Generally that is true, not true for forgiven student loans.
I didn't see that exception in the IRS Q&A.
The idea makes sense from an IRS prospective. If you borrow money and don't have to repay it, that's income. What the money was spent on doesn't enter the equation unless it's specifically delineated by the IRS.
My guess is that it won't matter for most people. If you've been in the system for twenty five years and still have a balance large enough to make a difference on your taxable income, you've never had much income.
My fundamental issue with all of this is that we created a program to help out people that couldn't afford higher education. That's a good thing, but there were no controls put in place. Clearly that's a problem as we now have a large group of people that can't repay the cost of their education. That "good thing" we did has become a huge burden to the vary people it was designed to help.
We flooded the system with money, drove prices to stratospheric levels, and now have a "crisis" that requires us to add a whole bunch more money to the national debt.
Maybe it's time to consider solving problems by methods other than throwing cash at them.