Josh Mitchell and Katy Stech Ferek:

The Trump administration indicated Tuesday it is considering allowing more Americans to erase student debt in bankruptcy.

A decades-old federal law prevents Americans from discharging student debt in bankruptcy court unless they prove to a judge’s satisfaction that they face an “undue hardship,” such a stringent standard that few borrowers even try.

The Trump administration can’t change the law without congressional approval. But it can decide how aggressively to fight a borrower’s request to cancel loans in court. The government, the nation’s primary student lender, has traditionally fought such efforts, since any failure to repay loans comes at a cost to taxpayers.

The Education Department said Tuesday it would seek public input on whether the government should clarify when borrowers can discharge loans, a sign the government might ease its stance. The agency pointed to concerns that many student borrowers are being “inadvertently discouraged” from requesting cancellations or getting unequal treatment from judges who use two prevailing methods to define hardship.

Student debt more than doubled over the past decade to nearly $1.4 trillion, and millions of Americans have fallen into default on their loans.