My husband and I both have a lot of student loan debt. He owes about 90k and makes 130k a year; I owe about $170k and made less than $5,000 last year. I am doing piecemeal work to pay for my IBR loans—things like catsitting—while I try to get clients for my law practice. We have a son and bought a house in 2015. I don’t pay daycare costs, and I’m not paying the mortgage although I am on the title.

Right now, I’m doing everything I can to make enough money to cover my own student loans. My IBR will be recalculated in March. I want to reduce my student loan payments, but I’m worried that by filing married filing separately that I will end up pushing the burden onto my husband. Is this the right thing to do?

I have a similar question to taipai. I am about to start paying on my loans through IBR after recently getting a Master’s degree (I already had student loan debt from my Bachelor’s degree). In the past, my payments were calculated based on my income ONLY because my husband and I file married filing separately. Just a few days ago, I went on the student loan website to calculate my new payments and even though I selected “married filing separately,” it asked for both mine and my husband’s income and used both to calculate my payments which will be more than twice what they were because his income is much more than mine. He does not have any student loans, so I do not think it is fair to force him to pay for my student loans. Has this rule changed? It could be devastating to us because he just started a new business and my new payments will be equal to a mortgage! I am also in the public service loan forgiveness program because I work at a library. Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Heather,

I found your site while searching what the heck to do about my student loans now that I have gotten married.  I qualified for the IBR plan because I am a teacher and well….broke.  I remarried a firefighter in June.  It is that time again that I have to recertify for my IBR.  I realized that I have to add my new husband’s income which is about twice mine.  Together we are not…broke….but relatively speaking with a kid in college and a greedy ex-wife…we are not rich.  So, I was freaking out that my interest only payments on my loan (which will be forgiven after 10 years) are suddenly going to significantly increase…until I read your article.  It is tax time and my husband and I considered filing taxes seperately so that my daughter’s college financial aid would have better chances but then we read that in Washington state…you have to do some fancy calculations…community property state….income adjustments…bla, bla, bla….my eyes were rolling back in my head trying to figure it out.  Anyway, I am wondering if you know if I will get lower payments on my student loans by filing taxes seperately even though there are income adjustments for community property states?  I have a master’s degree and I am confused.

Please help!  I know you probably can’t give specific tax advice or student loan advice but generally speaking….?  What would you advise a relative to do?

Thank you so much!

I have not receive a response to my post yet, but I did find out more info from the Dept. of Education. Although the online calculators ask for both spouse’s income, as long as you are filing your taxes “married filing separately” and in the Income Based Repayment Plan (IBR), only your (the person with the student loans) income will be considered when calculating payments. This is not expected to change any time soon.