Disability and student loans

I got a review on my student loan payments. My loan is in a probationary forgiveness and will be reviwed for final disability discharge in a couple years. The key information I give has nothing to do with medical compliance or health status. The only thing they ask is was I employed for years xyz. So, PT work may pull loan payments into an active status.

I hope all of this works out for you. Things can seem so complicated. I really dislike all the hoops we have to go through to qualify for things!

Best wishes!

"My understanding " is that the only way to end the responsibility of your loans if you are found to be 100% disabled.

Oh good. I hope that is how it works. I wasn't sure if working while 100% disabled can restart the loan process.

I do believe that earning any income can and will restart the need for repayment of loans, Best check with your SS office and the lender of student loans.

I personally would get in writing /print out showing the rules regarding your situation, so that is say student loans hit your credit report it can be removed.

I never trust "John Doe" with any verbal answers.

Absolutely on getting everything in writing on SS. I'm not planning on working though. Thanks☺

If you don't mind my asking, what were hoping for when you wrote this post? Support? Advice? Something else? Combo?

If you want advice, it would be helpful to find out what kinds of loans you are talking about, federal, private Navient/Sallie Mae loans, etc. There's different rules for different types of student loans.

I hope it works out for you. Living off disability and having to make student loan payments shouldn't happen, or at least should be regulated.

I don't need any of the above examples. This post was written as advice to other members on disability with a student loan. My loan was activated at a $257 cost a month. The loan company was trying to screw me over by requesting a doctors signature. All I needed to provide was a statement that I'm unemployed.

Okay, that clarifies your purpose. As a heads up, different types of student loans have different rules.

With regards to disability I don't think it matters what kind of student loan.

It does. I sadly, have nearly $200k in student loans and am on SSDI. My student loan payments use up over half of my monthly SSDI income and I've had multiple lawyers look into this. By my research, the federal student loans tend to be reasonable, but the private student loans, like Sallie Mae Signature loans are very difficult to discharge, even if you are on Social Security Disability and have a total and permanent disability. Furthermore, I was told that they generally don't discharge upon your death or in bankruptcy unless you file an adversary proceeding, in which case, you might get lucky.

I can't tell you how much of a burden student loan payments are for me. None of the public programs, food stamps, rental assistance, etc. take student loan payments into consideration. It's a nightmare.

I am on SSI disability, and still have student loans in deferment, as far as I know being on disability I shouldn't have to be making payments...it was federal loans and thus far have just kept it in deferment.

That's awful Joe. I didn't know you were on ssdi. My loan was through Sallie mae initially I believe. Nelmet is who I contacted re disability.

Meant to post this earlier: I'm Disabled and Sallie Mae Won't Discharge My Student Loans*|*Steve Rhode

Additionally, I don't mean to stir anxiety, but I will be interested in learning what happens tax-wise once the discharge is final. Loan forgiveness is sometimes treated as taxable income. I am not wishing that on you OP and hope all will be approved. And if this tax scenario were to come to pass, the IRS might have a program to forgive those taxes.

If you can work then you're not 100% disabled.

This is absolutely true and good to keep in mind. If you do a bankruptcy, those discharged debts are not taxable, as that is not considered a debt forgiveness. (At least, I'm about 80% sure of that.) However any reduction in your debt granted you by a creditor can sure be considered as income. In my state, creditors are required to tell you that now, but they do it in such a way that you'ld have a hard time even knowing that's what they are saying.

An option can be to simply default and let the statute of limitations run out. The result is pretty much the same as having done a bankruptcy. And when that time interval runs out, the credit companies will be begging you to take out more credit cards. (Of course, this is no help with student loan debt. No statute of limitations applies.)

A friend of mine who defaulted on $12,000 worth of credit card debt, back in 2007, is now getting offers of more cards. He just accepted a card with a limit of $1500 that has an interest rate on purchases of 11.7%. (Pretty decent terms.) It makes me wonder what the heck these banks are doing. I have told him not to ever lie on an application, as that can be construed as fraud. There is something wrong with this whole scenario. Banks are deliberately offering credit to people whose checkable background shows them to not be credit worthy. I get offers and I'm not credit worthy.

Something more is going on than meets the eye. This is a case of the bank knowingly setting up assets in "accounts receivable" that it knows are very, very shaky. I'm wondering if they are basically selling that debt on the market to stupid investors, but I can't believe that the market is that stupid.

This is why I have great interest in anything that Senator Elizabeth Warren has to say. She's the only one out there, front and center, telling us that these banks are still pulling crap.

She also has a lot to say about the crime of the huge student debt load that this nation's young are carrying. Plenty of other senators and congressmen know what she knows, but they don't talk about it. In the case of the student loan debt, the colleges are as dirty as the banks, IMO. People used to joke about mail order degrees being offered by disreputable sources. Well, if you show you show up with the funds to attend, a lot of supposedly respectable colleges are basically selling degrees. (I see students who are not really up to a the university programs that they are in. As long as they show up for classes, a lot a badly written papers will be allowed to slide through.) And they've got a cadre of experts on campus to help you get student loans.