Bankruptcy can still affect you for many years and make it impossible to qualify for a mortgage or even sometimes to rent an apartment or purchase a car, even a used one. The same people who needed to take out a lot of loans are much less likely to have family to help them out with a vehicle or a down payment or to cosign a loan. College grads (and perhaps tech/trade school grads) are still locked out of the housing market, unable to marry, etc. And they are less likely to have had financially savvy parents who could adequately advise them regarding student loans in the first place, making them even more vulnerable to predatory loan practices, or just unwise undertaking of student debt.
Bankruptcy doesn't ruin you, although it does hurt you. It is not impossible to qualify for a mortgage with one on your record. It has a negative impact on your credit report for 7 years, but the negative impact decreases yearly.
There are college grads who feel locked out of housing, marriage, etc, simply because of their large student loan debt - something this mere $10k won't actually make much of a difference in. When the debt is over $50k, that's actually worse for your financial situation, including your credit report, than a bankruptcy that wipes the slate clean.
Bankruptcy protection would be exceptionally useful in the case of predatory loans, as then the lenders "get what's coming to them" when they don't get their money back.
I wonder if there's been any sort of study to determine the relationship between major chosen and how onerous the debt has been. I suspect that there will be proportionally fewer engineers getting this relief and proportionally more oppression studies majors.