Child stuck us with her student loan debt

Margie280

New Member
My 26 year old step-daughter graduated from college in 2014 with a nursing degree. She has not passed her boards and works P/T as a waitress. She has gotten messed up with drugs and a bad crowd of friends. She has lied about studying for her boards for an entire year; She lies about every little thing these days. Her mother passed away when she was young and we all believe that she has never gotten over that. She has always been very angry. We forced her to go to counseling 5 times throughout her life, but you can’t force someone to realize they need help. She IS angry at her dad for remarrying at the age of 37. She has always hated me because I was the one who married him. We have been married 16 years now. She has a low self-esteem; not many friends. The friends she has are drug dealers and users. She had to move home after she graduated because she couldn’t afford to live on her own anymore. She brought the illegal drugs into our home and the car we provided for her. We had to give her a car when her car died her senior year of college and she was a poor starving college student and needed to get to and from her clinicals. Yet she could buy drugs all the time. We have been snowed for a long time. We wanted nothing more than for her to succeed and get her nursing degree because her student loans after six years of school were mounting. “SHE” decided to continue her juvenile ways and party for the past year rather than get a big girl job. My husband and I met with a counselor on how to handle her and how to stop enabling her. The counselor suggested a contract where we ascertain tough love and give her 30 days to get a full-time job, drug test her and commit to a date to take the nursing boards. She has needed to be pushed into doing things her entire life, so this was the BIG push we thought would jump start her. She agreed to the contract, even though she thought it was stupid and made sure she told the entire world (her drug friends) what we were doing. The 30 days came and she decided that she was no longer going to live in our house by our rules and that we will NOT drug test her and that her $1200/month student loans that my husband alone cosigned were no longer her problem. She left in July and we haven’t heard from her since. We hear from one of her brothers that she is safe, but we don’t want to put him in the middle. Her brother has partied with her in the past, but he has told us that he’s tired of what she’s doing and that it’s just not right to stick us with her financial responsibility. Her brain must be fried from all of the drugs she has done or continues to do, in order to do this out of the blue. This isn’t the child we raised. I always thought she was an angry child that had a lot of emotional baggage, but that she would eventually grow up when she graduated. In fact, she can be angry and hate us for all that we’ve done FOR her, but to run from her financial responsibilities and stick us with another mortgage is too much to wrap our brains around. We realize now we shouldn’t have co-signed, but obviously it’s too late. I would love advice from people who have been in a similar situation or know of others in this situation and what they did. It’s killing my husband that she is doing this to him.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
Hi and welcome, Margie

$1200 per month payment for her student loans?????

OMG! I can't even imagine that! All three of my adult kids had student loans and the payments for all three combined didn't add up to that much! And they have Masters Degrees. (They paid their loans themselves)

I am so sorry for you!

I hope someone will come along with some experience in this area. I do want to welcome you to the forum and hope that you will stay with us and share your experiences. I don't know if you have any recourse, other than a lawsuit. I hope there is something that can be done.

Apple
 

Margie280

New Member
Hi and welcome, Margie

$1200 per month payment for her student loans?????

OMG! I can't even imagine that! All three of my adult kids had student loans and the payments for all three combined didn't add up to that much! And they have Masters Degrees. (They paid their loans themselves)

I am so sorry for you!

I hope someone will come along with some experience in this area. I do want to welcome you to the forum and hope that you will stay with us and share your experiences. I don't know if you have any recourse, other than a lawsuit. I hope there is something that can be done.

Apple



Thank you, Apple, for your reply. It was a private school for six years and we thought it would all be ok since she would be a nurse making $75K/year. What fools we were. Our other children together only have $5K in student loans due to scholarships and federal grants and we didn't need to co-sign anything. It's the drug friends giving her poor advice and the drugs frying her brain that worry me. The lenders will not work with us, unless they get her signature. She will not sign anything. That's just crazy that she won't sign anything to reduce her debt! She won't even sign a life insurance policy we want to take out on her, in case something happens to her. So far it sounds as if we will be getting a judgment against her. How ugly. Hopefully this will wake her up when she actually realizes her parents are suing her. Not sure what she will consider "rock bottom" for her to come back and grow up and realize her responsiblities.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Have you checked into options to paying a lower amount based on her salary? I'm sure you have done that but had to ask anyway. We cosigned a student loan for our daughter but she was suspended after the first semester so it was a small amount. That taught us to never cosign a student loan for her again. I'm really sorry, the student loan debt problem is awful in this country.
 

Margie280

New Member
Have you checked into options to paying a lower amount based on her salary? I'm sure you have done that but had to ask anyway. We cosigned a student loan for our daughter but she was suspended after the first semester so it was a small amount. That taught us to never cosign a student loan for her again. I'm really sorry, the student loan debt problem is awful in this country.


Hi Nancy! Thank you for your reply. The lenders can't get a hold of her; she is AWOL. We gave them the address of where she works and her new phone number and she makes enough as a waitress to pay these loans if she lived back at home and didn't buy drugs. She doesn't want to live at home and doesn't want to become a nurse. I can't imagine having a degree I worked so hard to get, knowing I will make the big bucks and not pursue it. This is all so new that I have not yet wrapped my brain around all of it. We are still in the devastation phase.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
If she is involved in drugs she must know that she will never get a nursing job. Some of the repayment options only require you to pay a certain percentage of your income in repayment and it is forgiven after 10 years. I believe nurses may be one of the professions that applies to.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
It doesn't make sense that you can't modify the loan without her signing off on it, yet you are stuck with paying for it!
 

Margie280

New Member
It doesn't make sense that you can't modify the loan without her signing off on it, yet you are stuck with paying for it!


I know. It's crazy! It even sounds illegal and that we have no rights, but yet 100% responsible to pay up or that they are a predatory lender. I wonder if they would act differently if they were speaking to an attorney, but then an attorney costs money.
 
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