WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is taking steps to help people with disabilities get their student loan debt forgiven, safeguarding their Social Security payments.

The Education Department on Tuesday announced a new process to better identify hundreds of thousands of borrowers who are eligible to apply for an existing federal loan forgiveness program. The program is for people who are permanently disabled and cannot work.

Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell says too few borrowers have been taking advantage of the program because they may not know about it or the process of applying was too complicated. Mitchell said one woman who had been suffering with side effects from breast cancer treatment that left her permanently disabled tried repeatedly to get her debt discharged – a process that took seven years.

“That’s not how government should work,” Mitchell said in an interview.