<prompt> Human: A friend of mine has no student debt but her so does. They dont want to rush getting married but if it will help with taxes they want to know. no relationship advice please. Edit: Thanks for all your answers. My friend found this extremely helpful! Thanks for keeping it purely numbers!  <response>: Youre only able to get student loan interest deduction if you are legally obligated to pay the interest. Your friends SO is the one who gets the deduction, not your friend.Interest paid by others. If you are the person legally obligated to make interest payments and someone else makes a payment of interest on your behalf, you are treated as receiving the payments from the other person and, in turn, paying the interest.Source: Publication 970, chapter 4.---Edit: Ability to get this deduction depends on income. If the person with the loan has income over 80K they wouldnt get the deduction if filing as Single. If the student gets married and the joint income is under 165K, then they do get the deduction. So technically there are possible cases where getting married could create this deduction if it doesnt currently exist. On the other hand, if the person with the loan has income under 80K but the married filing jointly income would be over 165K, then marrying would move them from a place where they get the deduction to where they dont get the deduction. 