Brought to you by the Every Dollar App, start budgeting for free today. Today's question comes from Christian in Tennessee. My wife and I went to college and racked up significant student loans. The crux of our problem is that part of it was on a parent plus loan that's under her father's name. Her father and mother would like to get rid of that loan. They want us to take it on, we're in no way, shape, or form in a position to take on, what has now turned into a $60,000 loan we feel bad, want to help out, but don't know what to do. I hate parent plus loan. I do too. I do too. Thanks for picking me up there, my headphones got all tangled up and I was stumbling and bumbling. Okay, Dave, tell me if this rings true with you. I'm 18 years old, mom and dad have it in their heart that they want to make me happy, so they cosign for this loan, for this thing that's not a cosign, it's a parent plus loan. They just borrowed it. It's not a thing that we can't afford, assuming there was not an agreement around a kitchen table that we're going to take this parent plus loan, but you're going to be responsible for it. Now they're realizing, oh, this is a $60,000 loan and they're not in shape to pick it up and we can't keep carrying this thing, so we need y'all to take it on. At the end of the day, mom and dad signed the loan, they signed the loan, they signed the loan. Yeah. You know, there's a legally, just from a legal perspective, obviously, Christian does not owe the money. Period. End of story. Okay. So if you just say no, they got to pay it legally. Now morally, did you promise them when, did she promise them, her father and mother, did she promise them that she would take on the loan after she graduated and they just took the loan out on her behalf on a handshake morally? If that's the case, then you have a different kind of a contract, although it is a contract. It's not a legal contract, but it's a morally binding. She gave her work in which case you guys have a loan. Now you can't just take on the loan. You can take on the payments. You can pay off the loan. You're not in a position to do that, but you could pay extra payments and pay off the loan. You can treat it like it's your loan, but legally it never comes out of their name until it's paid off. You can't just decide, I'm going to move this to somebody else's name, then I'll let you do that. Okay. And there's not a consolidation that consolidates your loan into my name, there's no such thing. Okay. So it's going to stay there in their name if you pay payments and you pay extra payments to get it paid off until it is paid off. But I'm with John, I think the thing that is not in your question, not in your email here Christian is, did your wife promise her mom and dad at the time they took out the loans that she would take it on after graduation? If she did, then the two of you need to take it on 100% you need to take it on. If she didn't, then I'm sorry that they are inconvenienced by their former decisions. Her mom and dad took on a loan. I'm not really sorry. That was sarcasm. But yeah, big girl, big, big, big daddy, big momma done signed up for this thing and then they're going to dump it on the kids because I don't like it now. Yeah. And to get a parent plus loan, that means you've taken out a whole bunch of other loans too that is your wife's probably carrying, right? And if you met at college, you probably got student loans too. So I can see this whole thing being a big mess here, David, and this is why we say this over and over and over and over. The number of times this turns into a rift in the relationship between parents and their kids is so high. Yeah. It's approaching 100%. Just don't do it because you're going to you're going to pay for it relationally down the road. It's just not worth it. Don't borrow money for other people and don't cosign for anything ever under any circumstances. 100% of the time it's go sideways, boys and girls. So my little brother needed a car, so I borrowed the money 100% of the time. My boyfriend wanted a car, so I borrowed the money 100% of the time you end up being a caller on this show and entertaining the rest of America with your foolishness. Yeah. If your little brother needs a car and you can give him one, give it to him, but don't borrow money and say, okay, we're going to have a payment plan is your kid wants to go to college. You want to make them happy? Teach them to work. Don't pick a college they can afford or don't go to college. Go be a welder. I don't care, but don't go in debt. Go spend 10 grand and go to code school and make 150,000 bucks of coding, okay? But don't go in debt. This is the student loan stuff is absolutely stupid. It's so out of control. It's people are putting off having children and buying homes because the student loans we must forgive them, but we continue to make them. This is so intellectually dishonest. On one side of these politicians mouth, they whine and cry about the poor little people who have gotten themselves destroyed by these student loans and it is horrible. And now the other side of their mouth, they keep making the stupid loans. Congress, hello. If you have screwed up the culture with these loans, stop making them. Hello. What other time in history could an 18 year old go down to the bank and convince a banker to loan them $145,000 to go play beer pong? What other time in history could this happen? Every time another in history a banker would look at you and said, you a dad gum fool, son. He said, it's basically a small business loan and I'm the business. You shouldn't loan me money. It just doesn't make any sense. It's the dumbest program ever, but it is all predicated on the idea that education solves everything and education doesn't solve stupidity, turns out. It exasperates it. So especially when you add with education, the idea, I need to go to a famous school. I need to go to a school that's well known. So now I'm really going to go deeply in debt and get a degree in left handed puppetry. So I can owe 260,000 bucks and be a barista. This is what this crap has created and you and I, boys and girls, the taxpayers are paying for that. Christian, I'm so sorry you're in the middle of this mess. I'm sorry. You just got me riled up. But I just heart for you folks. It hurts and it just, it angers you when you look at $1.7 trillion of this stupidity floating around and Christian and his father-in-law are now at odds. Think about that. Oh yeah. Thanksgiving dinner does not- They're not going to be able to go to the holidays. Thanksgiving dinner tastes different. And when he buys a car, his father-in-law's going to say, "You're going to get a stink guy." But a car, but you didn't- You didn't take your intake care of the loan. I took out? What kind of man are you? What kind of integrity do you want? What do you mean? And then you're going to say, "Well, you ain't going to see your grandkids." You know? This is where this is going. I mean, it doesn't go well. This doesn't end. The story is not a pretty story. And bless his heart. He's riding on behalf of his wife. It's her parents. And let's say, Christian, we talked about this earlier, let's say your wife did. She shook her parents hand and said, "Mom, I just have to go to this college so bad. And all the let me take out is 100 grand. If y'all take out the other 60, I'll pay back when I get a job." Then you and your wife need to sit down and map out a plan- To pay this. And it's going to cost you your quote unquote, "following your passion." It's going to cost you your right now dream. Y'all got to go get a whole bunch of jobs and you're going to have to probably get roommates. You're going to have to live a different kind of life than you thought because y'all set this stuff up years ago. And unfortunately, the world let y'all do this. Before the world let you buy alcohol, they let you borrow $150,000. Before the world let you get tattoos- You can't buy a firearm, but you can buy a gun or get a tattoo or buy cigarettes. But man, you can sign this paper right here. And unfortunately, that's the world you're in. Math doesn't care how you feel, y'all got to figure out a way to get this thing paid off. And just scratch and claw and get it done. Your relationship with your in-laws and tension in your family tree is not worth it. It's just not. Yeah. It's not. If you would pay it, if she didn't say that she would pay it, then you've got a different kind of difficult conversation, which is mom and dad, she didn't make you a promise to pay this. Wearing no more of a position to pay it than you are, I'm really sorry. We can't take this on. We love you, but we can't take this on. And maybe in five years, if y'all are having some success, maybe you can start chipping in or something. But right now you can't do it. You can't do it. But not as an obligation. That's an act of charity. It's an act of gift. Yeah, it's a gift. It's a gift. It's not an obligation. So, but this all gets twisted up. So parents, stop it. Stop it. Look at your 18 year old, you wuss and say, no, parents who are wusses are causing this. Look at, grow a backbone, run down on, run down to Walmart. You can buy one on all three, get you a backbone and look at your little 17 year old and say no, no, it's a powerful word. It'll set the next decade free. Create your free every dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.
