<prompt> Human: I understand I made a commitment to BORROW money, and I feel obligated to pay it back. I want to pay it back. But...does it make sense to do so?In a nutshell: 124K not including 30K in collection fees defaulted for the second time previous attempt at loan rehabilitation. All monies borrowed from federal sources. Dept of Ed holds all of my debt, with a 3rd party doing the collection. I am told my only two options are 1. paying the entire loan balance -or- 2. Making monthly payments towards the debt. Paying off the debt isnt an option for me. It would suck, but I could afford to start paying between 400-500 per month towards this debt. At about 7, I wont even cover the interest. And even if I could pay the requested 1500 per month, I would still be in default for the duration of payment. So is there any tangible benefit to making arbitrary payments? I wont prevent interest from accruing, I wont touch the principle, and I wont keep myself from a serious default. From the sounds of it, I wont prevent them from tapping into my paycheck either. And lastly...I will mention consolidation. I have been told wildly different things by the same people, so any insight would be priceless. I am not sure I will qualify based on conversations I have had with the Dept of ed. At the very least I owe a few thousand dollars to the IRS, and have un-filed taxes from previous years which makes that process impossible. I am working on this currently, but consolidation talks usually stall around this point since they rely on tax returns for info. ANY help greatly appreciated. I hope my earning potential will increase someday...but I am in my 30s and realized too late that I could never get married, or own anything more expensive than a stick of gum. I am very close to paying off all other debt and tax monies, but the student loans might not EVER go away...and that seems daunting.  <response>: Ive defaulted on my student loans federal and private and I will tell you this. You will never escape not paying on them. They will freeze your bank accounts, they will garnish your wages. In all, it was about 110k. I couldnt afford to pay them at the time, but I did get it renegotiated into much more affordable payments and interest rates. Long story short, get a lawyer that works bankruptcy or with student loan companies. Have them do all the leg work to renegotiate your loan into a more affordable payment package. It will cost you probably 2-3k to have this done to be honest, but will be well worth it in the long term. My loan was restructured to be over roughly 25 years, with a 2 interest rate. Since the student loan companies honestly have you by the short hairs, they wont lower the totals of what you owe, but by extending it over that time frame I was able to bring my payments into something that I could afford to pay. Now, the key part is to NEVER miss a payment, otherwise that deal will be gone, and likely for good and youll go back to the old ratesterms. Right now my monthly payments on both is about 450, but Im paying more as Ive been working hard to get rid of all my other debt. Once my car is paid off at the end of this year Ill be dropping at least 1k per month on those loans to try to get rid of them as fast as possible. There are options out there for you, and yes, they arent guaranteed but its definitely worth a shot to give this a try. Make sure they are good lawyers and youll find a way to make it happen. The loan companies want only one thing from you, and that is the money owed to them that you borrowed. Theyll work with you as they want their money. Now, could you work out a deal with them yourself? Possibly, and the best thing you could do would be to talk to someone in their collectionsloan department to see what they can do. Personally, it was well worth what I paid my lawyer to get them restructured. 