From the New York Daily News:
The feds are ripping off disabled Social Security recipients by skimming their benefits in order to pay back defaulted student loans — but not saying enough on what people can do to avoid it, a lawsuit alleges.
“Instead of focusing on getting disabled borrowers the relief they are entitled to under federal law,” the suit says, the Department of Education uses debt collection methods like the Social Security disability benefit offset “to collect money from disabled borrowers.” ...
The plaintiffs say their benefits are getting trimmed by loan debt that could be forgiven “if the defendants simply told them about the existence of the disability-based discharge.” ...
The suit wants Social Security recipients to get a better notice about the availability of the disability discharge and better government tracking so disabled recipients don’t get a lopped-off payment in the first place. ...
2 comments:
There are forms that can be completed to get a student loan forgiven if the person becomes disabled after getting the loan and going to school. We helped people do that at Legal Services. It would seem that before the overpayment is collected, the Department of Education would at least ask the person if they are receiving disability and when they became disabled.
My girlfriend is disabled through no fault of her own and did apply for the disability forms and after the Dr. signed the forms, she is no longer responsible for her debt. She feels bad about the loan, but she feels worst about not getting her degree. She had 3 mos. to go.
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