Life Without Borders

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September 17, 2007

YOINK!

So it was P-A-I-N-F-U-L-L-Y slow at work today (go figure, no babies to save today...) that I focused on some personal stuff, like getting our new address to the voter registration people in Colorado so we can vote in the upcoming primaries, closing up with Hydro and ADT, and finally tackling my Perkins Loan deferment.

For those of you that don't know, A Perkins Loan is a Federally Subsidized educational loan, and this specific loan was negotiated by NASW and the Federal Government. So that when us poor, underpaid, and highly in debt social workers go out into the land to fix people's relationships, get them off crack and rescue their babies we can defer and cancel up to $6000/yr in loans. For every year that you work for a agency that serves low-income clients (i.e. thankless, not paid very well, work) you can have 15% of your loan canceled and in the meantime you don't have to pay the minimum due.

So since I graduated in 2004 from my alma mater I have taken advantage of this and got 15% off in 2004-2005 and 15% in 2005-2006, leaving me currently with $2000 in loans. I called DU today to figure out what I would need to provide to them as I am still working with low-income families (but paid much better) and this year (2006-2007) the agreement would have canceled 30% of the loan. However, when I explained my current situation to the bursar she put me on-hold for a few minutes and then came back and told me in no uncertain terms:

"You're no longer eligible for the Perkins Loan Program anymore due to your employment ad residence outside of the United States; it has to be a US agency you work for, so the balance will be due December 1st."

YOINK!

Now before all of you Canada-haters jump on me, hear me out.

It sucked and I whined for a bit, but in the grand scheme of things she (and the program) are right, if you are not working or living in the United States you shouldn't be able to take advantage of the specials. It sucks, but it's fair and at least I got $1000 shaved off of this loan, but damn it hurts now.