For nearly 15 years, U.S. Navy veteran Kevin Rosenberg owed six figures in student loans.

But on January 7, 2020, a New York judge ruled that the $221,385.49 in student loan debt owed by Rosenberg as of November 2019 was dischargeable under chapter 7 bankruptcy.

“I have a chance now to have a life,” the 46-year-old Rosenberg told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

A bankruptcy expert told Yahoo Finance that Rosenberg’s case is a watershed in that it dispels the notion that student loans were not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

“What I found most fascinating, and I think heartening, is the very strong language that the judge used to call out on what she calls this quasi-mythic status of student loan non-dischargeability,” Jason Iuliano, an assistant professor of law at Villanova University and an expert on bankruptcy, told Yahoo Finance. “I've never seen it put quite so pointedly before in a judicial opinion like that.”

After more than a decade of going through the student loan system — making on-time payments, following up with loan servicers, keeping up with the paperwork — he was finally free of his student debt.

“I can't give anybody legal advice,” the former naval officer stressed before sharing his story.

View photos (Photo: Kevin Rosenberg) More

‘Having this debt, it would ruin relationships for me’

American borrowers hold more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loans as of November 2019, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

That number has been rising steadily over the past few years and has reached an inflection point: From presidential candidates proposing cancellation of student debt — Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) pitched a plan that makes it easier to declare bankruptcy for student loans — to companies offering to help pay off their employees’ student debt, addressing the issue has become a priority.

But politics wasn’t on Rosenberg’s mind.

His journey with student debt began in 1993, according to the lawsuit, when he took out student loans for his undergraduate degree. He kept up healthy financial habits, repaying his loans faithfully, until he served in the United States Navy on active duty for five years. After completing his tour of duty, he started law school at Cardozo in New York, for which he took out additional student loans.

After he graduated in 2004, Rosenberg consolidated his loans and held a little more than $116,000 in student debt as of April 2005. That number ballooned to about $221,000 over the next 14 years.

View photos Outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. sits at $1.6 trillion. (Graphic: David Foster) More

He then passed the bar exam in New York and New Jersey and joined a law firm before deciding that a law career wasn’t for him.

“First of all, I realized the whole job is sitting in the office by yourself,” Rosenberg said. “You can't be creative at all, but also that you either help people out or you make a good living — you can't do both. And I kind of had a problem with that.”

Rosenberg left the law firm to pursue various entrepreneurial pursuits, the latest of which was an online equipment-rental and guide service featured in a New York Times article. But a combination of events over the years — the Great Recession, the death of retail, as well as personal issues — led to some setbacks, which resulted in periods of uncertainty and financial problems compounded by his student debt.

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