October 7, 2009

Disability Discharge Outreach Project

Over the last several months, OGSLP has been engaged in a targeted campaign to send Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge applications to defaulted borrowers who were eligible for the $250 stimulus payment sent to those who receive Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Railroad Retirement or Veterans’ benefits. The TPD Discharge is a program designed by Congress to allow for the discharge of federal student loan debt under FFELP, the Federal Perkins Loan Program, the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program and the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program.

The opportunity to assist borrowers by tying together the stimulus and the TPD discharge was recognized by Trudy Neeley in our Legal department, who first contacted the Policy, Compliance and Training (PCT) office in May 2009. “The stimulus program offered a one-time opportunity for OGSLP to identify a specific set of borrowers; in this case, those of a certain age who received disability and retirement assistance from the federal government. I saw it as an opportunity to reach out to disabled borrowers who may be unaware that they qualify for loan discharge,” said Neeley.

Mary Heid, Director for PCT, agrees with that assessment. “An important part of our work at OGSLP is to reach out and counsel borrowers about their loan forgiveness and loan discharge options,” said Heid. To date, OGSLP has received 66 individual loan discharge applications totaling over $1 million in loans from borrowers who are eligible for the TPD discharge.

If you have questions about the TPD Discharge program or OGSLP’s TPD discharge outreach project, please contact our Policy, Compliance and Training (PCT) department at 405.234.4432 or pct@ogslp.org.