If you found out that your parent took a college loan out for you behind your back, let it accumulate a load of interest, and then expected you to pay it all back, would you?
Back when this 37-year-old woman applied to go to college, she took out loans to fund her education. At the same time, her dad took out a Parent PLUS loan, and she had no idea that he did this.
Her dad ended up filing for bankruptcy in her sophomore year, which impacted her junior year, since it made her ineligible for as many loans.
She was forced to take off for a semester, and then she only completed one more semester, totaling 2.5 years at school. She then took more time off.
“During lockdowns in 2020, my dad began getting notices about his loan. He asked me about it, but since I didn’t know he had taken the loan out, and I was paying on my own loans, I told him it wasn’t mine,” she said.
“He never paid any of it, and my sisters have gotten involved, saying I now owe about 40 grand on the loan. Here’s the kicker: he could have gotten rid of the loan by rolling it into the bankruptcy, or he could have paid the loan for 120 payments on the minimum while he was working a federal job.”
Her dad is currently retired, and the interest on that loan is now out of control, since he never paid any money towards it. She’s a stay-at-home mom with no income, and she’s unable to pay for a college loan she didn’t even know existed.
Her father-in-law did pass away recently, and she and her husband got the house they live in and the land, so she doesn’t have any extra cash from the inheritance to even pay down the loan.
Her mom’s birthday is today, and she went out to lunch with her family to celebrate. While there, her sister questioned her about when she will be paying the loan off.
“I explained the things above. I told her I was not refinancing the loan to my name, and I didn’t have the extra income to pay almost $400 a month,” she continued.
“She yelled at me, called me ‘selfish,’ told me to ‘figure it out’ several times, saying it wasn’t fair, and my dad didn’t know what he was signing up for, then stormed off. She then sent me a scathing message about it.”
She’s left wondering if she’s a jerk for not paying off the loan her dad took out, since she didn’t even know about it.
Wow, she has to tell her dad and her sister to figure it out, because this is not her fault at all. I don’t understand why her dad didn’t ditch the loan when he had the chance to in bankruptcy.
She can’t let her dad’s bad financial decisions bring her down. That’s all there is to it.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
