Which would you rather do after graduation: Be up to your ears in student loans for the majority of your life or declare bankruptcy at a young age?

Likely, your answer is neither, but those could be your only options if you find yourself in student loan debt that you can’t crawl out of.

For many students, taking out loans is the only option they have to get an education.

Even those who receive scholarships or financial aid need to take out loans sometimes to help cover the cost of living, tuition and text books.

That’s when the loan fairy comes and drops $2,500 or so in your bank account after you sign a contract we’re pretty sure is written by Satan himself.

But who cares, really?

The banks and/or government give loans out like candy, interest rates for them are generally low and you wouldn’t even have to think about paying them back until about six months after you graduate, when you’re the CEO of Google living in a golden penthouse and going to bed on a pile of money every night.

But what if you don’t land that dream job when you graduate?

What if you’re still stuck at your dead-end part-time job, which you could do half-asleep, hung-over and backward but doesn’t cut it when you have loans to repay?

Congress and Senate are looking into bills that would make repayment options for private loans less strict.

In 2005, a law went into effect that made it nearly impossible to file bankruptcy from student loan debt.

This bankruptcy law was unknown to many students who took out student loans, and the laws weren’t directly advertised by the institutions giving out the loans.

But now, Congress wants to make it easier for people who are swamped in debt from student loans — particularly private ones — to file for bankruptcy.

The government can easily do this now that they’re taking over banks left and right, but we’re not sure if it’s a great approach.

Here’s a quick run-down. There are two types of student loans: federal and private.

Federal loans are issued by the government. Generally, it is easier for borrowers of this type of loan to default, because they are backed by the government which is backed by taxpayers.

In other words, if you can’t pay, then everyone else will.

Next, we have private loans, which are issued by banks and will be most affected by the possible new laws.

These are the loans where it is difficult to default, but are also the type more students have been leaning toward to offset rising tuition costs, because private loans dish out the big money.

Here’s our beef with these possible new laws. We want to know who pays. Who pays when students are lining up in front of judges a couple years after graduation begging for bankruptcy? Taxpayers, that’s who. Even the person declaring bankruptcy is technically paying back their loan by paying higher taxes.

Also, what incentive would banks have to give out student loans if there was a stronger possibility they would never see that money?

Better yet, what would stop them from making crazy-high interest rates as a result? We’re pretty much against the idea of any changes that would make it harder for a student to get money.

Imagine this: You lend five friends money and each one has to pay you back with interest. Now, if only one of those five friends is unlikely to pay you back, you’re more likely to keep that interest rate low because hey, it’s only one of the five.

But if there’s a strong possibility three of those five friends are not going to pay you back, you’re going to want to charge a higher interest rate. Those three jerks just made it worse for everyone.

It is unlikely that mounds of college grads are going to immediately file bankruptcy to get off the hook, but these laws would make it much easier for them to do so.

Bankruptcy is bad and can screw up your financial life. But if you’re a young person who isn’t married and has no kids and no intentions of buying a house any time soon, then it sure would be mighty tempting to eliminate your student loan debt through bankruptcy.

We want students to be able to take out as much money as they need, so instead of focusing on ways out of paying loans back, perhaps the government needs to fix repayment options.

A longer grace period between graduation and pay-back time would help. Or maybe even smaller payments with more time to pay. Or how about fixed payments based on your current income.

Either way, all we ask is that our government not tempt us with a not-so-easy way out of paying up.