My husband is in a horrible student loan situation. I’m not sure if there is anything he can do about it. He owes about $40K. He hasn’t paid anything in well over 5 years (I think they've taken his tax return before). He is just now to the point where he can comfortably pay like $200/month.

I know that he should have gotten a deferment or been paying something all along but he didn’t.

Can he start making payments w/o them coming after him full force by garnishing wages or seizing property?

He will need to contact the CA handling the account and set up a payment plan. He probably should either be looking at rehabbing or consolidating the account. With rehab, they will be looking at a monthly standard pay of about $400/ month based on the $40k balance. If you cannot afford that, he will have to do a financial statement with pay stubs. The alternative is going straight to consolidation...for that I would recommend Direct Loans. There is lots of information in this forum about both.

Thank you so much for your response. I'm glad to know that there is a little hope. $400/month would be too much. He's got kids from his first marriage that he pays support for plus our two little ones that are in daycare which costs almost $1300/month. These costs take a pretty big bite out of our take home pay.

I'll look into the consolidation route for him.