Question: I’m wondering if anyone knows the answer to this:
I lived with my husband throughout his graduate school career during which he took out 40K in student loans. I worked throughout that time and contributed over 50% to our household expenses (we rent, don’t have any other debt or any assets). We got married during the final year of graduate school. My question is this: am I now at all responsible for any of his graduate school debt even though I didn’t benefit from it? What if he were to try to declare bankruptcy at some point? What if we were to get a divorce at some point? We are not planning either but I’m curious just what my responsibilities would be.
Answer: If the date the loan papers were sign predates the date on your marriage certificate, theoretically you should not be held responsible for any portion of your husbands student loans; unless…..
During the time you were living together you were residents of a state which recognized common law marriages. If you were, then that could have some bearing on whether or not you *could* be held responsible. Actually,if the student loan was an “official” loan, i.e. stafford, etc. i don’t think you would be held responsible at all. These loans are the responsibility of the student, not the family of the student. This is a different situation from someone “putting” another person through school, i.e. paying thier tuition, etc. I do know that if my husband were to pass away, I would not be responsible for his student loans even though we were married during part of the time he accumulated them (though his estate would have to go toward paying them off). The bank would just have to eat the loan (or the guarrentor of the loan). I am not completely sure though, any financial aide office person should know, just call up the financial aide office. usually, they don’t ask for names or student id numbers for general questions and they are not bank personel so they *should* be more concerned about the people involved.
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