Parents of severely disabled children to be able to apply for student loan remission
A bill by the Ministry of Social Affairs plans to add parents of children with severe disabilities to those eligible to apply to have their student loans remitted. The current legislation does not provide for remissions on the part of the state of student loans of parents who might face difficult times financially because of a disability of their child.
In today’s system the state is represented by the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of Education and Research. As a result of the new bill, applications for the remission of student loan debt will be processed by the Social Insurance Board in case of reduced work ability, or if a parent of a disabled child applies.
One of the reasons behind the step is that the Social Insurance Board already handles the sensitive personal data that would otherwise have to be passed along to state institutions in another ministry’s jurisdiction.
According to past statistics, the size of the group eligible for the new measure, namely parents of children with a severe disability or 80 to 100 percent work inability, can be expected to include some 40-60 people.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn
