can part of your student loans be included in bk7 inadvertantly? i got my statement to begin paying my student loans back and it's not as much as i though it was. by over 20k so i was wondering if some of it may have been discharged. thanks.

Student loans originated before Oct 1, 1996 may be 'eligible' for discharge but I have seen few federal judges allow this. If you have loans this old, that may be a place to start. Also look at your bk discharge papers to see what loans (if any) the judge actually discharged.

Make sure your statement to repay your federal loans includes all of your loan debt. If you changed schools, changed lenders, or had other loans such as a Federal Perkins loan, these may be handled by different guarrantors.

Try the NSLDS website and see what your balance actually is. There will be a notation of bankruptcy or discharged in bankruptcy.

www.nslds.ed.gov

i know i saw some notations but when i spoke with my atty she said that student loans were not discharged and when i got my discharge papers they just said whatever was listed was discharged and i know i included my student loans but not all of them and some were prior to 96 so maybe that's what happened. i will check and verify everything. thanks.

Damn I consolidated my undergrad Pre-1996 loan into my new grad loans. So I guess I can't include that in BK. I wonder if I can include a MEFA loan in my BK. It is a private state loan from Mass. I will try...The other Stafford loans alone are going to kill me!

i filed bk7 before i consolidated (i consolidated too early anyway) and my first loans were in 95. so i call and can never get anyone on the phone. bugs the hell out of me.

ah...Well I will let everyone know what happens. I am going to bring all my SL statements to the attorney and see what they say. I cant get this done fast enough!

Wrong. This is from the Nolo Law site...

<<No matter how old they are, student loans are not dischargeable in Chapter 7 -- unless you convince the court that paying them would cause you undue (extreme) hardship. And that is a rather tough nut to crack.

A bankruptcy court will discharge a student loan for undue hardship only if it believes you will never be able to pay the loan back, such as when you have a permanent disability and no future ability to work. In that case, you can also apply to the Department of Education for a cancellation of your loans based on permanent disability.

Some bankruptcy courts don't require quite such dire circumstances. Even if you're still able to work, if you can prove that your income is will never be sufficient to pay off your loan while maintaining a minimal standard of living, that's enough "hardship" for courts in the western U.S. (those in the jurisdiction of the 9th and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeal). However, even in these courts, you will still be denied a discharge if you have not made a good faith effort to pay off as much of the loan as you can, under the various non-bankruptcy programs available to reduce your student loan burden.>>