditional way. You will not have credit for 7 years after filing so be aware of that.