generally speaking the spouse should still contribute towards its (re)payment since 1) the spouse being divorced in many cases has already benefited from having their education debt paid (with help from the divorcing spouse), 2) I think the law generally recognizes an agreement between the two to assume the cost when the spouse undertook to pursue the education, and 3) I think the law recognizes opportunity costs the divorcing spouse suffered by postponing their education to support the spouse they are divorcing and as such passes some of that along to the spouse being divorced. It's not as egregiously unfair as you make it out to be. What WOULD be unfair, would be for a spouse to clear out accounts or hoard funds in anticipation of the divorce (though usually this is done by the spouse filing the divorce). I suspect the husband of my SIL is doing this and at some point he will divorce her. He is a _______ (you can fill in the blank).