Posted on 04/13/2016 7:02:40 PM PDT by doldrumsforgop
Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers will now have an easier path to getting their loans discharged, the Obama administration announced Tuesday.
The Department of Education will send letters to 387,000 people they’ve identified as being eligible for a total and permanent disability discharge, a designation that allows federal student loan borrowers who can’t work because of a disability to have their loans forgiven. The borrowers identified by the Department won’t have to go through the typical application process for receiving a disability discharge, which requires sending in documented proof of their disability. Instead, the borrower will simply have to sign and return the completed application enclosed in the letter.
If every borrower identified by the Department decides to have his or her debt forgiven, the government will end up discharging more than $7.7 billion in debt, according to the Department.
“Americans with disabilities have a right to student loan relief,” Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement. “And we need to make it easier, not harder, for them to receive the benefits they are due.” About 179,000 of the borrowers identified by the Department are in default on their student loans, and of that group more than 100,000 are at risk of having their tax refunds or Social Security checks garnished to pay off the debt. Often borrowers losing out on these benefits aren’t even aware that they’re eligible for a disability discharge, said Persis Yu, the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at the National Consumer Law Center.
“Borrowers just frankly don’t know about this program,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
How about the educational institutions that are owed money? They just don’t get paid. When a debt is forgiven someone doesn’t get paid what they were owed.
Sorry there is NO right, I repeat NO right not to pay back loans from the Fedgov, State, Local, or any private corporation. Liberal/socialists forget what the word "loan" means. That's why Sanders is so popular with college students. He is beyond socialist, he's a communist. He would like to see all products and services controlled by the State and then re-distributed to the masses. Google for the difference between socialist and communist.
They would have already gotten paid I assume. Is this just for government loans?
;)
This policy invites fraud. I can see the rationale in forgiving the student loans of someone who truly is permanently and totally disabled (e.g. from a catastrophic injury) and who as a result will never be able to repay the debt. But true permanent and total disability is not that difficult to prove. The process of offering proof is what weeds out the frauds and fakers.
Evidently, there is already a law enabling the disabled to apply for and receive relief.
However, for some reason or another, 400,000 o those eligible haven't made an application -- so, the government is doing it for them.
The program is just gonnna cost us $87.7 billion in foregone income and there will be the normal ration of governnment waste -- relief granted to people who don't deserve it, etc.
Plus, Obama and the Democrats will take full credit for a plan that was passed by our Congresscritters.
My best guess is because 60's generation still believe any college education will advance their children, no matter how useless so many degrees are. Really? A degree in racial, sexual, kumbya social degrees? The only degrees that matter now are engineering, math, computer sciences, business management and similar. Guess who are getting their graduate and post-graduate degrees in those studies? Asians! Good for them!
How can Obama spend 8 billion taxpayer dollars without the House passing this into law? Is there no challenge to this dictator, ever?
Disabled, read that unemployed.
Mission Accomplished regarding the government takeover of student loans.
This will morph further into a complete government handout.
Obama is Santa Claus. He can just put it all on the credit card... the next president can deal with the bill.
I agree with you 100% on that.
Thanks. It's just so obvious how our institutions of higher learning have become baby-sitters. Maybe some day the parents will wake up to the five figure costs of higher education and send them to an Emory or a Gold Canyon where they can learn on-line, without the propaganda from the educators. Depends on whether certain companies will accept such graduates. I think they are leaning towards it.
They are all going to be black or other protected minority classes. Reparations by any other name.
He has no power to do this.
Well the University of Missouri is getting a lesson right now.
They are losing students for caving to the idiots, and are suffering a $20 million dollar shortfall in this years budget.
LOL
The unoparty republicans like this because they want this power if they ever get the WH again.
I don't think the government would just write them off. They're robably going to forgive the student's loans but make US pay for it. You know how they think.
How can someone who is classified as ‘DISABLED’ ABLE TO GO TO SCHOOL? If you can go to school, study and meet a schedule THEN YOU ARE NOT DISABLED!!!!!!!!! One is either CAPABLE OR NOT CAPABLE BUT NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
Tent, meet the camels nose. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from here to free college. Just watch.
I went to tech college specifically because I was disabled and couldn’t hold down menial labor jobs any longer. I became more disabled while in the process of paying off my student loans. I was never offered anything like this. It took me almost 15 years to pay off my loans, but I did it. What a fool am I?
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