I ran some numbers and she could be correct. She'd be an idiot, but could be right. I made some big assumptions. Let's say she took 6 years to get through school. She doesn't seem too bright, so a logical assumption. And, let's assume a constant interest rate and constant payments throughout the 23 faithful years.
That means she borrowed $4,440 per year, deferred the interest 6 years for the first year, 5 for the second, etc. And let's assume she started her $118.48 payments 1 year after graduation (again, not too bright, so it took her a while to find a job in applied macrame or whatever her degree was in). For her to owe $45,276.63 after 23 years, her interest rate would be about 4.3%.
Going back to deferred interest, her principal when she started paying it off would have been $37,343.55. So, her problem was that she made a payment of $118.48 when the interest alone for the first month was $134.23. She could pay until Kingdom come, but if she pays less than the interest, she isn't going to pay it off. She would have needed to make payments of $208.37 to have paid it off in 23 years. So, quit your whining (her, not you) and pay more.
I had $25,000 student loan and my credit card company snuck in unauthorized credit card limit increases to the tune of $11,000 and other debt.
There were some months, when I’d skip payments on either my loan or credit card debt or some other debt, so I could focus on the principle of one of my debts, expecially if it meant that I’d pay off a debt.
I did that with the full recognition that, it might have cost me some interest, but I was able to then take the payments I was making on a now-paid-off-debt and refocus that money on some other debt.
No excuses.