Happy back-to-school season!

I hope you are taking advantage of all the back-to-school sales; I know I am, and I don’t even have kids. Seeing everyone prepare for school brings back memories of college at North Carolina A&T State University – all the good and bad times.

Being a broke college student = the bad times.

My friends and I joked about our then-brokeness and would say things like, “I’m eating sleep for dinner tonight” or “I’m gonna make my own fun this weekend, because I can’t afford y’alls’ fun.”

Working two jobs, skipping meals and avoiding socializing shouldn’t be the norm for college students, but it is – they should be able to learn in an environment free of financial strain or stress. While I can’t and don’t know how to provide all of the solutions, I will say if you know a college student who might be in a financial pickle and are having a hard time feeding themselves, please advise them to check out their on-campus food pantry. Many institutions have them, but plenty of students aren’t aware of all of the free food and resources their on-campus pantry can provide them.

Keep reading as I dive into what happens with your student loan debt when you die and how you can use the bathroom in big cities without having to purchase something first.

We are getting morbid this week but stick with me, because knowing what happens with your debt when you die is important. But thankfully, student loans won’t follow you to the grave unlike a lot of other debt.

Here’s what you should know about your student loan debt after your death.

Federal student loans

If you have federal student loans, the U.S. Department of Education will cancel your debt when you die, but your loved ones will have to submit your death certificate to your loan servicer in order to get the debt canceled.

This discharge applies to any federal direct subsidized, unsubsidized, parent PLUS and Perkins loans.

Private student loans

Private student loans do not have the same benefits of discharge after your passing as federal loans.

While most private lenders will cancel the debt with proof of a death certificate, according to The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, others have stricter policies that can be found in the loan agreement like holding the borrower’s estate responsible for repaying the debt.

Reporting a death to a student loan servicer

Whether reporting a death to a private or federal loan lender, the process is straightforward. Proof of death is required to be submitted by a family member of another close representative of your estate.

While a private lender might have varying requests of proof, federal student loans allow any of the following documentation:

• Original death certificate
• Certified copy of a death certificate
• Or a photocopy of either document

This only scratches the surface. Read my most recent story for details of your student loans after your death.

For a lot of people, resuming student loan debt payments will mean their lives are turned upside down and inside out. Understanding the weight of this debt, Reckon asks readers like you who are worried about their finances, future, family and more to tell us what debt relief would mean for them. Each week, we’ll share a story that provides a glimpse into a borrower’s life.

Name: Raymond 

Student loan debt: $19,000 

Location: Louisiana 

Age: 30 

If debt payments resume: I will be barely scraping by after rent, bills, and groceries. I’ve already had to reduce my 401k distribution from 7% to 3% and stopped putting money away in a [health savings account] and emergency fund.

“With the comfort of knowing that the weight of student loans would be lifted after the pandemic, I made a career change where I accepted less salary but a better quality of life as well as more opportunity for future growth. Unfortunately, with all the cost-of-living increases after the pandemic, we haven’t been able to save much. I’m not sure my wife and I will ever be able to afford to have children now.”

Do you have a student loan debt story you want to share with Reckon? Your story is just as important as Raymond and you can share it with us too. Send me an email at [email protected] or take a few minutes to fill out this Google form.

You shouldn’t have to pay to use the bathroom, but businesses in a lot of cities require just that. Or, they put codes on bathroom doors hindering people from relieving themselves and taking care of a basic need.

Facility, a magazine about bathrooms, offers the ultimate hack: They gather bathroom door codes at businesses in major cities, listing them on their website and updating the codes as they change. You never know when you might have to ‘go’ at a business in Philadelphia, Seattle or Cleveland – one of these codes might just save you from brokeness.

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Borrowers are worried about the future of affording and paying back their student loans. Are you one of them? Share your story and thoughts here with Reckon.