OUR WORK ON DISABLED VETERANS’ RIGHTS TO LOAN FORGIVENESS
We had a significant victory for disabled veterans in August 2019! We had mobilized veterans groups to sign letters, filed FOIA and legal requests, engaged Congressional leaders and state Attorneys General in adding their pressure, and garnered media attention – all to expose the US Education Department’s violation of 100% disabled veterans’ statutory (legal) right to student loan forgiveness. After more than a year of our leadership mobilizing pressure, we succeeded! The Trump Administration backed down and agreed to follow the law!
Supporting Veterans with Disabilities Pursuing a Postsecondary Education
Supporting Veterans with Disabilities Pursuing a Postsecondary Education By: Walter Ochinko May 2020 This week we published a new report on the impact of disability on first-time student veterans’ pursuit of a postsecondary credential. Our [...]
Impact of Disability on First-Time Student Veterans’ Persistence and Attainment
Click here to download a PDF copy of this Issue Brief Highlights Among undergraduate veterans who enrolled in postsecondary education for the first time in 2011-12, 33% reported a disability, compared to 15% of non-veterans [...]
Letter to the Education Department regarding disabled Americans’ student loan relief
We joined education and consumer organizations in a policy letter to the Education Department calling for student loan relief for disabled Americans.
22 Veterans & Military Organizations Letter to Education Department RE: Disabled Veterans’ Loans
22 leading Veterans and Military Service Organizations submitted a public comment to the US Education Department thanking the Education Department for moving forward with a process to ensure totally and permanently disabled ("TPD") veterans' legal [...]
The Trump Administration Is Going to Automatically Forgive the Student Loans of Severely Disabled Veterans – What Does that Mean?
by Mike Saunders You may have heard that the Trump Administration is now going to automatically forgive the federal student loans of veterans who have a 100 percent disability rating or who have been designated [...]
Press Release: Veterans Education Success Reacts to Department of Education’s Delay Discharging Student Loan Debt for Disabled Veterans
For Immediate Release Contacts: Carrie Wofford, President | [email protected] (202) 838-5050 Veterans Education Success Reacts to Department of Education's Delay Discharging Student Loan Debt for Disabled Veterans & New Effort to Reduce Student Loan Interest [...]
#Veterans groups are demanding that @BetsyDeVosED stop putting #disabled veterans in default on student loans and automatically give disabled veterans their lawful right to loan forgiveness.https://t.co/s1wgoyMlxT https://t.co/gltJzQZDhs
— Veterans Education Success (@GIBillRights) November 9, 2018
2021 Education Department Hearings
We mobilized individual veterans and veterans leaders to testify at the Education Department’s public hearings in 2021 on many topics, including student loan relief for disabled veterans.
- Testimony of William Hubbard, Veterans Education Success (written testimony here; photo here)
- Formal Written Submission by Veterans Education Success
- Testimony of William Buchanan, Veterans Education Success (written testimony here)
MORE NEWS & INFO ABOUT DISABLED VETERANS’ RIGHTS TO LOAN RELIEF
Politico Morning Ed: Veterans Group Responds to Education Department Delay in Loan Discharge
Mike Saunders, military and consumer policy director at Veterans Education Success, said his group learned of the department's delay in implementing student loan debt forgiveness for severely disabled veterans, a Trump administration promise, in a story [...]
Washington Post: Trump administration promise of debt relief for disabled veterans got delayed. Now, the program is resuming.
A Freedom of Information Act request made by the advocacy group Veterans Education Success found that the Education Department contacted more than 42,000 disabled veterans, yet barely 8,500 had signed and returned the application for [...]
CBS News: After scrutiny, U.S. again forgiving student debt for disabled veterans
Mike Saunders, the legal director at Veterans Education Success, said he had been surprised to learn about the Education Department freeze, saying the advocacy group had been "under the impression that they were automatically forgiving [...]
Politico: Trump Pledge to Forgive Disabled Veterans’ Student Loans Delayed — at Education Department
Veterans Education Success, an advocacy group that focuses on student-veterans and had for months pushed the Trump administration to automatically forgive the loans, said it was “disappointed” that most of the loan cancellations had not [...]
The Scribe: Presidential Memorandum Streamlines Student Loan Forgiveness for Disabled Veterans
"Veterans Education Success, a non-partisan advocacy group for student veterans, outlined in a letter written to the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, the unfairness of making veterans with a total disability classification to complete paperwork [...]
Inside Higher Ed: Faster Loan Forgiveness for Disabled Veterans
Education Department data provided last year to two groups, Veterans Education Success and Vietnam Veterans of America, showed that more than 42,000 borrowers were eligible for the loan forgiveness benefit, known as Total and Permanent [...]