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DOE Strives to Streamline Student Loan Forgiveness for Disabled Individuals
By Catherine Groux
Posted July 18, 2012 10:22 AM
The DOE is working to make the student loan forgiveness process easier for disabled students.Last year, more than 78,000 students who borrowed federally supported and federally owned loans applied for a discharge of their debts due to a severe and lasting disability, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) reports. Although federal law states that individuals with disabilities that prevent them from working can have their student loans forgiven, to make this happen they were forced to contact each lender and guarantee agency separately. The result was an often confusing system that led many disabled degree holders to disastrous debt, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
A Broken System
A 2011 investigation by ProPublica and the Center for Public Integrity found that many disabled individuals either could not navigate through the confusing loan forgiveness process or were denied from the system for unclear reasons.
One of these disabled students, Tina Brooks, told the Chronicle that as a former police officer, she fractured a vertebra in her back and damaged three others in her neck, leading to extreme lower back pain, headaches, memory loss and near blindness in her left eye. Although five doctors and a judge from the Social Security Administration have stated she cannot return to work, she fought with the DOE unsuccessfully for five years to forgive her $43,000 in federal student loans.
"I'm a cop, and I know how to fill out paperwork," Brooks told the Chronicle. "But when you're trying to comply with people and they're not telling you the rules, I might as well beat my head on the wall."
A Proposed Solution
Realizing their system posed problems for associate's and bachelor's degree holders like Brooks, the DOE recently announced a proposal for a new series of regulations. According to an official DOE report, the plan states that disabled borrowers will only have to submit one discharge application to the department, which will "streamline and add clarity to the total and permanent disability process." These rules would affect Perkins Loans as well as loans borrowed through the Federal Family Educational Loan Program.
The DOE will accept public feedback on the proposal through August 16, 2012. Individuals who wish to submit comments can do so through the Federal eRulemaking Portal or by sending in a letter.
