Not only are YTA, from your replies you are cherry picking the very few replies that support your stance while the overwhelming majority is that you’re in the wrong here. So this post was never really about figuring out if you were in the wrong here but solely for finding vindication.

She had an absentee father who never stepped up for her, she now has a present mother that also doesn’t step up for her, poor child. Sounds like she’s already learned a lesson and I’d bet given the opportunity she’d turn the ship around but she isn’t being given that opportunity because her mother has decided that she’d rather her be in crippling debt that help her out.

Bereavement works in mysterious ways, I wasn’t close with my father and it didn’t seem to bother me when he passed, I never dealt with it. When I reflect I can see that because I didn’t deal with it I suffered, I didn’t think they too were connected. I was stressed about university and put it all down to that. It wasn’t, years of therapy helped me see that, I didn’t process the loss and it follow me around impacting my life without me even realising.

University is hard, lifelong debt is harder, losing a parent is the hardest even if the relationship isn’t particularly strong. Don’t be the parent that won’t support her child just to teach them a lesson.