In the past 20 years student loan debt has tripled to reach $1.78 trillion. The average debt is now $38,000. Yet, this corner of the finance world remains little understood by those doing the borrowing. Meanwhile it’s often a big piece of modern divorce economics.
Himmelberger v. Himmelberger, decided on July 24 illustrates how wrong things can go. In 2014 Daughter Himmelberger was ready for college. We are told there were lots of discussions about who would be responsible for the cost. Father Himmelberger believed he did co-sign one loan made through Sallie Mae.
In 2018 Mother Himmelberger filed for divorce in Berks County. Father Himmelberger decided he would not participate so the case went to equitable distribution without his filing or appearing. A decree issued but it did not address marital student debt because no one brought it to the court’s attention. A decree issued in November 2019 saying each party was responsible for his/her own debt. No one appealed.
Part of the problem here might have to do with the Biden administration effort to discharge student debt and then the Covid laws suspending payments because of the pandemic. But in 2023, creditors started to surface claiming that husband owed a lot more than just one Sallie Mae loan. He claims that wife took out other student loans in husband’s name without telling him. Wife claims she told husband she could take the debt but her credit score meant the interest would be higher and he assented to her taking the loans in his name with daughter. Daughter seems to be on the debt, but she professes inability to pay and creditors tend to go for the bigger fish parents first in collection world.
Father Himmelberger tried fighting these loans on the basis they were taken without his assent. We can’t track what happened to that defense in the case reported. All we know is that he filed contempt petitions against wife and sought to open the 2019 divorce decree because her filings did not disclose the student debt taken in her former husband’s name.
As we might expect, everyone seems to have assumed that daughter would finish college, land a handsome job and pay the debts. That having failed, Father wanted the court to saddle mom with the debt she contracted in his name for daughter’s education. The court held a hearing and in October 2025 ruled that it had no jurisdiction to correct the fraud, even if fraud had occurred, because no one raised this issue in the divorce. The statute involved is 23 Pa.C.S. 3332. In a nutshell it says that matters involving intrinsic fraud must be brought to the attention of the court within 30 days of the decree. Extrinsic fraud must be addressed to the court within five (5) years. Father H did not meet either deadline and the decree says he pays debt in his name. Period.
This can sound like a grossly unjust result. The trial court notes that Father’s communications via email indicate he knew these “other” loans were lurking years before any of this litigation started and effectively said he was going to ignore the loan issue just as he had the divorce itself. (Page 8). We also don’t really know whether Father H really contested enforcement of the loans by the creditors based on a forged signature. Had he done that and his defense held, it is likely that the creditors would have actively sought judgments against the daughter and filed a private criminal complaint against the former wife asking for forgery to be charged.
There’s a lot of passive conduct in this case, but student education costs are a place where passivity reigns. Everyone wants the kid to get an education and become a success. But after insisting that daughter be part of the borrowing process and taking the one Sallie Mae loan, how did dad think the rest of college was financed? The divorce did not come until years after college started.
First moral of this appeal. You need to pay attention to your divorce. Corollary moral. You need to get a copy of your credit report every once in a while so you can find out who is borrowing money in your name. AnnualCreditReport.com – Wikipedia
Student debt is messy when the parents sign what is essentially a non-dischargeable debt. They are agreeing to the debt even though they won’t get any direct benefit. That’s always a tough issue for courts to resolve, even when they have jurisdiction. Here, they didn’t.
The case: J-S18033-26m – 106864232367580008.pdf