I recall that in 2016 First Marblehead (now Cognition Financial) was offering interest rates of up to 13% (!) and averaging 11% (!!) on NYU tuition ($60k/yr for a 4 year degree). I recall during my application that they were very heavily pushing for me to finance my degree there. Thankfully, I went elsewhere.

The chair of NYU's Board of Trustees at the time was William Berkley. Perhaps coincidentally, he also headed the board of First Marblehead. I'm sure there was no conflict of interest, though.

> Any loan that is charging 6.28% interest and also cant be discharged by bankruptcy

The interest rates are high because so few loans can be discharged by bankruptcy. You can refinance your mortgage with anyone. Far few companies will refinance your student loans.

Meanwhile, it makes prefect sense that bankruptcy cannot discharge student loans. Otherwise, every single student would have crappy credit from 21-28 and no student loans ever.

This Happened to me on loans taken out between ‘07 and ‘10. The liquidity crises meant that banks stopped lending to students, and everyone assumed that interest rates would rise. I got locked into 7.25-8% fixed on roughly 80k in debt which I paid off over the next 10 years. Unfortunately a bout of unemployment in 2010 prevented me from refinancing.

An interest rate on something that is entirely uncollateralized and granted to someone with no income and often no credit history nor assets is usurious at a rate of around 2x that of an owner-occupied house with 20% down, an income of >3x the monthly payments, and a 740+ credit score? That is quite far from obvious to me.

I had 11% interest rates my first two years, but I had to take out private loans.