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Lending A Hand Instead Of Breaking The Bank: The Imperative Need To Resolve The Circuit Split For Determining Undue Hardship For Section 523(A)(8) Student Loan Discharges, Rucha Pandit

William & Mary Business Law Review

The Bankruptcy Code permits petitioners to discharge their student debts if they are able to demonstrate that their loans impose an undue hardship. Somewhat frustratingly, the Code does not define what exactly constitutes undue hardship in the context of student loan discharges. Moreover, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has broken its silence to offer guidance on the issue. As a result, the rest of the federal judiciary has been once again, left to its own devices.

Over the past few decades, the Brunner and totality-of-the-circumstances tests have emerged as the standards that federal circuits choose between to assess whether …