US President Donald Trump signs executive order canceling student loan debt for disabled veterans

Date:

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that forgives all student loan debt for any permanently disabled U.S. military veterans.

The order, which Trump signed following a speech at the American Veterans National Convention in Louisville, Ky., also clears those eligible veterans from having to pay any federal income tax on the loans. Trump added that he is pressuring individual states to follow suit.

“The debt of these disabled veterans will be completely erased,” Trump said. “That’s hundreds of millions of dollars of student loans debt for our disabled veterans that will be completely erased.”

The memo Trump signed directs the government to develop an “expedited” process so veterans can have their federal student loan debt discharged “with minimal burdens.” Currently, just half of the roughly 50,000 disabled veterans who are qualified to have their federal student loan debt forgiven have received the benefit because of a burdensome application process.

Under the current process, disabled veterans can have their debt forgiven under a loan forgiveness program, called Total and Permanent Disability Discharge, or TPD, as long as they have a VA service-connected disability rating of 100 percent. As of July, however, only about 20 percent of the eligible pool of veterans had taken advantage of the program due to the complicated nature of the application and other factors.

Trump’s announcement comes days after the administration hired a longtime student loan industry executive to be the federal government’s top watchdog for the student loan market. Robert Cameron will serve as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new student loan ombudsman, the bureau said Friday.

It’s a job designed to protect student loan borrowers from poor practices in the student loan industry and one of the few positions explicitly named in the Dodd-Frank Act, the law passed after the 2008 financial crisis that created the bureau. It’s considered the go-to office for borrowers who have complaints about their loans. Cameron most recently worked at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, better known as FedLoan Servicing, as its head of compliance and risk mitigation.

Disclaimer :- This post is independently published by the author. Infeed neither backs nor assumes liability for the opinions put forth by the author.

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related

Breaking: Howrah-Mumbai Mail Derails After Collision with Goods Train in Jharkhand

Jamshedpur, July 30, 2024 — A significant train derailment...

Is BSNL is a ray of hope against the price hike in telecom company’s recharge plan

In the areas where BSNL is upgrading its network,...

How Congress Recovered from the Poor Results of 2014

In 2014, 44 seats and 19.3% votes; in 2019,...

উত্তৰ-পূবৰ এটি পুত্ৰৰ উত্থান: যোৰহাটৰ পৰা গৌৰৱ গগৈৰ জয়

নবীনৰ পৰা অসমৰ প্ৰয়াত কংগ্ৰেছৰ জ্যেষ্ঠ নেতা তথা তিনিবাৰৰ...