LOS ANGELES - Parents who co-signed for their children's student loans may be finding themselves in financial hot water when that loan debt spins out of control.
Even if they file for bankruptcy, some parents cannot get out from under the student loan debt load.
For one Riverside area family, this led to the loss of their home. Sally Pixomatis believed in her son's dreams for the future.
"We assumed that he would go into the Marine Corps as an officer and be able to pay off his college loans," she said.
Michael Pixomatis' parents cosigned on his student loans, which now total about $90,000.
But the year he graduated, his parents each lost their mothers, Sally Pixomatis had surgery and had to stop working for a while and the family received some bad financial advice.
Michael Pixomatis was not able to get into the Marines and the work he found paid only minimum wage plus commission.
In the end, the family lost their home, ended up $200,000 in debt and filed for bankruptcy.
"It was very humbling," said Sally Pixomatis.
They still have to pay on student loan.
It's a situation bankruptcy counselors are seeing more and more these days.
"I see people each and every day that are in the process of losing their homes because they are now paying student loan debt that was created by their children," said Lorene Lynn Mies of TheBankruptcyMinute.com.
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