The $1.2 trillion debt has a surging number of delinquencies and it can be attributed to the lack of underwriting standards that the federal government has, which generates support to entertain the idea that student loans should only be available for those who can borrow for higher education.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the US government has little regard whether the borrower has the capacity to pay or not as long as he or she is an American.  The student loan program allows any American to borrow as high as $57,500 for college and more for graduate school. 

Stanford University economic professor, Caroline Hoxby, said the increasing amount of student debt is a "self-inflicted wound" that the federal government got itself.  "It's not a gift to a poor person who is not going to be able to complete a degree program to give them a loan," she adds.

A recent paper published on Brookings Institution study states that those who have defaulted on their student debts are poor, unprepared for college, and have attended for-profit and non-selective schools that offered little to no hope in getting a decent job. On the contrary, those who attended public and private non-profit institutions have relatively lower rates on defaulting their student loans, have decent, steady jobs, and have solid earnings.

The student loan crisis in the US has become miserable. One teacher has a student loan that ballooned to $400,000. This has lead some to call upon underwriting student loans, which limits access for every American to get a shot at a degree and a middle-class income.

According to Salon, however, the government should not be underwriting student loans, but underwrite the weak and complex backend protections for people who fall behind on their payment when other factors in life come to play.

The article also states that there is only one simple fix that could save college grads who cannot pay their student debt because of the accumulated interest rate, and that is to file for bankruptcy. Although discharging education loans from Chapter 7 is exceedingly difficult, it is what bankruptcy laws are supposed to cover in the first place - to give everybody a "fresh start".