Legal Question in Education Law in California

Re: mental illness as a reason for tuition reimbursment

Hello!

I'm glad that you now have a handle on your illness. Mental illnesses are a mystery to most and are often misunderstood and persons suffering from them are shunned quite often. I am a member of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill and work in this area quite a bit.

Since the illnesses' onset occurred AFTER you were enrolled, California contractual law probably will not allow you to "void" the contract. If however, the monies are "student loans" the educational loan system DOES allow for "forgiveness" and or forbearance of student loans due to "disability." The critera to meet may be too stringent for you. Usually being "disabled" requires Social Security type of disabilty, the inability to be meaningfully and or gainfully employed. That probably does not describe you.

I would set a meeting with the School's administrator and go in with medical records. Get your physician to prepare a "report" that sets forth your inability to function, etc. If he can ALSO set out that at the time you incurred the debts that the contract(s) you signed were signed at a time that you were not "competant" you might have some colorable argument.

Obviously, the foregoing is not optimal. More optimum is to convince the school that you should be allowed to retake all of your classes again, not seek a refund and unwind the bad grades of the past. A Fresh start is probably a more attainable goal. This depends, of course, upon your present abilities and orientation.

I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Mark Mitchell Geyer