Do Student Loans Deserve Special Debt Relief Measures?

Do Student Loans Deserve Special Debt Relief Measures?
In the past year, the outstanding student loans owed by residents of the United States have grown so rapidly that the compiled funds borrowed for educational purposes by individual Americans now appears to be larger than even the amount of money represented by credit card debt accounts, but these burdens are actually far more insidious. While many students may have originally agreed to sign up for school loans under the presumption that they would be more or less investing in their own futures with an almost one hundred percent guaranteed rate of return, the sad fact remains that our current financial struggles hardly ensure plentiful employment prospects for anyone in any field, and there is no longer special privileges and opportunities reserved for people leaving college or university with an advanced degree.
If anything, the American economy has been notably deadened from the increasing likelihood that the new graduates will wait out the six months or so of the previously designated grace period pounding the pavement to try and find a living wage from an entry level position within an industry that would reflect their recent training. Also, it's important to remember that the nature of educational loan balances differs considerably from other commonly accrued obligations. Consumers who run into debt relief trouble with their Visa or MasterCard spending limits could always just bite the bullet and file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Although declaring bankruptcy would ruin a family's credit ratings for up to seven years and potentially even put their household possessions at risk for seizure and auction by agents of the court, there exists a method by which borrowers could for better or worse discharge all of the debts and start fresh again.
When it comes to automobiles or residential properties foolishly purchased with the help of loans or mortgages whose payments turn out to be more than the owners could consistently afford from month to month, the answers are even easier should worst come to worst. Borrowers threatening to default can just walk away from their claims to title and allow the lenders to repossess or foreclose. With student loans, there won't be any collateral to return to the banks, but legislation enacted by the Congress in the 1990s prevents educational funding from the Chapter 7 protections. Now that the borrowers have to avoid bankruptcy as an option, the creditors are free to garnish wages and attach bank accounts, and the former graduates might be hounded for compensation for the rest of their lives.
This is both unfair to the people and damaging to the nation, as increasing numbers of potential students appear to be frightened away from higher education. Furthermore, since the grand majority of student loans are essentially subsidized by the government anyway, an official measure of forgiveness that would clear the outstanding balances of deserving students unable to afford restitution shouldn't upset the financial community in the manner of a credit card debt relief jubilee pressured by the government (and, even as the vaguest of threats, striking fear in the hearts of lending banks themselves perilously over leveraged). An outright jubilee or managed provisions of debt settlement should hardly drain the federal reserve, and the assistance granted to our country's hardest working young men and women during their early struggles may be repaid tenfold by their later achievements.