<p>Debt</a> And The Modern Parent Of College Kids : NPR</p>
<p>""it was the parents ... or sometimes a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle who had signed on as a co-signer to a student loan. And then they got into a situation where they lost their job at age 58 or 62 or they ran into a terrible medical problem and had a ton of expenses and all of a sudden this debt was no longer affordable and they had to go to court and basically beg a federal judge for a discharge, which is very, very difficult to get in a student loan case.</p>
<p>"You have to admire the sacrifices that people are willing to take on and they think they know what the future holds but sometimes they don't, and so it's really important to think hard about what the worst-case scenario might be and what it is you're going to do to avoid it."</p>