Poll: Just not sure what to major in for grad school and which direction to go!

[MNomadic]

Nothing useful to contribute here.

[Randyb100]

You should not twist my words nor make assumptions. I never said I was ok with predatory lending.  I used to work for a HUD program to help low income families qualify for responsible home ownership and avoid predatory lenders.  

You said you are broke.  Then you said you aren’t really broke, you’re just going to file bankruptcy so that you don’t have to pay for the debt you chose to create.  So, you want to work the system for a free ride basically.  That’s messed up.  You just brought up bad practices that are out there and are using it to justify your poor choices.  

Bankruptcy exists for people who fall on hard times due to something that is out of their control.  If it’s due to poor decisions, then you have to go through counseling so you can learn from your mistakes and not repeat it.  It doesn’t exist so that scammers can get get a free ride.

Look inward, not outward.  Bad business practices of others is not justification for poor personal decisions

It's fine for you to do that to me, though. Look at how many millionaires and billionaires filed for bankruptcy. Even President Trump's businesses filed for bankruptcy protection. It's just restructuring my life. It's an option available to me, as to all, and would greatly benefit my future. The system is designed to include it, so why not use it? 

You're assuming a lot about people. Why are so many successful people filing bankruptcy, then? 

You probably will do the same some day, and think that you're different than anyone else. You're just being smart about it. You'll be doing the same thing as I and a lot of other people do. It's simply about a credit score and debt, nothing more. The world does not revolve around credit to many people.

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Bankruptcy and mergers are not the same thing. Not even close. Please don't compare corporate bankruptcy to personal bankruptcy. They aren't the same thing. While FHA may accept applicants 2 years after filing, you will have additional hoops to jump through including much higher interest rates. the court administrator has to provide a letter stating that you can afford the mortgage and they can deny your request as they are in control of your finances. Student loan forgiveness is not what you're making it sound like. There are zero guarantees that Biden's plan will survive the courts. You also cannot discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy court. Please do some real research on this and how it can hurt you for 10 years after you pay off your creditors. It's no joke. Everything will cost you significantly more. You could have trouble getting things as basic as utilities put in your name. Some will require massive deposits. Some companies will want a co-signer. The interest rates will be sky high. You need to think realistically about the long term when it comes to bankruptcy. You'll be paying it for years through the court system. It will impact your employment options as well because it will be on your credit reports. Even once it's discharged it will show up in clearance searches for years. It can really mess up your life. It's not all happy rainbows.

It doesn't sound like you have a real plan for school right now. Like you're still trying to figure things out with school. Don't go into debt and take more classes until you figure out what career you want and what degree you need to get there. It sucks taking classes that are totally useless. It feels like the ultimate waste of time and money.

You simply misunderstand what I'm saying. 

The two do share similarities. It's all about the financial structure. Company buyouts happen all the time. Companies merge due to bankruptcies a lot, or to settle debt before it's needed. 

In a chapter 7, there's no court administrator after a few months. That's a chapter 13. 2 years is far longer and I will have a clean slate. It also has nothing to do with student loans. I never said I intended to bankrupt on them, but I did say that there has been efforts to reform the bankruptcy code to include them with the recent president. In the future, there is a high likelihood that they will be forgivable. There are accounts of people having them wiped clean already, though. Again, not my intent or what I said. It's everything else.

I don't work in industries that require a good credit score. I'm already employed and a business owner. I have separate business credit and an LLC over 3 years old with its own income. 

It doesn't sound like you have a solid grasp on the reality of bankruptcy and why one would consider doing it. Nothing in my life is credit-based at all. I live in a state with no wage garnishment law. If I bankrupt, nothing really changes except for some arbitrary figure in a database that says I owe such and such to I owe $0. Then another arbitrary figure drops to a low number on a scale for a few years, then slowly goes back up. 

I had mentioned international travel where US credit won't apply whatsoever in any way, and my income will be fully exempt from taxation. 
I had only mentioned my student loans due to the time frame because I need to secure them before filing. I'm already in the process and have the attorney paid. It's just postponed until I start grad school so I at least have the first year paid off. Again, those loans will still exist. My loans are all current but they've always been a $0 payment because that's just how IBR works. If it wasn't intended to work that way, they would not have designed it to work that way in the first place! 

I'm not so masochistic that I will spend the bulk of my earnings to pay all of this off and live a worse lifestyle than I do now (not saying that I do because I do pretty well in my Range Rover eating ribeyes twice a week, living in a major city, etc.). To intentionally make my situation worse by basically giving my money away when I could do what I'm doing now is simply foolish. I have no love for creditors, and most of them are conmen preying on desperate people. That is something I mentioned before and nobody else addressed. They just took the position that bankruptcy=bad decisions when it is a great decision.

Why would I not clear my debt so when I'm done with grad school I can move and get a house anywhere, get a new car if I chose to (I drive trucks and motorcycles anyway), etc.? Why would I not just stick everything into a retirement account like I've been doing since it's tax-exempt and bankruptcy exempt and just save it back for my own future? 

I only see my decision as smart and am surprised of the negativity here. Try Bogleheads or Creditboards. They all recommend it.