My girlfriend has roughly around 55 thousand dollars of dept around 40 of that is defaulted school loans?

So my girlfriend is getting calls from collectors about the money she owes on her defaulted school loans. They are willing to give her a deal if she pays. The original amount was around 40 thousand dollars before intrest 6 years ago. She also has around 13 thousand on her credit cards. She is in the process of trying to get another loan so she can pay this one off but its not looking very good for her. She is about a year away from finishing nursing school and we had planed on getting a house in about 2 to 3 years, what should she do? Should she file for bakruptcy? I understand this will hurt our chances at getting a house but with this much dept I don't think it matters. She is backed up into a corner. Should she do everything she can to not file or should she just be done with it all and start building her credit over again?

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