[evilduck]

If you took on student loans (incredibly common), you have 6 months before the collectors come calling and survival then requires an additional $100-$1000 income per month. Failure to pay or having insubstantial means to pay can result in substantially larger amounts of interest to repay, substantially longer repayment periods or garnished wages. Since there's no way to escape repayment a debt-encumbered individual has more at risk than a debt-free peer. I think the pervasiveness of student loans and the exploding cost of higher education is dividing equally risk-tolerant people into two paths.

I'm on the "secure" path at the moment to pay off student loans between my wife and I, and we just had a child. My obligations are more than paid for and things are stable, which is good because my family life is happy and fun and I value that highly, but it means that my risky endeavors have to be on-the-side and bootstrapped because doing stuff that's likely to fail now puts 3 people at risk instead of 1. I don't particularly enjoy the jobs I've had, and that gives me motivation to do things for myself.

[nkassis]

I know how you feel man, almost the same situation (no kid yet). My wife is finishing her Masters, I figure once she's done with that and has a secure job, it might be time for me to try something. It's risky but right now we make it with one salary. We've talked about it and she currently says that since I helped her with her dream she can help with mine. I think it's a fair trade.

But I'd be stupid enough to go for it now. They can come after me for all I've got and get pretty much nothing. In the end if you don't make any income, they have nothing to garnish. Naive view of things for sure.

[evilduck]

>In the end if you don't make any income, they have nothing to garnish.

True, but student debt can only be discharged in very limited circumstances and living under the thumb of a debt-collector for your entire life seems like one of the worst choices you could make.

Even with debt, our quality of life is higher than anyone else in our family has ever been, it's been a great enabler of upwards mobility. My wife came from near-poverty and I'm from a lower-middle class household, and we're now solidly in upper-middle class earnings and this is still a relatively low point of our careers. The debt is totally worth it, it's just an additional thing to manage and weights your life choices towards certain things.

[mattbrewsbytes]

Technically (per Suze Orman) the two things declaring bankruptcy will not clear are Student Loan debt and debt determined by Criminal/Civil courts, in the USA.

I found it shocking that those two debt types are on the same level. The student loan one is probably limited to Federal/State funded loans. I imagine if you pay your College bill with a MasterCard then you could get around this.

[WildUtah]

Student loans, child support/alimony, tax debts, criminal penalties, civil penalties, and tax witholding for other people will all follow you even past bankruptcy.

Pretty much all you can get rid of is unsecured consumer debt. A modern bankruptcy is just a way to get out from under your credit cards (or health care debts).