Mother Wants Her Deceased Sons Student Loan Debt Cleared

Weigh in on this one…

Her son died back in 2009 and she’s got an online petition going…asking the bank to forgive the $10k student loan she co-signed with her son.

According to The Daily Mail, she says she can’t repay it.

Ella Edwards, a 61-year-old Detroit woman working part-time as a seamstress, has garnered some 191,000 signatures for her online petition on the website Change.org.

She said that her son’s death has given her a ‘crushing depression,’ and though she is trying to pay the money back, she simply can’t afford it.

Ms Edwards owes the money to lender First Marblehead Corp. She wrote in her online petition: ‘I am trying to pay off Jermaine’s loan, but I simply don’t have the money.

She added: ‘Because of my crushing depression, I am barely able to work at all,’ Edwards said in her online petition.

‘Nobody told me when I co-signed the loan that I would be forced to pay them back even if my son died.’

Her son, Jermaine, died suddenly in 2009 at the age of 24 after studying music production at colleges in Florida and Michigan, officials with Change.org said.

No cause of death was given, though ABC News reported that Mr Edwards died of natural causes. Edwards said he left behind a two-year-old son.

The petition against First Marblehead, which has garnered more than 191,420 supporters by Thursday afternoon, reads: ‘I’m horrified at your institution’s practice of hounding a dead student’s family for repayment of student loans he’ll never get a chance to use.

‘Your actions are dramatically out of step with the status quo. The federal government and even large private student lenders like Sallie Mae and Wells Fargo all forgive student loans once the borrower dies. So why won’t AES/NCT?

‘I’m calling on you to do the only humane thing – let this still-grieving mother mourn the loss of her only son in peace.’

A spokesman for Boston-based First Marblehead declined to comment specifically on Edwards’ case, citing privacy rules.

‘We’re bound to service that loan in accordance with the original loan contract with the customer,’ bank spokesman Bill Baumer told Reuters.

‘If a person has a complaint or a particular request for some sort of relief, we have process in place to assess and evaluate those if we are able to provide that relief.’

She may have over 100,00 signatures but a lot of people are telling her to step up and pay it off.

Thoughts??

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