Student Loan Debt After Marriage: What Happens When One Spouse Owes More?

When my husband and I got married, I had $150,000 in student loan debt, and he had none. I'd just graduated from law school. He'd graduated a few years earlier and paid off his debt.

Obviously, there was a big gap in debt levels, and we aren't the only young couple who have had to deal with this. Student loans are common, with 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. under age 40 reporting they have student loan debt, according to Pew Research.

Those with debt are more likely to report struggling financially, according to Pew, and Gallup reports many students who left school with debt put off major life events like buying a house or car, getting married, or having children. 

When someone with debt marries someone without it, you have to grapple with issues like who will pay the debt, whether to combine your finances, and how repaying loans will affect your shared goals. We had to work these things out before tying the knot, and it's important for any couple going into marriage with loans to do the same.

Current student loan refinance rates

Does student loan debt become shared after marriage?

The first big question that we had to consider was whether my debt would become my husband's problem — either in the eyes of the law or within our marriage. 

Legally, my debt would remain mine. If you come into a marriage with student loans, your spouse doesn't automatically become responsible for what you owe. However, if my husband had cosigned for my loans, or if I took on debt while married and we lived in a community property state, then he potentially would have shared responsibility under the law. 

We decided that we would make debt repayment a shared goal because we knew that collectively, as a couple, we'd be better off if the debt were paid down as soon as possible. Working on that together would allow us to make that happen faster. 

We eventually ended up refinancing the shared house we bought together to pay off the loans, which effectively made the debt my husband's responsibility, too. But, had we not done that, if we'd separated or something happened to me, my husband would have had no obligation at all to my student loan lenders. 

Should you combine finances if one spouse has student loan debt?

The next question we had was whether to combine our finances while I was still paying off debt. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that a growing number of couples are maintaining separate bank accounts and not opening joint ones, with almost a quarter of married couples not having a shared account in 2023, compared to just 15% in 1996.

There's a solid argument to be made that it doesn't make sense to completely combine your financial lives when one spouse has student loan debt, and the other doesn't. This limits the impact that the large loan balance has on the person who already paid off their loans, or didn't have any in the first place. 

However, there are downsides to maintaining separate finances. Specifically:

• It could take longer to pay off the debt.
• The marriage could negatively affect the person paying the loans by changing their payments on an income-driven repayment plan if the couple files taxes as married joint filers.
• Eligibility for the student loan interest deduction could be lost if the couple's combined income is too high.

These factors need to be considered when deciding whether to combine finances. In our case, we combined everything so we could work together. This is an approach many experts recommend because my debt would affect my spouse, even with separate accounts.

“I would first create a joint repayment plan, as these debts can negatively impact both of you when you are applying for a large loan like purchasing a home or car,” says Domenick D'Andrea, co-founder of DanDarah Wealth Management. “Money and debt are potentially the largest fight that couples will have. Be open and lay out all of your debts and interest rates to build a plan together.”

By combining our finances, we eliminated the loans much more quickly, and we both got to enjoy our shared lives while working on becoming debt-free.

How unequal student loan debt affects shared goals and lifestyle

One of the big reasons that we decided to merge our financial lives and work on our debt together was that we both wanted to put this part of our lives behind us. 

Having large amounts of student loans — and the big monthly payments that come with them — can make it harder to accomplish other life goals because you just don't have enough money left over. 

In fact, a Fidelity Investments research study found that 32% of people paying off student loans have delayed a home purchase, and a Gallup survey found 15% delayed having children. If I were carrying a bunch of loans — and especially trying to manage them on my own — I wouldn't have felt comfortable with doing either of those things. 

If we hadn't combined our finances, I also would have had less to contribute to things like our monthly bills, and less money to spend on entertainment, eating out, or taking vacations together. This could have created big problems.

“There can be a lot of resentment or feelings of unfairness when there is an unequal amount of wealth or debt,” warns Jack Wang, a wealth adviser and college planning strategist. “One person may be saving and feel like they're carrying the load, while the other is focused on the debt.”

Strategies for couples managing unequal student loan debt

In my marriage, my husband and I talked about exactly how we would handle my student loan debt — and we did it long before we got married. 

“Have the hard conversations earlier than later,” Wang says. “If the couple agrees on their plan and values, they can work together to achieve all of their financial goals.” 

For us, we decided that we would spend as little as possible until the debt disappeared. We paid down a good amount of it and refinanced the rest into an affordable mortgage loan once we built equity in our house. Because of that, the loans became a non-issue within a few years.  

However, there are many different strategies couples can use, including:

• Keeping accounts separate: You can maintain separate accounts with the person who owes repaying their own debt, and the couple splitting bills and other expenses fairly, given their financial differences. This means making sure both parties are contributing to shared goals, but still have enough money to pay off debt and have some guilt-free spending. 
• Joining forces to pay off debt as quickly as possible: D'Andrea advises making extra payments on the highest-interest debt first if you take this approach. 
• Creating a shared budget based on your goals for debt payoff: If you have lower-interest loans, it may not make sense to repay them quickly. You and your spouse can decide how much to devote to debt payment, as well as other things like buying a home, retirement savings, or a vacation.
• Refinancing: Refinancing student loans can sometimes reduce the interest rate on the debt and could allow you to consolidate multiple student loans into one. It typically doesn't make sense to refinance federal student loan debt because you'd give up borrower benefits, but private debt can be refinanced with no downside. In some cases, if the spouse with no debt cosigns, it may be possible to qualify for a better rate — but they'd have to agree to share responsibility for the debt. 

The right approach will ultimately depend on whether you and your spouse want to treat your student loan debt as a joint obligation, like we did, or if you want the primary responsibility for debt repayment to be with the person who owes.