The correct approach is to restore student loan bankruptcy, and the rest will attend to itself in a just and fair manner for all parties. That is what bankruptcy is for. To clean out the dead wood. To punish bad investment, and to clear asset-less individuals to return to the open market in a timely manner. Bankruptcy ensures the proper functioning of markets. The banks and the government created this mess. The schools went along with it. The students were deliberately victimized by it. It is only fair that the guilty parties should shoulder the cost of fixing it. Let them eat the bad loans they issued. They knew better when all of this began.