These comments, submitted on behalf of organizations across the country that provide free
legal assistance to low-income people, address the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed rules to clarify the use of the Secretary’s longstanding authority to grant a waiver of some or all of the outstanding balance on a federal student loan based on financial hardship.
As explained in the comments, our experience working with low-income people leads us to support the Department’s proposed hardship relief rules. The rules would, at long last, provide a road to relief for people who experience sustained financial hardship that makes them unable to fully repay federal student loan debt. Many of those who would be eligible are working class people with debt but no degree or a degree or certificate from a job training program that failed to deliver. Others suffered misfortune, such as an accident or illness, that left them in dire financial straits.
The proposed rules are not a panacea, but they represent a consensus compromise among stakeholders in the student loan system, and would offer common-sense relief to borrowers who are unlikely to be able to repay their loans.
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