Hi everyone,
I finally received a letter in response to my request asking for changes to the student loan programme to ease the payment burden for borrowers. The response is puzzling on several levels: first, it suggests that the current system is acceptable to the government in terms of repayment. This is surprising, since you'd think they would want to extend the amortization if it meant fewer people defaulted. Instead, the response suggests that the gov't would rather pay the interest on behalf of student loan borrowers who can't pay, rather than create a payment amortization period that allows the student to pay the interest under more favorable terms! In a sense, you get the feeling that the bureaucrats are simply giving people the standard reply because they've been given no direction by the Minister in terms of future changes. Second, and more to the point, there is no reference to the plan to review the student loan programme in this letter. Perhaps this person is unaware of the review, but you'd think that it would be politically pragmatic to say that the programme is under review, so as to suggest that changes might be coming anyway. Third, I have sent several letters on this issue and I always get a response that reminds me of previous correspondence, as if changes are never going to come and that the reply they sent a year ago will be perfectly up to date and will be for decades to come.
I would really like to know if the Minister is truly involved in this correspondence process or not....
----------------
On behalf of the Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and
Social Development, I am pleased to respond to your Internetcorrespondence of February 18, 2007, regarding the repayment ofCanada Student Loans.
Please be assured that student debt load is an area of priority forCanada's New Government. As you are aware from our department'sprevious exchange of correspondence with you in February 2005 and May2006, several measures exist to help alleviate student debt, including longer repayment terms.
Under the Canada Student Loans Program, repayment terms are set at 10years from the time a borrower signs a consolidated loan agreement.While this period of time generally provides an affordable repaymentschedule for many borrowers, provisions do exist which allow for theextension of repayment periods to accommodate the financial situationof borrowers in repayment. In such cases, the term of repayment maygenerally be extended to 15 years.
Extended repayment does not go beyond 15 years as it is not seen to be beneficial to the borrower, owing to the additional interest thataccrues. Instead of increasing the time allowed for repayment,Interest Relief (IR) and Debt Reduction in Repayment (DRR) areavailable for borrowers facing difficulty. As you also know, supportin repayment is also offered through the tax system by means of afederal tax credit.
The views of interested Canadians are always welcome. Thank you onceagain for taking the time to write.
Sincerely,
Canada Student Loans Program
Learning Branch
Human Resources and Social Development Canada
Oh, Monte! Are you listening?
Topic Options
Post Options
Thanks(0)
