{"id":73212,"date":"2018-12-27T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/12\/27\/this-federal-program-wipes-away-disabled-vets-student-debt-theyre-defaulting-on-their-loans-anyway\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T07:51:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:51:55","slug":"this-federal-program-wipes-away-disabled-vets-student-debt-theyre-defaulting-on-their-loans-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/veterans\/2018\/12\/27\/this-federal-program-wipes-away-disabled-vets-student-debt-theyre-defaulting-on-their-loans-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"This federal program wipes away disabled vets\u2019 student debt. They\u2019re defaulting on their loans anyway."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly 42,000 disabled veterans are eligible to have their federal student loan debt dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But only about 18 percent of them have gotten their loans dismissed, according to the Department of Education. And making matters worse, around 25,000 disabled veterans have already defaulted on their student loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veterans who have a total and permanent service-connected disability or receive disability benefits at the 100-percent level are eligible for the loan forgiveness program, called Total and Permanent Disability Discharge<\/a>, or TPD. This loan forgiveness can also apply to federal student loans that disabled veterans take out for their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last spring, the Education and Veterans Affairs Departments launched a data sharing initiative<\/a> to cross-check the VA\u2019s records of veterans with a total and permanent service-connected disability against the Education Department\u2019s database of student loan borrowers. When there\u2019s a match, the Education Department mails the veteran a simplified TPD application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of October, about 42,000 veterans had been contacted, and 7,700 had their loans discharged, according to information provided by the Education Department this week. That leads advocates to wonder whether there\u2019s more the federal government can do to expand the benefit\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese people can\u2019t work. They\u2019re 100 percent disabled. Of course they\u2019re going to have problems paying back student loans,\u201d said Mike Saunders<\/a>, director of military and consumer policy at the nonprofit Veterans Education Success. \u201cIt\u2019s up to the administration to take proactive action to go out and help these people. To that end, we believe that automatic forgiveness should be something that the administration should be considering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veterans service organizations, including VES, Vietnam Veterans of America and four others, sent a letter to Education Sec. Betsy DeVos asking as much in November, writing, \u201cIt is not fair to ask severely disabled veterans to have to complete paperwork, especially given that some catastrophic disabilities will interfere with their ability to complete the paperwork.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t