No they cannot However if you ever default on them and you and your husband file a joint income tax return even if you don't work at all they can offset the federal tax refund that you would both receive. Also if you are ever facing wage garnishment yourself and want to cry poverty and go for a hardship hearing to avoid garnishment of your wages your husbands income will be taken into consideration in determining if a hardship exists. You can't refuse to give the information because then they will just proceed with the wage garnishment. The only way to avoid his portion of your tax refund from being offset is for him to file his taxes seperate from you. If you file jointly they will take your refund if the loans are in default or if the ever do go into default. Another downside of your loans going into default is they can garnish your wages and even when you get old enough your social security and certain pension benefits. I would strongly advise you to keep on top of those loans and their status constantly. As a former debt collector who collected on federally defaulted student loans I cannot tell you how many people like yourself I talked to that thought their loans were in consolodation or deferrmant and couldn't understand how they ended up in default. Once a loan goes into default there is no way to reverse it and say oops it was a mistake so keep on top of them. The first place I would check is www.nslds.ed.gov. You can check the status of all of your loans. If everything is consolidated there should just be one loan possibly 2 loans but no more. If it lists 2 be sure both are in consolidation status. The reason why there may be 2 consolidation loans is there are 2 types of stafford loans. Subsidized and unsubsidized. if you had both types of loans prior to consolidating then when you consolidated all of the subsidized loans were consolidated into one loan and all the unsubsidized loans were consolidated into another. Basically the only difference between the 2 loans is when interest started accruing. On a subsidized loan interest doesn't start accruing until six months after you either graduated or stopped attending school for whatever reason including enrollment in school less than half time. On unsubsidized loans interest accrues from the first day the funds are sent to the school but you don't have to make payments again until six months after you stopped attending school or graduated from the program. Please stay on top of this. I have seen too many borrowers who assumed all of their loans were consolidated and one or 2 got left out and eventually defaulted because the borrower made an assumption that turned out to be wrong. If there is anything I can do to help you with any other questions you may have about this matter don't hesitate to either comment back or e mail me at the address on my profile.

Yes. Because with direct loans you put his information on the loan to base the household income. Also regarding your taxes, even if you had not consolidated they do not differentiate if you are married or single they take whatever tax refund you have attached if you default. My recommendation. Do not default on the Income based repayment from direct loans. They are the department of education. They are much more violent in their collections than the previous company you may have dealt with. They can actually seize assets including bank funds. Google direct loans interest rates it will link you to a site where you can re-review the forms you filled out and it gives the ramifications of non payment and your spouse.