100 Day Docket: Making Relief Automatic for Borrowers with Total and Permanent Disabilities

Under federal law, student borrowers who are unable to work because they are “totally and permanently disabled” are eligible for a complete discharge of their federal student loans, and the Department of Education has already identified hundreds of thousands of qualifying borrowers by analyzing data shared by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration. However, less than 40% of the identified borrowers have received the relief they are entitled to. As of April 2021, over half a million borrowers are entitled to TPD discharges that they have not received. If the Department does not act before the payment freeze expires, these borrowers will be required to make payments on loans the Department knows they do not owe.

As part of the 100 Day Docket Initiative, Student Defense has published a report detailing how the Biden Administration can take swift action to deliver relief to these deserving borrowers. 

Updates:

• August 19, 2021
• Following years of advocacy by Student Defense and others, the Department announced that it was providing $5.8 billion in automatic TPD relief to 323,000 borrowers identified as eligible through a data match with the Social Security Administration. As set forth in Student’s Defense’s April 19 Petition for Rulemaking (below), these borrowers had long been deemed eligible for the discharge but, until this announcement, had not received it. 
• Student Defense’s press release is available here. The Department’s announcement is available here. According to the Department, eligible borrowers will receive notice of their approval in/around September 2021 and all discharges should occur by the end of the year. 
• August 4, 2021
• Echoing Student Defense’s April 19, 2021 Petition, a bipartisan coalition in Congress once again calls on the Department of Education to automatically discharge the student loan debt for the over half-a-million borrowers identified by the Social Security Administration as entitled to TPD relief.  The letter and press release are available here.
• June 21, 2021
• Student Defense sends a letter to Richard Cordray, Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid, seeking answers to questions raised by new TPD data received by Student Defense earlier this month. The letter also renews Student Defense’s call for automatic TPD relief and seeks an update on the status of its April 19, 2021 Section 553(e) Petition (discussed below). 
• June 10, 2021
• Student Defense receives new data through a FOIA request revealing that over 818,000 borrowers have been identified by the SSA as entitled to a TPD discharge, of which 517,000 have not received the discharge. 
• At the same time, a coalition of higher education, legal aid, disability rights, and consumer groups called on Secretary Cardona to grant Student Defense’s April 19, 2021 Petition and provide relief to these half a million borrowers.
• The Department's Final Response to Student Defense's request is available here.
• April 19, 2021
• Student Defense files a Section 553(e) Rulemaking Petition calling on the Department to provide student loan discharges to the hundreds of thousands of borrowers with disabilities that the Department knows are entitled to relief, but who have not received it. The petition, which was supported by Senator Chris Coons, is available here. 
• March 29, 2021
• The Department announced minimal TPD relief to borrowers who had already been granted TPD discharges. Student Defense and other advocacy organizations criticized the announcement, explaining that much more was needed, including providing automatic TPD relief to the hundreds of thousands of borrowers who the Department knows are entitled to it.
• January 3, 2021
• Student Defense President Aaron Ament and former Senator Tom Harkin published an op-ed in the Des Moines Register: Biden can help disabled student borrowers on Day 1
• October 14, 2020
• Student Defense and U.S. Senator Chris Coons called on the Department of Education to eliminate administrative hurdles and provide the relief. 
• March 3, 2020
• Student Defense led a coalition of more than 30 higher education, legal aid, disability rights, consumer and veterans groups calling on Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to provide eligible borrowers with the relief. The coalition letter was covered by NPR, NBC, and Insider Higher Ed.
• October 9, 2019
• In a letter to Secretary DeVos, Senator Coons leads a bipartisan effort to urge the Department to discharge outstanding federal student loans for the hundreds of thousands of borrowers it knows are entitled to relief. 
• In his press release, Senator Coons quotes Student Defense Vice President Alex Elson: "Hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans are entitled to immediate student loan discharges under the law, but the Department of Education is not giving them relief, and in many cases is even seizing the disability benefits they depend on to survive.  We deeply appreciate this bipartisan effort to ensure that these men and women are not forgotten, and join in their call to the Department to act without further delay." 
• October 1, 2019
• Student Defense publishes an op-ed calling on the Department to provide automatic TPD discharges to the hundreds of thousands of borrowers it knows are entitled to relief, explaining that: “The injustice of the federal government withholding disability benefits for people who it knows are totally and permanently disabled and entitled to debt relief is hard to comprehend.”