Email: Student loans just don’t disappear when you die

 

Yeah, that’s the case for federal student loans, as displayed here. 

http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation

 

Many private student loans were made federal during Obama’s first term. But private student loans never started with the same policies of federal ones. Private lenders by themselves are under no legal obligation to do so.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/christopher-bryski-student-loan-forgiveness-_n_1452996.html

 

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/04/bamboozled_painful_college_deb.html

 

http://abcnews.go.com/business/t/blogEntry?id=17835579

 

There’s also a federal program called Parent PLUS that causes similar issues. 

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865577683/Student-loans-trap-parents-too.html?pg=all

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/parent-plus-loan-government-parents-student-debt_n_1942151.html

 

Doing more research, I’ve found one thing to help those in debt, and that’s the Income Based Repayment program. It can cap payments down to 15% of your income if you are accepted. 

 

http://www.ibrinfo.org/

 

http://business.time.com/2012/06/12/why-have-so-few-student-loan-borrowers-have-taken-advantage-of-income-based-repayment/

 

The main point is that college debt isn’t guaranteed to be forgiven upon death when from a private lender. There’s legislature that would have changed that, but didn’t go through both in 2010 and 2012. With some pressure, you might be able to get it done, but in one example above it took six years for that to happen. That’s the situation this country is in now.

Lovely.