Patriotism = Defaulting on a Student Loan

If you're ever in need of a quick statistic/drunken quip for cocktail parties as to how our lawmakers perversely incentive all sorts of government-fueled fiscally-suicidal behavior, take a look at today's Wall St. Journal:

After paying the companies that actually collect the loans and other costs, the U.S. Department of Education expects to recover 85% of defaulted federal loan dollars based on current value. The recovery figures are quite generous when compared with other corners of consumer debt. Banks, for example, often retrieve less than 10 cents on the dollar from overdue credit cards.
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According to [Mark] Kantrowitz [of finaid.org], the government stands to earn $2,010.44 more in interest from a $10,000 loan that defaulted than if it had been paid in full over a 20-year term, and $6,522.00 more than if it had been paid back in 10 years. Alan Collinge, founder of borrowers' rights advocacy Student Loan Justice, said the high recovery rates provide a "perverted incentive" for the government to allow loans to go into default. Kantrowitz estimates the recovery rate would need to fall to below 50% in order for default prevention efforts to become more lucrative than defaults themselves.

So because student loans are non-dischargeable, the federal government can wallop the private sector on the collection of unsecured debts. The result is that government has no incentive whatsoever to correct the problem because, sure as I'm sitting here, that number would drop right down to 10% (maybe lower) if students could discharge, even if it were only after a time period (my preferred suggestion, if my Congressman is reading). Likewise, government has little incentive to stop lending money anytime soon with that kind of rate of return (representatives don't usually make good bankers, so they're probably not adjusting for inflation).

If the state makes more money on defaulted loans than properly-paid ones, it's seems like it might be one's patriotic duty to let it default and pay more. Fiscal responsibility ceased being an American virtue at the federal government quite some time ago, so why should it promote individuals to keep up the charade?