Advertisement
UK markets closed
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • HANG SENG

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    83.11
    +1.76 (+2.16%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,254.80
    +42.10 (+1.90%)
     
  • DOW

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • Bitcoin GBP

    56,134.32
    +1,515.18 (+2.77%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • NASDAQ Composite

    16,379.46
    -20.06 (-0.12%)
     
  • UK FTSE All Share

    4,338.05
    +12.12 (+0.28%)
     

Increasing accessibility to bankruptcy for student debtors

Yahoo Finance’s Aarthi Swaminathan breaks down the bipartisan effort to better enable borrowers to seek a student loan discharge in bankruptcy.

Video transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: A bipartisan bankruptcy reform bill aims to let borrowers do something that they could never do before, and that's discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. We have Yahoo Finance's education reporter Aarthi Swaminathan here with us now with details. This would be such a change and such a difference, Aarthi. Tell us a little bit more.

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN: Yes, yesterday, Senate Majority whip Dick Durbin as well as Senator John Cornyn-- noting these two, because it was a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress to provide student loan borrowers with a fresh start. Because as far as we know for the past couple of decades, it has been such an impossible standard to meet just to get a bankruptcy court to allow you to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy. So you're basically stuck with it for how many years, right? We've heard of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s with student loan debt.

ADVERTISEMENT

But the reason why this specific bill is highly significant is because it allows student loan debt to be treated like any other debt-- like credit card debt, like auto loan debt. But also, it's a very palatable option for many people who are very averse to student loan forgiveness. We've heard of those proposals to cancel $50,000, $10,000. This is something that I heard yesterday during the hearing-- a couple of Republicans actually said, this is something that we would be willing to throw our weight behind.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, we're going to have to leave that there, but definitely some good news for some of those borrowers. Again, it was practically an impossibility before. Hopefully it'll be a lot easier now after those changes are made. Yahoo Finance's Aarthi Swaminathan, thanks so much for coming on and giving us those details.