the following statement from a fellow student needs a reply to

There are a lot more cons of filing bankruptcy then pros. The only pro listed in the reading is that most of your debts are discharged. The cons are that you can lose some of your assets, your credit rating will suffer, and there is a moral stigma attached to it. One of the cons listed actually looks like it should be a pro to me; you may not be able to obtain credit (such as credit cards) for many years. Obviously, credit and debt is what got you in to this predicament in the first place so why should you be able to just get back out there and start building it all over again?

When you take out a line of credit, you are saying that you will pay the creditor back. By filing bankruptcy and not paying back your debt, then you are ultimately hurting more than just the creditor. The creditor has to cover your debt somehow and it could be that they have to raise interest rates of others to make that happen. There are some that use bankruptcy as an easy way out and maybe it should be that we take a tougher stand on bankruptcy laws.

The moral and long term implications for declaring bankruptcy is a case by case basis. I have know people who have declared and some of them genuinely needed it because of an unexpected illness that made them have to stop working (cancer, heart attack, stroke)as well as others that got in over his or her head and just filed bankruptcy to make it all go$$ away. All in all, if you have any other course of action or can plan ahead in case something does happen to you, then it would all be a better option than filing for bankruptcy.