Do you really want to take a loan out?

I do not know the law in the USA, but normally something like a student loan, the partner is not responsible for.

Is there such a thing as an IVA in the USA? An IVA is a private agreement between a debtor and creditors and can mean that a person pays back a lot less than the debt, and then its over. Here it can reduce a debt even as much as 50%, but the payments have to be met each month otherwise things get sticky. Your wife just has to get a job, there's no other way out of it. I really hope that this is the making of her.