I was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer at age of 36 with 3 children under the age of 10. We couldn't pay our student loans because of medical loans but because my husband and I had consolidated student loans (which they don't do anymore) we couldn't defer. So we had to go in to default....where the govenment charged us $20,000.00. Even the Ombudsmans office couldn't help us. Seems crazy to me that we would be swimming in debt and the government would think this is ok to do to a young woman with stage 4 cancer battling for her life?