N.J. forces mom to pay son’s student loans: Murder ‘does not meet threshold for loan forgiveness’ for guaranteed student loans.
Marcia DeOliveira-Longinetti’s son was murdered last year. After working through the aftermath of this horrific event – arranging a funeral, dealing with the police and closing out her son’s life she turned to the co-signed student loans. The federal student loans were written off. But not the New Jersey student loans Marcia co-signed, thus making them guaranteed student loans.
“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.”
Her experience with New Jersey, which runs by far the largest state-based student loan program in the country, is hardly an isolated one. New Jersey currently has $1.9 billion in student loans. What differentiates them is their extraordinarily stringent rules: repayments cannot be adjusted based on income, and borrowers who are unemployed or facing other financial hardships are given few breaks.
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Additional articles and links:
Need help paying your federal student loans?
Disability Discharge for Federal Student Loans
Student Loans, the Latest Nightmare and How CFPB is Helping
Sometimes Paying Zero is Still Too Expensive for Students
You have heard me say this before – student loans are the next financial balloon waiting to pop. the student loan debt now exceeds 1.4 trillion dollars. There is little done to hold the schools responsible to handing out loans to anyone who asks. Why would the school stop? This is guaranteed cash flow. The school is not held accountable to educate the students BEFORE handing out thousands of dollars.
Students also share the blame. Some students see this as “free money”. They have not been educated, either at home or school, how to set and stay within a budget. As with many of us, myself included, students use the student loans to buy luxury items or to live in a more expensive dwelling. Doesn’t everyone need a gold watch?
Lastly, the government and private lending institutions should shoulder a large portion of the blame. No one is watching these folks, except the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Now I realize this is a generalization and does not reflect all schools, all students or all lenders. My point is that all of us need to be responsible for our actions, government included.
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