In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve

[KamaAina]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/nyregion/in-new-jersey-student-loan-program-even-death-may-not-bring-a-reprieve.html

Amid a haze of grief after her son’s unsolved murder last year, Marcia DeOliveira-Longinetti faced an endless list of tasks — helping the police gain access to Kevin’s phone and email; canceling his subscriptions, credit cards and bank accounts; and arranging his burial in New Jersey....

When Ms. DeOliveira-Longinetti called about his federal loans, an administrator offered condolences and assured her the balance would be written off.

But she got a far different response from a New Jersey state agency that had also lent her son money.

“Please accept our condolences on your loss,” a letter from that agency, the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, said. “After careful consideration of the information you provided, the authority has determined that your request does not meet the threshold for loan forgiveness. Monthly bill statements will continue to be sent to you.”

[liberalla]

1. That's just wrong. I feel so sorry for that Mother who lost her son... She co-signed the loan, but..

having your son murdered is horrific, and now you have years of payments on a school loan/s for that same son.

[yeoman6987]

2. Rule number 1, never cosign loans. You get stuck paying if they cant

Yes this is unusual circumstances but they did sign promising to pay.

[Igel]

3. So if something bad happens, your word's no good?

Make that law, and you'll have (a) interest rates go up and (b) availability go down.

It's exceptional, in that her son was murdered, but putting that clause in a contract would be grotesque. And would it apply to couples? How about the occasional friend or more distant co-signer. Would it matter if her son were rendered incapacitated in a car wreck? Because of cancer? A stroke? If he had dropped out of school and gone to an ashram in Marathi State, or joined ISIS? Or if he were unemployed and moved back home because he'd found Jesus and decided to give up all his possessions to preach on the street corner, unbathed and unkempt?

Lots of things are heartless. Bureaucracy's heartless. But when we put our lives in the hands of strangers far, far away, we except great sympathy? And this son and his mother applied for something that wasn't a right, and asked to be allowed to make this commitment. Of course for the most part the signatures are given without much thinking about anything beyond, "Good, tuition's covered" and "Gee, I wonder if I'll be able to afford to pay this off"--often adding, "without too much inconvenience." It's virtually a right, with obligations postponed.

No, what's left is mounting a public grievance festival to force some administrator to break the rules for that one person. If there's a similar person who doesn't mount the festival of public grievance but who honors his/her word and commitment, the rule's not broken. And we call this "justice."

I feel sorry for the mother and can't image (hardly) what she's going through. Time and tide.

If people are truly sympathetic and want to take action, they can crowd-source the payback. The agency that holds the loan, if they got a check for $500 with no voucher but identifying what loan it's to be posted against, would have no problem doing this. Until finally the balance would be $0 and the loan paid off. The mother wouldn't even need to know who did it, or that the person or people were doing it. (It was sort of a practice in my old church--if somebody had some outstanding debt or pressing need, find out about it and organize a pay-off for the person or have the new appliance or whatever just show up.)

[Lil Missy]

4. Oh oh, she co-signed. That makes her responsible, unfortunately. n/t