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My sister-in-law has decided she wants to take part time college classes so she doesn't have to make payments on her private student loan and her plan is to do this until she dies.

She graduated from college about 9 years ago so you can imagine what's she's racked up in interest and my father-in-law (her cosigner) is starting to get very nervous.

At what point will the private student loan holder stop putting up with this and make her make payments regardless of her taking 6 credit hours? I've tried googling this and so far come up with nothing.

Ben Miller
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Erica Grant
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    Is she taking out more loans every year to pay for the 6 credit hours (I assume per semester), or is she paying that out of pocket? If she's paying out of pocket, how much would the payments be compared to the cost of the courses? – TTT Jul 28 '21 at 03:52
  • She's doing community college classes which are on a quarter system and she's paying cash for those I believe which would come out to somewhere around 4k dollars a year. Her student loan with interest is a little over 100k now so logically she should be using the money for that but her mother has her convinced if she holds out eventually this problem will take care if itself and she won't have to pay the loan... – Erica Grant Jul 28 '21 at 03:56
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    Yikes. Perhaps her mother and father need to get on the same page first...or she could start putting $333/month towards the loan with a customized payment plan instead of throwing it away (unless she's actually getting closer to another degree with those additional courses?) – TTT Jul 28 '21 at 04:10
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    Would she run out of courses eventually? – Lawrence Jul 28 '21 at 10:47
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    @Lawrence Does she have to pass the courses? – Rodrigo de Azevedo Jul 28 '21 at 10:55
  • @RodrigodeAzevedo Oh dear. On reflection, scholarships usually require reasonable progress. Loans ... that might be less clear. – Lawrence Jul 28 '21 at 11:08
  • I'm actually surprised the loan has such a low bar for deferring payments. (Or on second thought, since interest is accruing, maybe I'm not surprised.) – chepner Jul 28 '21 at 14:04
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    What country/state is this? What's the interest on the student loans? Is she using those courses to work her way towards a degree, or is she purely doing it to postpone payments? – marcelm Jul 28 '21 at 14:15
  • A few years back my state started requiring students taking for-credit community college classes to be making progress toward a goal so the state wasn't subsidizing perpetual students. Perhaps that's a limit, or perhaps she's only taking "enrichment" classes that don't qualify. – jeffronicus Jul 28 '21 at 17:25
  • Yeah this is in Oregon and no her classes aren't towards anything my understanding is she has taken many of the same classes over as she's run out of classes to take. And yeah Ramsey is the answer but she doesn't want to solve the problem just avoid. Thanks guys. – Erica Grant Jul 28 '21 at 20:29
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    You may want to be careful posting this publicly. The fact she's openly only taking courses for deferred payment could be enough reason for the private issuer to begin collecting regardless of the original terms of the contract. They have to be met in good faith after all. – TCooper Jul 28 '21 at 23:32
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    She is clearly banking on some sort of blanket federal loan forgiveness, right? Otherwise this makes no sense. – Randall Jul 29 '21 at 00:26
  • Thanks guys I'll accept the answer posted but yes her mother has her convinced this will either be forgiven or they will just take everything her father owns and she won't have to do anything about it they are both fools(obviously). Sorry this is such a silly situation. – Erica Grant Jul 29 '21 at 02:09
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    Anecdote: I signed up for a class, paid for it, dropped it, got a refund, and that was enough to defer my previous college loans for a semester. I considered doing that indefinitely. – blackboxlogic Jul 29 '21 at 02:19

2 Answers2

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You mentioned that this is a private student loan, not a federal loan. There are no standard terms for private loans like there are for federal loans. To find out the deferral rules, you would need to read the terms of the loan.

Your father-in-law, as co-signer, should have access to these terms.

Ben Miller
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    For the record, federal student loans require at least half-time enrollment to qualify for in-school deferral. So the plan outlined in the question wouldn't work for such loans in the first place. – Michael Seifert Jul 28 '21 at 14:23
  • The credit hour requirement for half-time enrollment varies by institution, but at the several colleges I'm familiar with six hours does meet the minimum. – cpit Jul 31 '21 at 03:25
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Money interactions/discussions often draw a lot of emotions out of people and this is often complicated by in-law relationships.

The best advice one can give you is to stay out of this conversation. This is a financial transaction between father and daughter and your involvement will never been seen as positive by either party.

In some cases it is best to remain blissfully ignorant and silent.

In the end your FIL co-signed for 100K in student loan debt. That was stupid.
He took responsibility for paying back that loan when he co-signed. Despite your SIL's behavior being abhorrent, your FIL knew on some level that she was likely never to repay.

You can't say any of that. So for your marriage's sake remain silent.

Pete B.
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    While this is good advice, it doesn't really answer the question. +1 anyway. – Guntram Blohm Jul 28 '21 at 13:17
  • This needs to be a frame challenge, or extended comment, since it doesn't even pretend to answer the question. – RonJohn Jul 28 '21 at 22:51
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    Thanks this was really helpful advice and I talked with my husband and we've agreed that even with my FIL asking for help from us we can't actually help him so we need to tell him to drop it with us, so thank you! – Erica Grant Jul 29 '21 at 02:10
  • @EricaGrant I am glad I was able to help, best of luck to the both of you. – Pete B. Jul 29 '21 at 10:40
  • @GuntramBlohm Upvoting answers that aren't answers is rather detrimental to quality control, enforcement of rules and the future value of questions. – NotThatGuy Jul 29 '21 at 11:46
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    While this is good advice, it doesn't really answer the question. -1 therefore. – user253751 Jul 29 '21 at 12:46
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    You are right that Erica shouldn't get involved in this issue, but in my opinion, her husband probably should apply pressure to the SIL to pay back the load. If the FIL ends up paying the load, it will reduce his inheritance towards the husbant. – user000001 Jul 29 '21 at 16:49
  • I agree with most of this but it goes too far to claim that "FIL knew on some level that she was likely never to repay" with us never having met FIL, SIL, or even OP. OP should stay out of it by also trying to not form judgements about one side or the other's abhorrence or righteousness. – stannius Aug 03 '21 at 17:47