<prompt> Human: My roommate recently got a collection letter in the mail regarding student loan debt and threatening wage garnishment. She is not sure how to proceed.about 8.5 years ago she was attending art school for free. my understanding is the school would send her checks under some sort of grantscholarship situation and she would use the money to pay for tuition, school supplies etc. etc.things were going well for a few semesters, then she ran into a problem. the problem is that her mothers name was also on these checks. apparently her mother was acting as some sort of co-signer or guarantor. without getting into too many personal details, let it suffice to say that her mother was and is not a very stable person. Her mother took the checks from the mail, and essentially stole the money and used it to buy a new car, which she promptly crashed and totaled.at the time my roommate was 19. now she is 27 and dealing with the fall out. essentially she buried her head in the sand and ignored the problem. apparently her dad at one point told her not to worry, to just ignore it and after so may years the debt would just go away WFT???.now she has a collection agency threatening wage garnishment if she doesnt hand over 6,000what should the next steps be to rectify this situation? she doesnt want to be in debt for money that was stolen from herthe school.Im at a loss as to what advice to give her, it was so long ago and she was so young that she hardly remembers any details about the situation to be honest i dont think she ever really had a handle on the situation to begin with we looked at her credit report online: it shows 2 closed accounts from US DEPT OF EDGSLATL that are marked status: negative with balances listed. there are four more closed accounts from DEPT OF EDNAVIENT that are marked status: unknown and no balance is listed.how bad is this?who should she contact?what questions should she ask?any advice is appreciated  <response>: If she was on the account, she owes those, even if her mom stole them.There is no statute of limitations for federal student loan debt. 