Many young adults complain that they will be trapped in student loan debt for the rest of their lives. It could be worse: yes, really, worse. A young woman in Kansas died of cancer shortly after graduating from college, and the lenders of her $45,000 in student loans decided to come after the balance from her estate: in her case, her parents. Because every grieving family needs to fight banks.

All of the woman’s lenders quickly agreed that her parents were not legally obligated to pay her student loans, since she was an adult and her parents never co-signed. Except Wells Fargo, which insisted that her heirs owed the bank $6,000. The company mysteriously changed its mind when contacted by a local TV station about the family’s situation.

Student loans generally die when the borrower does; if a family member or spouse co-signs or spouses consolidate their loans together, then the surviving person is responsible for the entire balance.

KCTV5 Investigation: Heartbreaking Dilemma [KCTV] (Thanks, pstokely!)

(The word “never” was left out of the first sentence of the second paragraph of this post, which makes a huge difference in the facts of this story. Apologies for the confusion.)

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