I know it was tucked way down in the second sentence, but hey:
> 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.
I'd like to know how they are identified. Is it just because they've checked a box along the way?
I'm relatively certain these people will not be required to submit a doctor's written diagnosis of whatever causes their total and permanent disability.
It will probably be more like the gov sends a form to a list of people (aggregated somehow), and if they fill it out and return it, then they get to legally avoid their loan obligations.
The article says that these people were identified by asking the Social Security department who in a list of people with outstanding college loans had already been diagnosed by a doctor with a permanent disability. They're basically taking out a huge pain in the ass of these peoples' lives in having to fight for this.
From other discussions elsewhere, in order to qualify for this designation, it seems as if you have to have a significant disability that permanently disables you. Eg. It's not enough just to lose an arm and a leg, you have to be disabled in such a way that (current) prosthetics cannot restore your ability to work.
Of course, those are the standards/rules/regulations, but knowing the vast corruption within the US .gov, what actually happens is probably a different story.
> 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.