Private loan lenders are still requiring survivors of deceased students to pay off their student loans.
Paying off student loans is a common concern for many college students. Many set aside money for after college in order to pay money on their loans but still spend years putting money toward those loans.
But what if something tragic happens and a student dies before paying off those loans?
In a recent case, Brittani Norris died in a car accident before she could pay off her loans. Her parents, who co-signed on her loan, were required to finish paying her loans after her death.
If a student takes out a loan through a private bank, in Norris’ case through Citibank, the loan usually still has to be paid off, according to an article from Christian Personal Finance.
Even though her parents were finally able to get Citibank to forgive the loan after a great deal of petitioning, many families still have to face similar situations.
Norris’ family is not the first who have had to deal with situations like this.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, in 2006 Christopher Bryski died and his loan still had to be paid off by his family.
In Bryski’s case, he had taken loans from a private lender and from the federal government. His family was able to get loan forgiveness for his federal loan but was still making payments on his private loan from KeyBank. Some of the payments required more than $500 a month.
In addition to having to pay off a loved one’s loans after he or she dies, the loan balance is sometimes requested all at once in some cases when loans are transferred to a co-signer, though this was not the case for the Bryski family.
KeyBank eventually did forgive the loan after pressure from Bryski’s family and other supporters.
Bryski’s family had to petition the bank and collected over 75,000 signatures to get his loan cleared. Even though some private loan lenders and banks have policies in which loans can be cleared in cases of death, severe illness or permanent disability, KeyBank did not have a policy for these situations at the time of Bryski’s death.
When looking for loans to pay for college, it is important to keep these policies in mind so as not to have these troubles left behind should a tragedy prevent future loans from being paid-off.
