School Took Out an Unnecessary Loan

[studentloanhelp]

My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: NC

While attending grad school my wife was approved for a loan for the her 2nd year at grad school (06/07) for an amount of ~24k. During the fall semester she received a full-tuition scholarship for the spring semester and has been receiving year around assistantship since. The school however, took out multiple loan for the entire year in the spring semester.

We recently found out about this when the school issued a check for the account balance (almost 12k) after she graduated last year.

Over the last 5 years, my wife never realized there was a huge credit balance in the account and was never notified by the school about this credit balance.

As a result, interest has been accumulating for this loan, and is a substantial figure over the 5 years.

I feel that the school should have noticed this when the scholarship was awarded. If not, they should have issued a refund much sooner.
The school has been very unhelpful and has been giving us the run around with regard to this issue. The last person we talked to said that she could not help and we should have caught this balance in the account sooner.

Is there anything we can do to dispute this debt and eliminate or reduce the interest she owes?

There are other loans from this lender from undergrad and prior year of grad school. The account has always been in good standing (payments were never late etc).

Thanks!

[Mr. Knowitall]

Your wife applied for the loan.

I cannot see the statements of account she has received over the past five years, but if they reflect the loan then she has been on notice throughout that time that she received the money she applied to borrow.

[Cicily]

Federal student loan rules state that the school must resolve a credit balance within 14 days (generally) of its creation. One way they can resolve it is to have you sign something giving them permission to hold the credit balance for you until it's needed or until the end of the loan period - whichever is sooner. I am guessing your wife signed such a document. The good news is that once the school returns the loan balance directly to the lender, they likely will apply it so all associated interest is removed as well. If they sent the overpayment to you instead, I'm afraid you might be stuck with that interest - unless you are able to send the refund amount to the loan holder within 120 days of when the loan was disbursed to the school in the first place.

PS: - I'm not an attorney - I don't even play one on TV...