EDUCATIONAL LOANS AND DIVORCE

When one spouse incurs educational loans during the marriage, these educational loans ARE considered marital liabilities subject to equitable distribution between the parties at the time of divorce. This is true even though the other spouse receives no future benefit from the other spouse’s income due to his or her education during the marriage. Therefore, student loans are subject to equitable distribution along with other marital liabilities. Also, if for example, the Husband had $30,000.00 in student loans and the Wife had $26,000.00 in student loans at the time of divorce, it would be inappropriate for each party to pay his or her own loans. Instead their loans would be combined along with other marital debt and divided equally between the two parties. If student loans were the only marital debt the parties had, then the parties would be each responsible for a total of $28,000.00 in loans or marital debt.