Let's make that clear up front. Once you've established that, you're more prepared to look at your options. Given their situation, 10 years would probably be the best case scenario, with the "best case" being 1) They win the lottery, or 2) the Second Coming happens by 2024.

They're probably not going to make up a lot of ground with that $25K at this point, but they could stand to lose a big chunk of it if they're not careful, so I'd probably be pretty conservative with the money they have.