My mom just died and I discovered she borrowed $90,000 to put me through school and never paid it back. Am I on the hook for it now?

Let’s imagine, for example, that Lisa went to an expensive four-year college. Lisa’s mom told her if she covered her first year, she’d pay the rest. So she took out around $30,000 in student loans, thanked her mother and went on with her schooling.

Now, four years after graduating, Lisa’s mom just died and while cleaning out her house, she came across some paperwork, revealing her mom actually owes $90,000 for Lisa’s education.

Is Lisa going to be responsible for paying this debt and suddenly saddled with a burden worth almost $100,000, or did the debt die with her mom? Here’s what you need to know.

Understanding different student loan types

The first step is understanding that there are student loans for parents and student loans for students. This is true of both federal and private student loans.

When Lisa’s mom took out her loan, she could have taken it out in her daughter’s name, which would require Lisa’s knowledge and agreement. (This isn’t the case here.) She also might have borrowed money from the Department of Education in the form of Parent PLUS Loans or from a private student lender in the form of parent loans.

Parents who take out these last two types of loans are solely responsible for them. That means Lisa wouldn’t be responsible for the debt directly as the loans weren’t taken out in her name and Lisa never cosigned for them.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the debt just disappears. Depending on the kind of loans Lisa’s mom took out, the debt could be gone for good, or the lender could try to collect from her mom’s estate.

Understanding what creditors could go after

When someone dies with debt, usually the creditors cannot collect from surviving family members unless those family members:

• Cosigned for the loans or were joint borrowers
• Live in a community property state, were married to the borrower and the law says surviving spouses are responsible for certain kinds of debt acquired during the marriage — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau breaks down how that works

However, creditors can try to collect from the estate or the assets that the deceased person left behind.

This means, for example, that if Lisa’s mom had $150,000 in a bank account when she died, the creditors could go after the estate, make a claim and potentially collect the $90,000 they were owed out of the money left in mom’s bank account (that Lisa might have inherited otherwise).

If there’s no money in the estate, then the creditors are going to be out of luck.

However, if there are assets, then they are usually up for grabs unless the deceased person did some estate planning during their lifetime to try to shield assets from creditors by passing them outside the probate process.

And while creditors can normally try to collect from an estate, that may not be the case here, depending on whether mom took out private student loans or loans from the Department of Education.

There is good news for Lisa

The good news is that the Department of Education discharges Parent PLUS Loans upon the death of the parent (and even upon the death of the student), under federal regulation. So if mom took out federal loans, the government won’t be coming after her estate to try to get the money back.

But that’s not necessarily the case with private student loans. As The Earnest Blog explains, sometimes private lenders offer a death discharge but in other cases, the lender will try to recoup their funds from the estate of the deceased.