<prompt> Human: Im not in this situation at all, so its strictly hypothetical, but I had a thought while getting to work today:If you have student debt that you cant default on, could you get a personal loan, payoff your student loan, declare bankruptcy and have it dismissed?Or slightly more ethically, if your personal loan had a lower interest rate, could you use it to payoff your student loan and pay the better rate on your personal loan?Surely something is in place to stop this, but I dont know what it is.  <response>: I believe that if you take out any loan with the intent of defaulting and assuming it can be proven, then that is considered fraud. So you would actually be guilty of a felony. That said, I dont think theres anything stopping you from taking out one form of debt to pay another. I know people whove taken out home equity either from a line of credit or refinancing in order to pay off credit card debts for instance.Also its unlikely youll get a personal loan at a lower rate than a student loan, because a personal loan is unsecured, therefore much more risky to borrowers. Also as noted the student loan is non dischargeable, which is what helps give it a more favorable rate. Anything you could get a lower interest rate on probably is a secured loan car title loan, mortgage, etc. thus youll lose the associated collateral at the very least.On top of that bankruptcy might not get your debts actually discharged. If the judge believes you have the ability to actually reasonable make your payments, then it might not go through, or at best youll get a restructuring where you still have to pay it off. 