Eliminating student debt through bankruptcy can be tough, but it is possible. This goes against the popular perception that students will be stuck with enormous school debts whether or not they complete bankruptcy. In 2012, the American Bankruptcy Law Journal published statistics that a surprising number of students pulled off a school loan discharge. Even so, it is an uphill battle to win this discharge.

We can take a case in Alabama from last month. The U.S. Department of Education was on one side, fighting to revoke the discharge of $82,000 of school debt that an Auburn alumnus had received. The department said that this employed bankruptcy petitioner did not actually prove that the school loans inflicted "undue hardship".

This is the reason that student loan discharges are perceived as out of reach, since debtors often have to meet the "Brunner test" before they could get this type of discharge. This means proving that:

• School debt reduces a debtor to below a "minimal" lifestyle
• The debtor diligently tried to lower costs and increase income
• Undue hardship would last throughout much of the time require to repay the debt

In last month's court case, the Auburn alumnus was earning $10.50 per hour and living off of food stamps. According to the bankruptcy court that granted the discharge, she could not find better pay because she did not have a "marketable degree" (she had studied sociology). On top of this, child care for her two kids carried a price tag that was thousands of dollars above her income. And still the government fought the discharge. Instead, it wanted her to apply for the income-based repayment program, which would not discharge the debt, but also would use her salary as a base for payments. This would mean that she would not have to actual pay her school debts in her present circumstances, but the school debts would still be kept on her slate.

All that being said, the an article published in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal in 2012 examined 169,000 bankruptcy petitions, and found that only 217 people actually got a full discharge of their school loans. The report also posited that roughly 39 percent of petitioners were able to get a partial discharge of these student debts, however. While that is quite a slim margin of success, that is within the realm of possibility.

Of course, if you are contemplating bankruptcy, there are other benefits and protections you can receive from this process. You may even have other ways of addressing your debt, such as consolidation or negotiation. There could be other ways of handling student debts too, such as an income-based plan. If you are weighed by student loans and other types of debt, don't wait to learn what your options are. Talk to a bankruptcy attorney today!