The Brunner standard is a legal test used in certain circumstances to determine whether a borrower’s federal student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. The test was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Brunner v. New York State Higher Education Services Corp. (1987). The Brunner test…
Settling private student loans typically involves negotiating with the lender to reach an agreement on a new payment plan or a lump sum payment that is less than the full amount owed. Here are the steps to settle private student loans: Gather information: Get a detailed understanding of your current…
There are several ways to discharge federal student loans, including: Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge: If you are completely and permanently disabled, you may be eligible for TPD discharge. Death discharge: If the borrower of a federal student loan dies, the loan may be discharged. Closed School discharge: If…
The Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDTR) program has undergone so many changes over the past decade it’s hard to keep track. Notably, I wanted to set the record straight for those who may be receiving weird messages about their pending BDTR apps. Only the 2019 Borrower Defense Rule imposed a…
Did you realize that we have free videos on what to do about your student loan on our YouTube Channel “Student Loan Sidebar”? Here’s a post from a few hours ago from one of our followers: YouTube videos on student loan forgiveness have just been absolutely amazing. They break it…
I had a consult recently that is a good overview of what questions our clients have and how we are able to drill down to the essentials and help determine the best path forward to ending student loan debt. This client reached out to us after viewing one of our…
All this talk about changes within the federal student loan system, I didn’t want to give the impression that nothing can be done with private student loans. Just today, we have a client who accepted an offer to save $165,000 on his private student loans! And this was not a…
New IDR Terms Announced! Sorry for the delay in getting this out, Covid has put me behind a week or so. The new IDR Plan expected out in July before the payment pause ends will not exactly be a new plan. Instead of confusing borrowers and making yet another IDR…
Under the new provisions allowing a Debtor to attest to an undue hardship, a consolidation pre-filing would be viewed as evidence of good faith – this is the box that may be checked: engaging meaningfully with a third party they believed would assist them in managing their student loan debt.…
We are seeing forgiveness every week, more likely every day, now, but many are still waiting… Interestingly, the huge spending bill being discussed by Congress right now does not include anything additional to Federal Student Aid. What does this mean? Well, the FSA has to modernize its National Student Loan…