Heard from collection agencies that student loans have no statute of limitations? They leave out an important part - that is only true for FEDERAL student loans.

What is a statute of limitation? It is a law passed in your state that tells creditors they have a certain number of years to sue on debt. Without statutes of limitation, you would have to keep every receipt, every bank statement and every credit card statement for your entire life. Society simply could not exist without them. A statute of limitation on a written loan usually ranges from 5 to 10 years, depending on your state. This means that 5 to 10 years after your last payment on that loan, the lender must bring suit to enforce it otherwise you have an affirmative defense should you ever be sued in court. In other words - it becomes legally unenforceable.

Then comes along the "student loan crisis" a few decades back when everyone was horrified that students were taking out billions in loans, become millionaires after college and then refusing to pay back their loans. Because of the exaggerated stories, Congress decided there should be no statute of limitations on these loans, and passed the appropriate law. Since Congress takes precedence over the state's own law, any federal student loan has no statute of limitation today.

But private student loans - loans offered by private banks and NOT federally insured - do NOT fall in this category. The collection agency will not tell you this. The lender will not tell you this. You have to find this out yourself. How can you tell if it's federal or not? Call the Department of Education and ask them. They will tell you every federally insured loan you have. Any loans they do not have in their system is a "private" loan and can become unenforceable after 5 to 10 years. And you can ask the DOE operator if statutes of limitations apply to loans not in their system - they'll tell you they do.

So why don't collection agencies tell you this? Because there are hundreds of thousands of these loans in their systems that are "private" and unenforceable. If this knowledge was available to the public, they would lose millions in commissions that would otherwise be uncollected.

I hope this helps explain that not ALL student loans have a statute of limitations. If you have other questions regarding this or need information on how you can stop harrassment on private student loans that have expired statute of limitations, please post and I'll make sure you get the information you need to stop it!