Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you need to qualify for margin and the person who lent you the money agreed to lend it to you knowing that you could BK it. With student loans, the student usually doesn't have an income or assets so there needs to be more incentives to convince lenders to lend money.
I don't see how that reasoning applies to one, but not the other circumstance.
Ironically, I get the sense that the implosion is probably going to come less from it being a previously bloated, overpriced commodity than for now being a perceivably fraudulent one -- IE, students are (justifiably) heated about having to pay the equivalent price of a home to take a glorified webinar from "Zoom University" -- and who can blame them, really?
Now, back on topic -- what happened here was tragic. At some point, Robinhood is going to get actually sued by someone who expects peer level performance (IE TD/tastyworks/etc). It'll be interesting to see what happens there. And, it'll be interesting to see if they are sued (successfully) here. But, nothing is going to bring this young person's life back. How utterly harrowing. We hear so often about deaths of despair as a coded reference to opiate deaths. I know that suicide is a really major risk for startup founders when things go sideways (as well as gamblers), so seeing a new version of that makes me (despite the desensitization of the present moment) experience a new, unique kind of sadness. I hope this poor young man's soul rests in peace.