I have $30,000-ish in student loans for my MIS, and I keep my loans in deferment status by staying enrolled as a half-time student at the local community college. I typically take web-based classes where I can bulldoze through the assignments and be done with classwork until the next semester. I got pretty good at the web-based format because my Masters was completely online.

Student loans in the US can generally be deferred, but as I understand it dismissal in bankruptcy is likely only if the court becomes convinced that you will never be able to repay -- such as if you become 100% disabled, or are simply too old to earn enough to repay the loans. I figure I can stay enrolled until I'm 85 or so....

I try to take classes that I'm actually interested in or have some bearing on my career or looks good on the resume, but if nothing is available (or when something I wanted gets canceled) I can take literally anything so long as it is for credit AND I don't withdraw from the class (but failing the class is okay). I am enrolled in a degree plan for an Associate of Applied Science in Digital Video because of interest, but the school doesn't nag me about what I take, and I don't care. I could have gone for undeclared major, but when I picked a major the school put an estimated date of completion on my record. I had to go back once already and have that extended. It does have to be an accredited school, but community colleges don't make a habit of turning anyone away and they're usually extremely cheap. Textbooks are often available used on Amazon or eBay or Craigslist but be careful of version.

At one point we moved and the classes I wanted didn't make, so I ended up taking Principle of Real Estate 1 and 2. Moving took too much time and I blew off the class work and (for the first time in my life) deliberately chose to fail the classes. As long as my GPA stays reasonable, I can weather a few bad grades. A + F = C, or A + A + F = B, and getting an A is really easy, so I can fail quite a lot before I end up on academic probation.

My free advice, worth every cent you're paying for it, is: Look into whether you can get your and your wife's student loans put on deferment. (AND PAY CASH OR GET SCHOLARSHIPS FOR CLASSES, DON'T TAKE ON MORE STUDENT LOANS!!!) For me, one semester of tuition costs me about the equivalent of one student loan payment. Your savings would be considerably greater than mine. Interest continues to accrue and get rolled into the loan balance and that compounds the interest, but if you can use the money you free up to pay other credit card debt you can dig your way out of that, and then work on the student loans.

I don't know if you can get your loans put in deferment, but do so if you can. WHETHER YOU CAN OR NOT, it is WAY past time to talk to a bankruptcy attorney. You can probably get a fresh start on everything else that way, put your student loans on deferment for a long time, and get a job -- practically any job -- and start paying the student loans off and getting a life. And if your wife doesn't want a bankruptcy on her credit, consider getting a no-contest divorce and take all the credit card debt on yourself, and then get the bankruptcy. Once you're out of the bankruptcy, you can consider re-marrying. But the feasibility of that approach hinges on your state laws. That's why you need a lawyer.

You do NOT need to gamble on making a successful start up out of your year of meager cash, complete lack of marketable ideas, and further sponging off your in-laws. Anyone, not just you, would be far too likely to end up with no cash and p.o.'d in-laws who decide that their daughter might be welcome to live there but not as long as you are there with her.

I made the same stupid mistake you both did, of taking on huge debt without sufficient thought. You and I, at least, had reason to believe that we needed our degrees to make ourselves stand out above other candidates for jobs. I know that once I am in the job, my work and my ideas will keep me in the job and move me upward, but I need to be able to get past the interviews. I failed to pay enough attention to what the costs were going to be, and to the reputational value of the school I chose. I also spent the extra money I borrowed above actual school expenses to supplement my day job's income. Bad, bad, bad idea. I could have gotten more bang for 2/3 the tuition cost with a degree from my State university, and been instantly admitted to the "old boy's" network that informally influences state government hiring. The school on your degree won't get you the job, but it seems to strongly increase your chances of getting an interview, or at least of getting your resume read.

Your wife made an additional mistake in thinking that she needed an MFA to be a writer. I am a professional writer. You just have to write to be a writer, and subscriptions to Writer's Digest and The Writer are sufficient tools to help you learn what you need to know to write good fiction and non-fiction. She also failed to fully research and understand how much the average writer makes. (Hint: she's finding out now.) Only an infinitesimal fraction of a percentage of writers make a good living writing fiction, or even magazine articles. We all want (desperately) to be as successful as JK Rowling or Tom Clancy or anybody who owns a permanent spot on the best-sellers lists. If you want to make a living as a writer, find a good niche. Write newsletters for homeowner associations, or medical practices, or... whatever niche she can find that needs filling.

My niche happens to be documentation of extremely complex legacy computer systems. But I am an extremely technical technical writer, and I paid my dues by writing a whole lot of Step 1, Step 2-type end user documentation, and learning a lot of really ancient technologies. (My current major project is a FoxPro 2.6 for DOS application that is still in daily use across the entire state of Texas. But we're replacing it as fast as we can.) I've made a good living as a professional technical writer for 30 years and the only writing classes I took were Freshman Grammar and Composition, and one class in creative writing. And zero college classes in technical writing.

You had some bad luck: illness and a really sucky economy and job market. Trying to fix your situation by striking it rich as a software or services entrepreneur makes almost as much sense as loading your burro with fifty pounds of beans, a pickaxe, and a sluice pan, and heading off into the nearest Bureau of Land Management property to take advantage of the 1850-something Mining Act and looking for gold. You have no track record as a rainmaker. So get someone to pay you for managing something and building something, do it successfully, and build up that track record. Then get some good ideas and start building your empire. But don't keep believing that if you wish really hard the next time you see a meteor, you'll create the next Google. Managers and entrepreneurs fail when they focus on the dream and ignore the reality, but they can succeed when they keep a firm grip on reality while pursuing their dream.