Mother Begs Lender to Forgive Dead Son’s College Loans

Online petition nearing 200K signatures for Detroit-area woman’s relief

The mother of a dead Detroit-area college student, who died suddenly in 2009, has launched an online petition, asking her lender, First Marblehead, Corp to forgive the $10,000 loan for which she cosigned. Ella Edwards, a 61-year-old part-time seamstress, said she couldn’t repay the loan. Her online petition has already garnered 191,000 signatures. "I am trying to pay off Jermaine's loan, but I simply don't have the money - and because of my crushing depression, I am barely able to work at all," Edwards wrote in her Change.org 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 at the age of 24 after studying music production at colleges in Florida and Michican, said Change.org officials. No cause of death was giving. Edwards said Jermaine left behind a 2-year-old son. A spokesperson for the Boston-based lender declined to discuss Edwards’ case, but said “we have processes in place to assess and evaluate [requests] for some sort of relief.” (Reuters)

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