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Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers will now have an easier path to getting their loans discharged, the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

The Department of Education will send letters to 387,000 people they’ve identified as being eligible for a total and permanent disability discharge, a designation that allows federal student loan borrowers who can’t work because of a disability to have their loans forgiven. The borrowers identified by the department won’t have to go through the typical application process for receiving a disability discharge, which requires sending in documented proof of their disability. Instead, the borrower will simply have to sign and return the completed application enclosed in the letter.

If every borrower identified by the department decides to have his or her debt forgiven, the government will end up discharging more than $7.7 billion in debt, according to the department.

“Americans with disabilities have a right to student loan relief,” Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement. “And we need to make it easier, not harder, for them to receive the benefits they are due.”

About 179,000 of the borrowers identified by the department are in default on their student loans, and of that group more than 100,000 are at risk of having their tax refunds or Social Security checks garnished to pay off the debt. Often borrowers losing out on these benefits aren’t even aware that they’re eligible for a disability discharge, said Persis Yu, the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at the National Consumer Law Center.

“Borrowers just frankly don’t know about this program,” she said. “In the past it’s been incredibly complicated to apply and that process has been getting better over time, but some people just assume that it’s not going to work.” The letters will help make more borrowers aware of their rights, Yu said.

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/w...ocid=spartandhp (emphasis added)

You will be reassured to know this program will not be subject to abuse. The individuals receiving these notices simply would not do that. Moreover, many of them, regardless of any other factors, deserve this loan forgiveness, not because they are disabled; but because it is always possible that while on campus they saw a "Trump 2016" chalk drawing. Oh, the horror of it all.

One more thing: those of you who are questioning the timing of this forgiveness program, and you know who you are, should be ashamed. Twinkle Toes did not do this because there is an election coming in November. He did it because he cares.