In order for Marsha Wipperman, 59, to pay for her autistic son to attend college, she obtained parent PLUS loans.
The Wipperman family’s autistic son wanted to continue his education after getting his high school graduation in 2011, but he was constrained to enrolling in the program that best met his needs.
PLUS Loans Program for Kids with Permanent Disability
Fortunately, they were able to find a program at a private university in California that would allow Wipperman’s son to study art and design—fields in which he excelled—and Wipperman didn’t hesitate.
Even though her kid was admitted to the program and was given some grants, they weren’t enough to pay for the entire tuition.
So, Wipperman’s son qualified for federal student aid under his name, and Wipperman was able to get a $77,000 parent PLUS loan—a type of loan parents can get for their kids to cover their school costs up to the full cost of attendance.
With his autism diagnosis, Wipperman’s son was eligible for a total-and-permanent disability discharge in 2017, which relieves debt for borrowers who can demonstrate their total and permanent disability through documentation from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, or a medical professional.
In 2017, Wipperman’s son earned a bachelor’s degree.
He is still subject to a three-year monitoring period during which he must confirm that his income and handicap status have not altered in order to avoid having his loans revived.
Wipperman is nevertheless troubled by the educational loans she obtained for her kid. Although she vowed to repeat the same action in order to give her son the future she desired, Wipperman wishes there was a way for parents like her to find comfort.
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The debt Balance is Canceled Only Upon Her Demise
The webpage for Federal Student Aid states that Wipperman can only have her debt forgiven in the event of her death, total and permanent disability, or insolvency.
Wipperman wouldn’t have done it any other way, and parents PLUS loans provided her kid the chance to go to college.
Nevertheless, the difference between her loans and the federal direct loan type that her son took out is that PLUS loans do not have a borrowing cap, meaning parents can borrow a significant sum of money without any restrictions to ensure they can afford to pay off the total.
Plus, PLUS loans have the highest interest rate of any federal loan, which can cause the balance to increase if the borrower is unable to pay off the debt as quickly as possible.
Wipperman joins other parents who have no choice but to take out loans to pay for their children’s higher education. In a previous Insider interview, a parent who took out $550,000 in PLUS loans for his five children disclosed that he anticipated paying $3,000 a month for the majority of the rest of his life.
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