7 ms·
FTA: In response to an inquiry from Kaine, the Education Department disclosed last week that 38,460 people had submitted requests for forgiveness
by Alupis 8y ago
FTA:
In response to an inquiry from Kaine, the Education Department
disclosed last week that 38,460 people had submitted requests
for forgiveness as of Dec. 28 under the new program. Most of
those, 28,640 people, were immediately rejected because they
had not previously filled out a formal loan forgiveness
application — one of the many criteria of the relief program.
Of the 9,820 applicants who cleared the first hurdle, 1,184
are still under consideration. The rest were rejected for
myriad reasons. Of the applicants who cleared the initial
hurdle, 40% still had years to go before hitting the required
10-year mark. Nearly a quarter were ineligible because they
were paying less money in the wrong payment plan than they
would have in the correct one.
Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal
loan — those originated by private lenders through the
now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program. Some had
not made enough on-time payments or had not had at least 10
years of full-time employment certified by a qualifying
employer, according to the department.
I really don't see the problem here. People aren't qualifying for the program (many in obvious ways, such as not meeting the 10 year minimum, or making on-time payments), and I'm supposed to (from the article's clear intent) feel outraged by this?
- mgadams3 8y agoI can see your point. But it does sound like a SaaS product that deliberately makes it hard to cancel but legally doesn't have to stop charging your card.
- Alupis 8y agoNo, not really. It clearly says you need to have had the loan for 10 years and been paying on time payments and have a stable job. Those requirements don't seem absurd, outlandish, nor designed to make people fail. If you don't meet those minimum of requirements, why would the tax payer want to forgive your debts - you clearly didn't hold your end of the bargain, yet want to be released of potentially thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of public-money debt.
- nmcfarl 8y agoI think you might feel differently if you'd actually read the documentation as it existed 8 years ago (I've not looked at this in years). Or talked with customer support agents for the program that who told my wife that a formal loan forgiveness application was not required, and would be a waste of time. Just meet the criteria and apply when your 10 years were up. But what those criteria were was not described clearly enough to make 10 year plans on. And the general confusion was so massive, the program so obviously a shambles, that we decided there was little chance that the program would survive, and passed on it.
- Alupis 8y agoSorry to hear that. The point still stands, however. For a program as controversial as this (loan forgiveness in general, that is), it's amazing there's any program at all. Those wishing to be granted forgiveness have a clear list of requirements they need to meet in order to be considered - yet the article wants me to be outraged at the current administration because so few people that applied bothered to even read the requirements.
- germinalphrase 8y agoI think the point is that requirements are/were explicitly unclear and that otherwise minor deviations (like a payment being received on Monday rather than Friday) are used as justifications to make people - who have made financial and career sacrifices based on the expectation of loan forgiveness - ineligible.
- mcguire 8y agoIf you have had the loan for 10 years, have a stable job, and have been making payments...why do you need the loan forgiven?
- ihattendorf 8y agoIt's used to incentivize public service jobs. Someone with $100k+ in loans can take a lower paying local government job instead of having to work elsewhere to pay off the loans.
- stickfigure 8y agoI believe the concept of this program is to act as an incentive for (former) students to go into public service. If nobody can use it because of kafka-esque procedures, then the program isn't serving its goal.
- EpicEng 8y agoDid you borrow a large sun of money from said SaaS company? Kind of changes things, no?
- jessewmc 8y agoWhy not use this money to pay public servants more?
- fzeroracer 8y agoWouldn't this depend on how much debt a person is in? If you gave someone a raise but they were still deep in debt, the raise wouldn't be enough to cover the growing costs of having a large loan loom over your finances. In this case it would be more effective to pay off the loan if you value said worker keeping more of their money. Plus not all public servants are facing debt, which means that the people with debt are going to gain less benefit from an overall raise.
- rhizome 8y agoThis is asking a lot of a random commenter on HN.
- garmaine 8y agoThe issue is that many of those requirements weren't in the law authorizing this program.
- repiret 8y agoDo you have a good reference showing which restrictions came from Congress and which ones the Education Department is adding on? And whether those added restrictions come from some discretion that Congress authorized, or are simply illegal?
- garmaine 8y agoIt's the lead-in to the article.
- pimlottc 8y agoPlease don’t quote that way, it’s very hard to read on mobile.
- nobodyforum12 8y agoEven if you have a point, your comment is off-putting and it sounds like you're demanding someone cater to your specific use case. Maybe offer a better solution if you want your comment to be constructive rather than whiny. EDIT: I also just checked this comment in the iOS app as well as a mobile browser and it looked completely fine. So, again, offer up a solution or provide details of your device so others can inform on how to fix this.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoYour autism is off the charts. You should not have created an account to post this.
- pimlottc 8y agoOne alternative is to simply italicize the quote: In response to an inquiry from Kaine, the Education Department disclosed last week that 38,460 people had submitted requests for forgiveness as of Dec. 28 under the new program. Most of those, 28,640 people, were immediately rejected because they had not previously filled out a formal loan forgiveness application — one of the many criteria of the relief program. Of the 9,820 applicants who cleared the first hurdle, 1,184 are still under consideration. The rest were rejected for myriad reasons. Of the applicants who cleared the initial hurdle, 40% still had years to go before hitting the required 10-year mark. Nearly a quarter were ineligible because they were paying less money in the wrong payment plan than they would have in the correct one. Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal loan — those originated by private lenders through the now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program. Some had not made enough on-time payments or had not had at least 10 years of full-time employment certified by a qualifying employer, according to the department. I would have done this myself but I was on mobile at the time. As for devices, the fixed width quoting requires horizontal scrolling on both the iPhone SE and iPhone 6.
- 8y ago
- sosodev 8y agoPeople aren't qualifying because, as the article points out, the requirements for the program are absurd. It's really apparent when you look at how little student debt has been forgiven compared to the amount allocated for the program.
- rayiner 8y agoWhat requirements are “absurd?”
- germinalphrase 8y agoFor one, it’s been reported that a single late payment by a day kicks you out of eligibility. The requirements are designed with the intention that people will fail.
- rayiner 8y agoNo the program requires 120 on time monthly payments, but those do not need to be consecutive. That’s always been the rule.
- jhfdbkofdcho 8y agoOne example is that They told people 10 years ago that the job they were working qualified and they got letters each year saying all good and then changed their mind about the job qualifying. So now these people are screwed.
- civilian 8y agoCan you back that with a citation? I'm reading this form and it seems pretty straightforward who a qualifying employer is. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/public-service-application-for-forgiveness.pdf https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/public-serv... > A Qualifying employer includes the government, a notfor-profit organization that is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or a private not-forprofit organization that provides certain public services. and it goes on to give definitions of "government" and "not for profit" orgs.
- civilian 8y agoIt seemed strange that there's a "request for forgiveness" and an "application for forgiveness". But hey, having to fill out two forms seems like pretty typical government work. Here's the form. It pretty straightforwardly specifies 120 on-time payments to school loans. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/public-service-application-for-forgiveness.pdf https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/public-serv... I wonder where all these people are coming from, that are just misapplying for student loan forgiveness.
- droithomme 8y agoThat form is useful information. It states: > Neither the 120 qualifying payments nor employment have to be consecutive. Do you know if any of the tens of thousands rejected were rejected because they made a single late payment as some are claiming? The text on the form does not make that a disqualifier. It would seem to be important to clarify whether the form is incorrect as pertains to the law, or if none of the claims made are true that a single, or even a sequence of, late payments scuttled eligibility for someone.
- zaroth 8y agoThank you for quoting the form. It’s 120 full on-time payments completed in no less than 10 years. You can miss payments. But your loan must not be in default. Yes, the many people claiming that a single missed payment will disqualify you are factually incorrect.
- xwvvvvwx 8y agoThe lenders take huge profits as interest, supposedly as payment for the risk that they are taking on. It's an outrage because if so few people are able to default on the loans, the lenders are not taking on any risk at all, and are in fact functioning more as a kind of mafia style protection racket.