An appeal that sought to make it easier for a person to erase their student loan debt in bankruptcy was rejected by the United States Supreme Court on Monday. The case involved an unemployed Wisconsin man who owed more than $260,000 in student-loan debt from business and law school. “Mark Tetzlaff, 57 years old, said in court papers his alcoholism, depression and criminal record have prevented him from finding a job and repaying his debt. He also twice failed the bar exam.” There is currently a three-part test that most bankruptcy judges use to determine if the person seeking to cancel their student loan debt in bankruptcy faces “undue hardships” as defined in a decades old law. “Student debt has more than doubled since 2007 to $1.3 trillion, and as many as one in four borrowers—excluding those still in school—are 90 days behind on payments, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”
See Brent Kendall and Josh Mitchell, Supreme Court Denies Appeal on Student-Loan Erasure, The Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2016.
