Disability

Accidents and unforeseen events happen - they twirl your life in an instant, and the effects are felt for the rest of your existence. For example, the guy who was going to school for massage therapy and got in an accident that wrecked his ability to use his right arm and leg. Shouldn't there be some way to dismiss his student loan?

You'd think so, as it would make sense. But the simple truth is that for a student loan to be dismissed, the disability has to be 100%. 100% unable to ever work again or hold any kind of job, signed off by a doctor, and they will actively consider charging off your student loan. But not necessarily.

The theory is that if you can be retrained in some other job, you shouldn't have your loan discharged simply because you're not doing what you studied to do. And if we started down that slippery slope, where do you draw the line? Can computer programmers who spent 80K on student loans to study BASIC in the 80's claim they don't have to pay loans now? So the bar is set at 100%.

The disability issues that come up for me are most often not physical, but mental disabilities. People who started school, then developed some form of mental illness and had to drop out, but still have to repay on their student loans. And I have to try to contact them to get them out of default.

If someone is at the point of being in an institution or under constant care, the family will usually stonewall and ignore collection requests. And get mighty cranky when you can't reveal the issue to them. I had one such conversation with a parent who figured out who I was, and I dodged disclosure issues by just letting her talk. Her son developed acute schizophrenia after his first year of college, and she was caring for him and wanted to deal with this.

"But I'll need his permission to discuss this with you."

"He's too far gone - he doesn't even know what's happening. It's a whole world of delusion."

Sigh. "Can he get on the phone and answer 'Yeah' to a question?"

"That's mostly all he says."

"Then put him on the phone. I just need him to say 'yeah' for the recordings."

I could hear him humming when I asked him who he was. "Yeah." Is this your SSN? "Yeah." Can I talk with your mom about this loan. "Yeah. Hee hee. Yeah."

This was early in my collections, and I steered her toward the disability option. Knowing what I know now, I wish I hadn't.

There is a societal bias against mental illness as a 'real' disability. There is the impression it is faked, or that the brain is not permanently damageable. So getting a student loan charged off for a mental disability is nearly impossible.

For the most part, anyone with a serious mental illness is living far enough out on the edge that defaulted student loans aren't an issue. But people calling and telling them things is a huge issue. And the stress falls on the caregivers and relatives who are just trying to allow their loved ones to live in peace.

A good example of this is someone I am trying to get into a hardship program and have for a while now. I knew from the first few conversations that something wasn't right, but I managed to walk her through a financial statement and references. She told me she couldn't pay on it, that she knew she couldn't pay and that all of her loved ones were telling her she didn't have to worry about it. I played as mellow as I could, got her qualified for the hardship program, and tried to get everything settled.

In the end, she told me her sister told her not to send in the paperwork. I asked her why, and she said her sister told her it was not her problem. I asked if I could call her sister and talk with her about it, and she said yes, she'd given me her sister's information anyway. So call her.

And I did. The conversation started badly, as the sister's husband answered the phone, and initially thought I was a scam artist, then "realized" I was just an asshole bill collector trying to harass his sister-in-law to get money from her. I almost hung up at a couple of different points in the conference call between me, him, and the borrower's sister out of sheer frustration. I was on the phone with them for 45 minutes, which is an eternity in collections.

In the end, I think I explained the program well. The best benefits being that since she didn't have the money to make payments that there wouldn't be any payments, and the calls from collection companies would stop. It's the conversation I wish I could have with that mother, if only I knew then what I know now.

I am amazed by people who have that sort of devotion to siblings. I hope I can stop the merry-go-round for them to get this taken care of. Calls like that make me feel like I'm actually doing something useful and helpful, which is a nice delusion to have.