May 18, 2025 • 42 mins
TikTok says skip your student loans—but should you listen? Titi and Zakiya call in policy expert Colleen Campbell to cut through the chaos. From repayment plans to scams, wage garnishment, and what's left of forgiveness, we unpack what’s real, what’s myth, and what borrowers still deserve.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah, and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
I don't know about you, but there has been a
(00:24):
lot on my timeline about whether or not people should
pay their student loans if they can dispute it the
same way you dispute a late payment fee on your MX.
I think TikTok is not the place for that advice. Honestly,
it feels like everybody is on the internet telling folks
what to do, and it doesn't feel like it's coming
(00:45):
from the right place. Feels like it's coming from an
angry spot in their heart. And we need facts. Facts, facts, Yeah,
facts minus emotion. Now, I'm not saying emotion is not compelling,
but that emotion is not gonna do justice to your
credit report.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's not. It's not.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So we had to turn to one of our favorites
and get some answers. Yes, but before we do that,
let's jump into the recitation and figure out what we
know already and what we want to know. First of all,
I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about
who has student loans. People angry saying like, oh, it's
(01:21):
just folks getting multiple degrees, and I'm like, that's not
even the majority of folks that have student loans, right,
And we found that out the last time we talked
about student loans in an episode in the first semester, right, yes, yeah,
And we know that it's complicated. I mean, honestly, the
loan process is complicated, and it didn't get any better
when the pandemic hit and loans were paused, and there's
(01:44):
all of these like ripple effects that we're feeling now
that they're being unpaused. And we also know that there
are people that are taking advantage of the miscommunication or
the unclear communication. I don't have any student loans right now,
still getting text messages that say call me about your
student loan, and if I had them at this point,
(02:06):
I would be confused or possibly scammed. Right, report as junk,
Report as junk. Yes, I think one of the things
that I want to know is how we got here?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Mm hmm, Like where is it? What happened?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Who fault is it?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Fault is it?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Because I want to know because I've got questions for
them specifically, and are they really garnishing wages. I think
I saw something that was like, they can garnish your
wages just like child support. They can do the same
thing about your student loans. Is that true? I have
no idea, but that sounds wild and I would be
very nervous. I also want to know is it too
late to write the ship? And is student loan forgiveness
(02:47):
a thing of the past? Will we never see the thing? Yeah?
And with all these cuts, is a Department of Education
still a thing doesn't have teeth? And do those cuts
effect whether or not you have to pay your student loans?
I think this is a great time to jump into
the dissection with our friend Colleen Campbell that we had
(03:08):
back in the first semester when we were talking about
student loans.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I am Colleen Campbell.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I have published a substact called on Detail, and I've
spent the last fifteen or so years working at think tanks,
at colleges and in the federal government working on higher
education affordability and federal student loans.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, last time we were here, the conversation was different. Colleen.
You were up close and personal with the changes that
started coming out of the Trump administration. Now, before we
get started really diving into what's different, can you walk
us through just in the past year so the major
changes that have been happening inside the Department of Education,
(03:51):
particularly related to loan servicing and borrow support.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
So, I had worked at the Department for five and
a half years and my last day was March thirty.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
First.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I quit as part of a response to everything that's
going on and the Trump administration, especially in terms of layoffs.
When I left the federal government, I was the newly
appointed executive director of the Office of Loan Portfolio Management,
which is a newly created group at the Office of
(04:25):
Federal Student Aid which manages all of higher education student
aid programs. That group manages all of student loans and
so public service loan Forgiveness, Income driveny Payment Plan, the
SAVE Plan, all loan forgiveness stuff, any debt collection for
asaulted student loans, student loan oversight. I have about two hundred
(04:45):
people reporting to me, and I took over that position
in January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Okay, so before we jump into everything that has changed,
can you walk us through some of the most commonly
used student loan payments programs because we all know that
it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So when you borrow your student loans after you leave school,
you are expected to repay, and the federal government offers
a variety of repayment plans available to student loan borrowers.
You kind of get put by default into a plan
that's called the standard plan, which has fixed payments every
month for a ten year period. Now that might be
(05:27):
affordable for you if you're making okay money coming out
of college and you didn't borrow a crazy amount, but
especially for people with a lot of debt, or people
that have been in repayment for a long time and
haven't been paying down their balances, or even people with
lower incomes, that Standard Plan is just like not a
viable option for you. And so the government in nineteen
(05:52):
eighty two, actually Congress created the first income driven repayment plan,
which bases your monthly payments off of your income, and
over time those plans have expanded. So Congress created the
first one in ninety two, then Congress created another one
in two thousand and eight. That plan, income based Repayment,
allowed barbers to pay zero dollars per month for the
(06:14):
first time ever, and then as time went on, and
student loans started to become more and more of a
pressing issue for so many Americans. The executive branch, the
President and President Obama got a little creative with how
they were approaching these things and looked at the Higher
Education Act, which governs a lot of higher ed policy,
(06:36):
and said, we need to create some new repayment plans.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We can't wait for Congress to do it. We got
to do it.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
And so they created a variety of plans through regulatory action,
so without Congress passing laws, and over time there were
more and more plans that grew out of this barrow.
You know, folks who have been paying loans for a
while might be familiar with the pay as you earn
plan or pay revised pays you earn plan or repay. Yeah,
(07:01):
we're really cool in acronyms and higher out here.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That brings us to the Biden administration's safe program.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
The Biden administration had taken an extremely aggressive policy agenda
for higher education, perhaps the most aggressive policy agenda ever
for higher education, at least from the executive branch. And
so this was really the most generous plan available to
doing the law and borrowers instead of offering forgiveness after
(07:30):
twenty or twenty five years of repayment, which is common
for most of the income driven repayment plans. It offered
forgiveness for some borrowers at ten years, especially if you
know you weren't making a ton of money and so
save was a planned that a lot of people flocked
toward because they saw it as a way for them
to really be able to afford their monthly payments and
potentially get out of debt that they just never saw
(07:52):
a way of paying down.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
This sounds great to me, I mean forgiveness after a
shorter amount of time. That seems really great for folks
that were really struggling with paying down their student loans.
But I know everything that glitters is my goal. It
has got to be something else to it.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
They had tried and failed to forgive student loans. They
had tried to create this new, more affordable repayment plan.
We had succeeded in awarding new loan servicing contracts and
rebuilding the way that public service loan forgiveness worked. And
by the time that the Trump administration came in, there
(08:28):
were a lot of policies that were kind of half done.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
What I do know is that there were a lot
of legal challenges for the Biden administration. So when that
administration will put a policy in place, there would be
an injunction and the court would put a halt to it,
and that would leave borrowers in limbo because yes, this
thing was being proposed, but then it doesn't get enacted.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
And so by the time that I took charge of
the Office of Lone Portfolio Management, we had eight million
borrowers that were in a forbearance, not paying their loans
on as part of the Save plan. We had borrowers
who largely hadn't really been paying their loans for the
last five years, and so we're trying to figure out
how to get those folks back into the habit of
(09:09):
paying their loans and for borrowers and defaults. Those folks
hadn't had any collections happening to them over the course
the last five years either, and so there were just
a lot of pieces of the puzzle that were very
much up in the air. Barrowers didn't really know how
to navigate them, and probably still don't.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Depending on when you entered the portal, like when you
generated loans, you might not even realize like what used
to be available, what is available if you generate it
really early on? How do you know if you can
get into a plan that might let you pay zero
dollars now?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I literally had somebody contact me yesterday asking to know
more information about student loans.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Like Sally May, like girl Sally May has not been
around for.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
A whiles, did.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Bad deceased. There's just so much people don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I think that the people that have student loans,
I feel like they be knowing. But then the people
who don't or they're so far removed, they don't be knowing.
Like the people with the student knows they be knowing
that it's complicated, But the people that don't, they just
think it's They're like, oh, what's the big deal? And
so I feel like my next question is just about
(10:43):
the Trump administration and what they're trying to do. So
we know that they're trying to make things more efficient
and whatever whatever. Can you talk about the roles and
functions that are being reduced and removed or deprioritized in
this shift? And there's also talk about moving DOE to
(11:04):
another agency. Can you talk about what issues are going
to arise from that? If that does happen.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Ooh yeah, this is a big question.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
One of the reasons that I left was because I
had a group in January that was like two hundred
Dish people, and even just looking at that group, I
had four divisions. One of those divisions was an oversight division,
which basically managed all of the oversight of the different
servicers and other contractors that are involved in the space.
(11:36):
And that was about fifty people, so at a quarter
of my organization. We also had a lot of people,
which is also similarly important because oversight gets tons of
tension right.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
The Trump administration hates oversight, from student loans to clean
air to consumer protections. The Trump administration has systematically gutted
oversight agencies, and oversight is how the government holds powerful
actors like corporate rations, schools, and lenders accountable to us
the public. But under Trump, the watchdogs were sidelined, regulations
(12:09):
have been rolled back, and oversight has been weakened across
the board, which makes it harder for us, the everyday
people to get justice or relief.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Right, you have lots of news articles being written about
like the gutting of oversight functions and that like CSB
going away oversay at the department being a subject to
the reduction and force of the riff, which is people
getting fired essentially.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, pause.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So the CFPB, that's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and
that's a government agency that was created after the two
thousand and eight financial crisis. Yeah, it will set up
to protect regular people from getting scammed by shady lenders,
credit card companies, and even student loan services. They handle complaints,
they write rules, and hold banks and financial companies accountable
(12:56):
when they mess up. Yeah, it was a big deal
when it launched back twenty ten. And I don't know
if you remember, but Elizabeth Warren was one of the
main people pushing for it, right, And so of course
the Trump administration gutted it and leadership pulled back on
enforcement and the rules that protected borrowers, especially student loan borrowers.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
But the other prong of this that I think is
really important to understand is that they're all the government
does is oversight. The government basically is overseeing a ton
of contractors that are actually doing the work, coding the technology,
collecting the payments from people, talking on the phone to
people whenever you call a government phone number, and need
to talk to somebody. Ninety percent shot that that is
(13:39):
a contractor, and there are federal employees overseeing those contractors,
which are private businesses. And so, you know, when I
was hard to predict what exactly was going to happen.
By the time we got to people even just being fired,
I had lost a good fifty people in my area
(14:00):
just from people them saying you're not gonna be able to
work remote anymore, either moved to.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Washington, d C. Or quit.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
There were people who you know, were offered the fork
in the road that decided to take that, especially people
who were pretty close to retirement, a lot of the
federal workforce, and so I had lost some of my
best people even before the riffs happened. And when you
lose oversight, that's bad. When you lose operations and oversight,
(14:28):
there's no way for you to function.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's wow, because without the folks to do the work
and the oversight to make sure that they're doing right
by the American people, a lot of things can fall
through the crucs.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And it's the onus is going to be on borrowers
and students to figure out when they're not getting the
benefits that are entitled to.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think that's a very good point because I've seen
a little bit of chatter on threads. I've shifted from
mixed to threads folks friends, But people are saying like, oh, well,
I went to pay, or this site was down, or
I was having issues getting through. I called didn't get anybody.
And so for somebody that hasn't interacted with these systems,
(15:10):
even if their old school only paid with Sally May
was that girl, or if they're just are really lucky
and don't have any student loans, I think it would
be helpful for you to explain, like what kind of
support used to be there that's now disappearing or is
on the cusp of disappearing.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, and this has an interesting interactivity with what happened
during the COVID payment pause when people weren't being expectatory pay.
So there are this is what we're seeing right now
is not just And I think it's almost convenient in
a way for Democrats to just be able to say, like,
everything failing right now is the fault of the Trump
administration of laying people off and cutting programs, et cetera,
(15:47):
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
But this has been building over.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
A long period of time, and there's negligence kind of
on both sides. And so what you're seeing is, you know,
during COVID, there are a lot of fits and starts
around terenty payment, and people with student loans might notice
that it would be like, get ready, you're gonna have
to pay loans in August, and then it would come
like July thirtieth and be like, just.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Kidding, January January and then like and that happened five
or six times to people over the course of the
four years of the COVID payment pause.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And what this led to was a lot of instability
and confusion among borrowers. Right, Folks were leaving college and
never really getting into the habit of paying their student
loans or understanding that they had to repay their loans
or what options that they had. And so now many
years later, here we are telling these folks that, Okay,
it's time to start paying and they need help. Right,
(16:43):
But also don't forget there was a reduction in force
or a riff, so there aren't as many loan officers
or people to pick up the phone to answer those questions.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
People are in a payment pause. People are in a pause.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
You don't need people calling their servicer. People are worried
about it, but that accumulates over time. And so now
what you're saying is there have been cuts to single
and services over time. The culmination of all of these
cuts in all of these ways that services were trying
to stay afloat over the years, all of this burden
put on the department and on the servicers to take
(17:18):
care of burrowers, and then all of a sudden, you
have millions and millions of people coming into the system
saying I need help, and there aren't the resources there
to support them.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I think it's been very convenient, like you said, to
categorize this as belonging to one administration, So this goes
back multiple administrations. This is even Trump administration before paused
loan payment. Yeah, and I feel like now they're aggressively
going after those folks, even though we've kind of put
(17:49):
them in this position. You know, we've talked about a
little bit in one of our our last semester of
Dope Labs. We've talked about inflation, and we've talked about
what's going on with the economy. I just want folks
who are listening for a second to think about if
you hadn't been paying a bill, and not even that
you just hadn't been paying it. You were told zero
(18:09):
dollars due. Okay, somebody's telling you zero dollars due. And
then one day somebody calls you, or probably doesn't call you,
probably sends you some mail because their workforce has been cut,
and it says, now you got to start paying eight
hundred dollars a month in this economy. Maybe where's the
cash coming from?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Exactly? It's like eggs a caviar. Yeah, and there's no jobs.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I went to buy some pickles yesterday and they were
five dollars a jar.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
No put those that I don't need that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I'm like, can I live without pickles in my life?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I don't know. You become a home sitter. Now you're
cutting up qucumbers.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yo, this is what they're trying to do. They're trying
to take us down. That dollary in a farm pipeline.
Don't see me dollars, don't.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Want it, and I don't care what anybody says. That
lady's not happy. Let's just be real.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
They don't want any of us either.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
We're not the top candidates. Colleen, You've talked about this
before that, you know, and some of the narrative becomes like, oh,
those kids are irresponsible, and people have student loans they
want to get four and five degrees. And for people
who haven't heard you in a previous episode, I think
it's so important to understand, like who are these borrowers?
(19:30):
These are not folks who are doctor, doctor, masters, public
policy masters, and also a master's of fine arts. That's
not what the typical borrower looks like.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Shots fired.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Okay, I just called everybody on the call.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Our history degrees. I'm trying to go right now. I
want to, I can't afford it.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
One of the things that really stands out to me
here is like the good intentions of policymakers in most cases, right,
Like we want to expand access higher education. We want
to create prist differentiations so that if you have the money,
you pay out of pocket. If you don't have the money,
you get grants or loans to go to school. Initially
it was intended that loans go to middle income people.
Then over time that got expended to lower income people,
(20:28):
and now they've become really the only way that anyone
can afford to go to school, and you end up,
especially in situations where schools that enroll large loancome populations,
like historically black colleges and universities or community colleges to
a lesser extent, but you have students who are getting
(20:49):
a pel grant that this past year was almost seven
thousand dollars per year. There aren't that many schools that
you can get super far. And with seven thousand dollars
in a grant.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We spend in that at the grocery store now.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Wild, And so people have to rely on loans, and
because of the way that loans are structured, they aren't
you know, as much as folks go on about like
how much student debt people have and how out of
control it is, really still people who are undergraduate students
are borrowing. I'm going to say, use the word only
(21:24):
only borrowing about thirty thousand dollars on average when they
leave school for four year degree. That number hasn't really
gone up significantly in.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The last ten fifteen years or so.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And that you know, that amount is not insubstantial, but
it is certainly not what we're talking about like eight
hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
What we're seeing is people growing to graduate at school
especially and being able to borrow all the way up
to the cost of attendance, so not just their two
and not since their forty fifty thousand dollars tuition, but
also their living expenses and their food and their books
and whatever else they need. And finishing a one under
to your graduate program with one hundred thousand, two hundred
(22:03):
thousand dollars in.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That this is such a great point. Most people who
have money are paying the tuition. The loans are mostly
going to low income folks who are trying to get
a degree to better their lives, but they also need
the additional set of funds for food or living expenses
or whatever. The Higher Education Act or HA was passed
in nineteen sixty five as a part of President Lyndon B.
(22:24):
Johnson's push to make college more accessible, and it's basically
a law that created the entire federal student aid system. Grants, loans,
work study, all of it. So that's the foundation for
things like PEIL grants and FAFSA. And every few years
Congress is supposed to reauthorize the law and that's when
they update the rules about college affordability, accountability, and student
(22:48):
loan repayment. But like the Congress that we know they are,
it hasn't been reauthorized since two thousand and eight. That
is long overdue for an update, and that's part of
why you see a lot of debate around how the
Department of Education can act on student debt.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Congress has really dropped the ball.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
It is unconscionable that we have not reauthorized the Higher
Education Act, which used to happen every.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Five, ten, maybe fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
We have barely touched it since two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, and that is wild considering the
rhetoric that you hear out of Congress about student loans
from both the left and the right, and with the
crisis that you know so many borrowers will talk about
that they've largely just let the rhetoric speak and have
(23:40):
given up on doing policymaking. And the Republicans have introduced
a lot of massive reforms to higher education.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
On April twenty eighth, and as I was listening to
the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
About the markup of this bill, I was just so
disappointed to hear how poor the agenda was from Democrats.
I mean, the first several amendments were I want the
Secretary of Education to certify that this won't raise the
cost of college for low income students.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Like they can't do that.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
What is that gonna do.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I'm just sure that Linda McMahon's gonna be like, let
me sign.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
On the Yeah, sure I certify that, sir. Like that
doesn't that's right. I would functionally do anything.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
And so I think that the problem that Democrats have
had on this issue especially is they've been in this
like defend, defend, defend posture and not int like what
is going to make the sustainable long term?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Something I heard recently about the administration now talking about
people who were borrowing even though payments have been paused.
Now they're going to say to the people who service
those loans, if they're not paying, report them to the
credit bureau, garnish their wages. And I'm like, is that real?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So I want it necessary.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I want everyone to take a deep breath, because most
people listening to this don't have loans in default.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So okay, that's only for loans in default.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Only for people in default exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So there are about forty three million people have student loans.
At the beginning of the pandemic, about eight million of
them were in default on their student loans, which means
that they didn't make payments for a year and they
got hit on their credit reports. They might have been
going in the collections process already and then those collections
(25:45):
were paused during the pandemic. The Biden administration had a
policy that was called Fresh Start that basically allowed those
people that were in default to get out of default,
no questions asked. They didn't have to do any pay
that was making any payments. They could just and get
out of default. About three million people to col advantage
of that opportunity. So there are five million borrowers right
now that are in default that had lots and lots
(26:08):
of opportunities to get out of default, that did not
do anything to get out of default. And those folks
have not had collections happened them plus five plus years.
It was five years in March, and so what the
Trump administration is doing is turning collections back on for
those folks.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Okay, so then what do you say to the people,
Because I see this all over TikTok. There's always somebody
who's taking a selfie style video walking down the street
and they're like, stop paying a student loans, don't pay.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Them back, don't give don't give those people money.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And I'm like, is this wise with what will you
just told us they're gonna COMFID that money.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
They're gonna get their coming.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
They're gonna get their money. They will listen, They're gonna
get their money. Like that is a bad idea.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
There was one So when I was still at Federal
Student Aid, there was a.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
TikTok video that was going around.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Of somebody being like, if dose accesses your student aid data,
they're violating FURPA.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And if they are violating FURPA, then you can get
your loans forgiven.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
So everybody call your student loan servicer or tell them
that they're in violation of your rights, and then dispute
your student loans at the credit Reporting Agency. I don't
know who that person was, but I'm just gonna tell
you that I reported that video a spam because that
was complete lized.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
It don't work that way, It does not work that way.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
But also, like I guess, like one of the big
things here is that, like I understand that people want
to like are trying.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
To make make it, make anything that they can happen.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Happen, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
However, when that week credit reporting agencies got flooded with
like fifteen thousand student loan disputes, that creates a ton
of work for the credit reporting agencies and for the
student loan servicers. That takes people away from answering calls.
So then your callwait time goes up because they're sitting
there being like, this is not a legitimate dispute, in
(28:14):
part because furba Family Education Rights Privacy Act.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Does not apply to the federal government.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
It applies to your school sharing information with other people
about you, not anything related to anything that might happen
in Tosh.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And the piece that we're leaving out is the emotional
aspect when we think about folks who are in this
position with so much debt or even a little bit
of debt, and thinking about what do I have, how
do I negotiate that with the reality of my income
right now, the reality of the increasing cost of living
like it can also feel very overwhelming to start to
(28:49):
even begin the process of looking into this, And so
I think that also plays a role in people's desperation
to find a way out of these situations.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Absolutely, absolutely, and that's create the chaos, creates opportunity for
folks who are going to scam you. Right The best
thing that if you have a student loan you're like,
I don't know what I'm supposed to do in right now,
go to student a dot gov. Create an account or
log in. That is the place to figure out what
your loan status is. If you don't know who your
(29:19):
loan servicer is, they will it will tell you who
your loan servicer is, will tell your balance, and your
loan servicer is like, can't emphasize this enough. Your loan
servicer is there to help you. I understand the like frustration.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And a lot of distrust right now, but.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Distrust totally that comes with a loan servicer, especially certain
loan services.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You may see in the news all the time, But
at the end of the.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Day, there is anybody else that is able to provide
you with making payments and resources and support aside from
your federal student loan servicer.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
So is student loan for giveness it like is it
a thing of the past, Like that was just a
very special time in our history and it will never
come back.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Broad based student loan forgiveness has gone so like a
massive write off of student loans is there's no world
in which that happens. I think that some of this is, like,
you know, I have always kind of taken the perspective
here of it makes sense to fix college affordability before
you start spending hundreds of billions of dollars forgiving student loans,
(30:30):
because all of a sudden, what you're going to do
is spend I mean, just the Biden proposal, which we
need forgive everybody's student loans would have spent like five.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Hundred billion with a B dollars.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And when you're spending to that level, you are never
spending money on higher education for the next ten, fifteen,
twenty years. It becomes really really really hard, like we
need Unfortunately, a lot of policies have become like everything.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Should be free, we should be forgiving loans.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
But like at the end of the day, there is
a budget implication for all of this that is very real,
and we see that starting to play out with some
of the inflation that we're seeing and things like that.
When it becomes the the debt of the country and
financial situation of the country becomes more and more precarious,
you see higher interest rates, higher prices, all of those
(31:18):
types of things. When we look at higher ed and
we look at student loans, I see so many times
us trying to solve economic problems through either higher education
or student debt, and it's like, no, no, no, we
got to be talking about like wages in the economy
and providing people with affordable healthcare rather than addressing like
this one piece of the problem.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right, those are in a lot of cases see have
been seen as more difficult problems to solve.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But now as we've pushed the envelope on high red,
we've gotten to a place where it's like, well, now
we can't use any of these like more creative kind
of levers to get people on forgiveness. However, public service
loan forgiveness is absolutely still an option for people. There's
a program called Teacher Loan for Goodness, which is kind
of supplemental to public service on forgiveness that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Teachers can use.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
There's also programs that can help you if you are
have been like defrauded by your school, or if while
you were enrolled your school closed, you know, if somebody saw
your identity like those programs can also you know, potentially
help you and then also, you know, I don't want
to forget the income driven repayment plans, all of those
plans at the end of a long period admittedly twenty
(32:27):
to twenty five years right now, potentially thirty years in
the future of making pinions so.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
You can get your loans. Forgiven that is a really
long timeframe.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
It feels really untenable to a lot of folks, but
it is at least some light at the end of
the tunnel.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I think something that's also important to understand is that
all of these problems didn't come out of nowhere. Even
if Kamala hit one, we would still be going through
all of this, because this was just snowballing, you.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Know, right, Yeah, And I will say that, like the
payment pause ended over a year ago, about a year
and a half ago. But during the first year of
what we called in the government like returnatory payment starting
turning payments back on, the Biden administration opted to not
basically have like negative consequences to folks who are missing payments,
(33:18):
and so things like you didn't make a payment, or
you wouldn't be able to.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Get to a point where it would be reported to
your credit.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Reporting agency that you were a delinquent that it basically
just like we'd roll you back to current and then
like you'd start over. I think that was a beneficial thing,
Like we definitely needed an on REMP for people. The
problem was it wasn't paired with meaningful and appropriate outreach
to folks to say, like, hey, you're getting bills, you
got to pay these bills, right like, because at some
(33:45):
point there will be consequences. And part of the reason
for that was the Biden administration really didn't want to.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Take the heat of why.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Are you hitting my credit, why are you turning payments
back on and blah blah blah blah, And they were
kind of kicking the can down the road.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
And then when I lost the election, it was like, well,
now it's Trump's problem.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Now it's somebody else's problem.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
So like there's definitely some blame to go around here,
right Biden administration would be doing the exact thing that
the Trump administration is doing right now, Wow, it would
be doing the exact same thing. So I think that folks,
like I really want folks to understand that like some
of this is the Biden administration not wanting to kind
of face the facts. We cannot sustain an unlimited payment
(34:26):
ponuse on student loans, thrown unlimited pause and consequences on
student loans, and so like, we would be in the
exact same situation if Harris had won.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
If you were paying zero dollars and now you're being
asked to pay eight hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
What can someone do?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Is there options for them to not have to pay
the full amount every month or inn this economy, it
just feels unfair to just turn these things back on
on folks when there's all these tariffs and things are
getting more and more expensive, and then you're also saying, oh,
oh this thing that was free ninety nine, now it's
(35:04):
actually a huge.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Amount that you have to pay per month.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
You know, what folks.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Can do is if they're like getting a bill and
they're like, I cannot possibly manage this. There are a
variety of repayment plans available to people. So there are
the income driven repayment plans that are available to people
that base your payment off of your income. That can
reduce a lot of folks, especially if they have higher debt.
They are monthly payment amounts, but it's also worth looking
(35:29):
at plans like an extended payment plan or graduated repayment plan,
which can either increase your payment term so instead of
paying over ten years, you might pay over fifteen or twenty,
depending on how much debt you have, or a graduated
plan will like start your payments out lower for the
first couple of years and increase them every two years
(35:50):
so that you know, as time goes on you might
owe more, but at least they're more manageable in the
short term. And those are really nice because you don't
have to like some income information every year and like
deal with your loan servicer and all that.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
You just like enroll and you can stand that plan.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
If none of those options are either you know, affordable
or tenable for you, you can get in touch with
your loan servicer and request what's called an alternative repayment plan,
which is essentially a plan that you are able to
kind of like negotiate with your loan servicer, because at
the end of the day, it behooves your loan servicer
to have you in a current status in paying your
(36:27):
loans on a monthly basis, even if it's ten bucks
a month, then it is to have you going to
linkum and defaulting on your loan.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
For sure, I think a question I have just as
we think about all the things that you've told us,
it feels a little doom and gloom. But I'm curious
if there's anything or any movement that you see with
your magical eyes that makes you hopeful or that you
feel like, Okay, we're headed in the right direction, or
(36:55):
even if it feels doom and gloom right now, like
this is just a temporary crunch, I think there's something
on the other side of this, anything like that.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
This is a tough tough time obviously, you know, as
a the economy is really tough, Inflation is really rough
on people, prices, there's just there's a whole bunch that
folks have to navigate. I think for folks that are
really struggling, like looking at their situations right now, are
like I absolutely cannot.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Pay my federal student loans.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
There are options available right Like there's also deferments that
people can take advantage of, like economic hardship deferments if
they're unemployed or unploment deferments. There are some kind of
medical deferments that people can use if necessary, for temporary relief.
At least I think that for the for a lot
of folks. One of the things that we all need
(37:44):
to do right now, and I said this as an
unemployed person, is you've got to look at your budget
and see like where can I make up? Where can
I cut? Like it sucks, but this is where we're at.
And as like a millennial, is how to do that
my entire life. It's not cool or fun, but this
is a time to become empowered over yourself and your
finances and like taking care of yourself and your family.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And your community.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
You know.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I think that the other thing here is there is
appetite for change. And so I mentioned that the House
Republicans had introduced kind of a massive overhaul of higher.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Ed on Monday.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A lot of parts of that are not great and
even hazard to say, really bad, but there are other
parts of it where I think, like, you know, the
repayment Plan option, I nobody's really done like a deep
analysis of it yet, but I think it might not
be the worst option, especially for folks who are getting
buried in interest on their current student loans. There's a
(38:44):
lot of kind of measures in there to address going forward,
how much people can borrow and trying to hold schools
more accountable to the prices that they're charging for people.
And that's really you know where I see once policy
makers start really putting the pedal to the metal and
trying to make heart decisions and standing up to especially
(39:05):
with lobbying groups that have been real like the colleges
are one of the most powerful lobbies in the country
and have been forever and have had no resistance. If
the Republicans stand up to them, that's actually like a
pretty major win for everybody. And it's going to be
very interesting to see how all that adjusting goes forward
into the future.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think there's always unintended consequences to policies and always
secondary effects that might be challenging. But I do think that,
you know, it's always important when you see things happening
to just be like, you know, if Democrats are doing
or Republicans are doing it and you're on one side
or the other, that you're not just like, oh, it
must be terrible because it's these folks, right, Yeah, And
(39:48):
so I do think that, like, you know, there there
is policy making that I think is coming in spite
of the massive layoffs happening that have happened at the department.
There are, uh, there are really really good and smart
and dedicated federal employees that.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Are still around, and.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
You know, there are a lot of folks that are
really committed to make the situation better for everybody.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
This really illuminated a lot for me. I think the
main thing is that this is not a Trump administration
faux pas. This is something that has gone back many
administrations and we're just now feeling the repercussions from you know,
the sins of president's past, you know what I mean,
and legislators as well. I feel like you got to
(40:41):
take it back to Game of Thrones when they walk
Thircee down that path and be like, shame on all
of you for not renewing this stuff, you know, and
for letting it get this bad.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
I know.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
And it's just like a lot of these politicians, I
feel like they're so out of touch with the people
that they are supposed to be serving, and because of
that disconnect, they are focused on all the wrong things.
People are like, hey, hey, hey, I need help, and
they're like, hmm, let's cut the funding for the Parks Department.
(41:15):
I'm like, first of all, what did them folks do
to you as yet bigger fish to fry y'aller what
is going on?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And it's like we're all just tired.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Everybody on the left and the right people are feeling
the effects of all of this bad legislation, and it
feels like this is only the beginning. So we're gonna
be keeping an eye out and updating all of you
to make sure that you are up to date and
up to speed on the legislation that's coming out. And
if you want to go back and hear Colleen's previous episode,
that's Lab seven Show Me the Money, and that was
(41:49):
great also, so just to see where we came from
and how hopeful we were.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Hope, we were so hopeful, so stupid. You can find
us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Podcast, tt is on X and Instagram at d R
Underscore t Shoe.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And you can find Takiya at Z said so.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our senior
supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate producer is
Issara Savez. Dope Labs is sound design edited and mixed
by James Farber, Lamanada Media's Vice president of Partnerships and
production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is
(42:37):
Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed
and produced by Taka Yatsuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with
additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced
by US T T Show, Dia and Kia Wattley.
I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah, and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
I don't know about you, but there has been a
(00:24):
lot on my timeline about whether or not people should
pay their student loans if they can dispute it the
same way you dispute a late payment fee on your MX.
I think TikTok is not the place for that advice. Honestly,
it feels like everybody is on the internet telling folks
what to do, and it doesn't feel like it's coming
(00:45):
from the right place. Feels like it's coming from an
angry spot in their heart. And we need facts. Facts, facts, Yeah,
facts minus emotion. Now, I'm not saying emotion is not compelling,
but that emotion is not gonna do justice to your
credit report.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's not. It's not.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So we had to turn to one of our favorites
and get some answers. Yes, but before we do that,
let's jump into the recitation and figure out what we
know already and what we want to know. First of all,
I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about
who has student loans. People angry saying like, oh, it's
(01:21):
just folks getting multiple degrees, and I'm like, that's not
even the majority of folks that have student loans, right,
And we found that out the last time we talked
about student loans in an episode in the first semester, right, yes, yeah,
And we know that it's complicated. I mean, honestly, the
loan process is complicated, and it didn't get any better
when the pandemic hit and loans were paused, and there's
(01:44):
all of these like ripple effects that we're feeling now
that they're being unpaused. And we also know that there
are people that are taking advantage of the miscommunication or
the unclear communication. I don't have any student loans right now,
still getting text messages that say call me about your
student loan, and if I had them at this point,
(02:06):
I would be confused or possibly scammed. Right, report as junk,
Report as junk. Yes, I think one of the things
that I want to know is how we got here?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Mm hmm, Like where is it? What happened?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Who fault is it?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Fault is it?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Because I want to know because I've got questions for
them specifically, and are they really garnishing wages. I think
I saw something that was like, they can garnish your
wages just like child support. They can do the same
thing about your student loans. Is that true? I have
no idea, but that sounds wild and I would be
very nervous. I also want to know is it too
late to write the ship? And is student loan forgiveness
(02:47):
a thing of the past? Will we never see the thing? Yeah?
And with all these cuts, is a Department of Education
still a thing doesn't have teeth? And do those cuts
effect whether or not you have to pay your student loans?
I think this is a great time to jump into
the dissection with our friend Colleen Campbell that we had
(03:08):
back in the first semester when we were talking about
student loans.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I am Colleen Campbell.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I have published a substact called on Detail, and I've
spent the last fifteen or so years working at think tanks,
at colleges and in the federal government working on higher
education affordability and federal student loans.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
You know, last time we were here, the conversation was different. Colleen.
You were up close and personal with the changes that
started coming out of the Trump administration. Now, before we
get started really diving into what's different, can you walk
us through just in the past year so the major
changes that have been happening inside the Department of Education,
(03:51):
particularly related to loan servicing and borrow support.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
So, I had worked at the Department for five and
a half years and my last day was March thirty.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
First.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I quit as part of a response to everything that's
going on and the Trump administration, especially in terms of layoffs.
When I left the federal government, I was the newly
appointed executive director of the Office of Loan Portfolio Management,
which is a newly created group at the Office of
(04:25):
Federal Student Aid which manages all of higher education student
aid programs. That group manages all of student loans and
so public service loan Forgiveness, Income driveny Payment Plan, the
SAVE Plan, all loan forgiveness stuff, any debt collection for
asaulted student loans, student loan oversight. I have about two hundred
(04:45):
people reporting to me, and I took over that position
in January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Okay, so before we jump into everything that has changed,
can you walk us through some of the most commonly
used student loan payments programs because we all know that
it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So when you borrow your student loans after you leave school,
you are expected to repay, and the federal government offers
a variety of repayment plans available to student loan borrowers.
You kind of get put by default into a plan
that's called the standard plan, which has fixed payments every
month for a ten year period. Now that might be
(05:27):
affordable for you if you're making okay money coming out
of college and you didn't borrow a crazy amount, but
especially for people with a lot of debt, or people
that have been in repayment for a long time and
haven't been paying down their balances, or even people with
lower incomes, that Standard Plan is just like not a
viable option for you. And so the government in nineteen
(05:52):
eighty two, actually Congress created the first income driven repayment plan,
which bases your monthly payments off of your income, and
over time those plans have expanded. So Congress created the
first one in ninety two, then Congress created another one
in two thousand and eight. That plan, income based Repayment,
allowed barbers to pay zero dollars per month for the
(06:14):
first time ever, and then as time went on, and
student loans started to become more and more of a
pressing issue for so many Americans. The executive branch, the
President and President Obama got a little creative with how
they were approaching these things and looked at the Higher
Education Act, which governs a lot of higher ed policy,
(06:36):
and said, we need to create some new repayment plans.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We can't wait for Congress to do it. We got
to do it.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
And so they created a variety of plans through regulatory action,
so without Congress passing laws, and over time there were
more and more plans that grew out of this barrow.
You know, folks who have been paying loans for a
while might be familiar with the pay as you earn
plan or pay revised pays you earn plan or repay. Yeah,
(07:01):
we're really cool in acronyms and higher out here.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That brings us to the Biden administration's safe program.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
The Biden administration had taken an extremely aggressive policy agenda
for higher education, perhaps the most aggressive policy agenda ever
for higher education, at least from the executive branch. And
so this was really the most generous plan available to
doing the law and borrowers instead of offering forgiveness after
(07:30):
twenty or twenty five years of repayment, which is common
for most of the income driven repayment plans. It offered
forgiveness for some borrowers at ten years, especially if you
know you weren't making a ton of money and so
save was a planned that a lot of people flocked
toward because they saw it as a way for them
to really be able to afford their monthly payments and
potentially get out of debt that they just never saw
(07:52):
a way of paying down.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
This sounds great to me, I mean forgiveness after a
shorter amount of time. That seems really great for folks
that were really struggling with paying down their student loans.
But I know everything that glitters is my goal. It
has got to be something else to it.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
They had tried and failed to forgive student loans. They
had tried to create this new, more affordable repayment plan.
We had succeeded in awarding new loan servicing contracts and
rebuilding the way that public service loan forgiveness worked. And
by the time that the Trump administration came in, there
(08:28):
were a lot of policies that were kind of half done.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
What I do know is that there were a lot
of legal challenges for the Biden administration. So when that
administration will put a policy in place, there would be
an injunction and the court would put a halt to it,
and that would leave borrowers in limbo because yes, this
thing was being proposed, but then it doesn't get enacted.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
And so by the time that I took charge of
the Office of Lone Portfolio Management, we had eight million
borrowers that were in a forbearance, not paying their loans
on as part of the Save plan. We had borrowers
who largely hadn't really been paying their loans for the
last five years, and so we're trying to figure out
how to get those folks back into the habit of
(09:09):
paying their loans and for borrowers and defaults. Those folks
hadn't had any collections happening to them over the course
the last five years either, and so there were just
a lot of pieces of the puzzle that were very
much up in the air. Barrowers didn't really know how
to navigate them, and probably still don't.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Depending on when you entered the portal, like when you
generated loans, you might not even realize like what used
to be available, what is available if you generate it
really early on? How do you know if you can
get into a plan that might let you pay zero
dollars now?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I literally had somebody contact me yesterday asking to know
more information about student loans.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Like Sally May, like girl Sally May has not been
around for.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
A whiles, did.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Bad deceased. There's just so much people don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I think that the people that have student loans,
I feel like they be knowing. But then the people
who don't or they're so far removed, they don't be knowing.
Like the people with the student knows they be knowing
that it's complicated, But the people that don't, they just
think it's They're like, oh, what's the big deal? And
so I feel like my next question is just about
(10:43):
the Trump administration and what they're trying to do. So
we know that they're trying to make things more efficient
and whatever whatever. Can you talk about the roles and
functions that are being reduced and removed or deprioritized in
this shift? And there's also talk about moving DOE to
(11:04):
another agency. Can you talk about what issues are going
to arise from that? If that does happen.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Ooh yeah, this is a big question.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
One of the reasons that I left was because I
had a group in January that was like two hundred
Dish people, and even just looking at that group, I
had four divisions. One of those divisions was an oversight division,
which basically managed all of the oversight of the different
servicers and other contractors that are involved in the space.
(11:36):
And that was about fifty people, so at a quarter
of my organization. We also had a lot of people,
which is also similarly important because oversight gets tons of
tension right.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
The Trump administration hates oversight, from student loans to clean
air to consumer protections. The Trump administration has systematically gutted
oversight agencies, and oversight is how the government holds powerful
actors like corporate rations, schools, and lenders accountable to us
the public. But under Trump, the watchdogs were sidelined, regulations
(12:09):
have been rolled back, and oversight has been weakened across
the board, which makes it harder for us, the everyday
people to get justice or relief.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Right, you have lots of news articles being written about
like the gutting of oversight functions and that like CSB
going away oversay at the department being a subject to
the reduction and force of the riff, which is people
getting fired essentially.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, pause.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
So the CFPB, that's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and
that's a government agency that was created after the two
thousand and eight financial crisis. Yeah, it will set up
to protect regular people from getting scammed by shady lenders,
credit card companies, and even student loan services. They handle complaints,
they write rules, and hold banks and financial companies accountable
(12:56):
when they mess up. Yeah, it was a big deal
when it launched back twenty ten. And I don't know
if you remember, but Elizabeth Warren was one of the
main people pushing for it, right, And so of course
the Trump administration gutted it and leadership pulled back on
enforcement and the rules that protected borrowers, especially student loan borrowers.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
But the other prong of this that I think is
really important to understand is that they're all the government
does is oversight. The government basically is overseeing a ton
of contractors that are actually doing the work, coding the technology,
collecting the payments from people, talking on the phone to
people whenever you call a government phone number, and need
to talk to somebody. Ninety percent shot that that is
(13:39):
a contractor, and there are federal employees overseeing those contractors,
which are private businesses. And so, you know, when I
was hard to predict what exactly was going to happen.
By the time we got to people even just being fired,
I had lost a good fifty people in my area
(14:00):
just from people them saying you're not gonna be able to
work remote anymore, either moved to.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Washington, d C. Or quit.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
There were people who you know, were offered the fork
in the road that decided to take that, especially people
who were pretty close to retirement, a lot of the
federal workforce, and so I had lost some of my
best people even before the riffs happened. And when you
lose oversight, that's bad. When you lose operations and oversight,
(14:28):
there's no way for you to function.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's wow, because without the folks to do the work
and the oversight to make sure that they're doing right
by the American people, a lot of things can fall
through the crucs.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And it's the onus is going to be on borrowers
and students to figure out when they're not getting the
benefits that are entitled to.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think that's a very good point because I've seen
a little bit of chatter on threads. I've shifted from
mixed to threads folks friends, But people are saying like, oh, well,
I went to pay, or this site was down, or
I was having issues getting through. I called didn't get anybody.
And so for somebody that hasn't interacted with these systems,
(15:10):
even if their old school only paid with Sally May
was that girl, or if they're just are really lucky
and don't have any student loans, I think it would
be helpful for you to explain, like what kind of
support used to be there that's now disappearing or is
on the cusp of disappearing.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, and this has an interesting interactivity with what happened
during the COVID payment pause when people weren't being expectatory pay.
So there are this is what we're seeing right now
is not just And I think it's almost convenient in
a way for Democrats to just be able to say, like,
everything failing right now is the fault of the Trump
administration of laying people off and cutting programs, et cetera,
(15:47):
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
But this has been building over.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
A long period of time, and there's negligence kind of
on both sides. And so what you're seeing is, you know,
during COVID, there are a lot of fits and starts
around terenty payment, and people with student loans might notice
that it would be like, get ready, you're gonna have
to pay loans in August, and then it would come
like July thirtieth and be like, just.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Kidding, January January and then like and that happened five
or six times to people over the course of the
four years of the COVID payment pause.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
And what this led to was a lot of instability
and confusion among borrowers. Right, Folks were leaving college and
never really getting into the habit of paying their student
loans or understanding that they had to repay their loans
or what options that they had. And so now many
years later, here we are telling these folks that, Okay,
it's time to start paying and they need help. Right,
(16:43):
But also don't forget there was a reduction in force
or a riff, so there aren't as many loan officers
or people to pick up the phone to answer those questions.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
People are in a payment pause. People are in a pause.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
You don't need people calling their servicer. People are worried
about it, but that accumulates over time. And so now
what you're saying is there have been cuts to single
and services over time. The culmination of all of these
cuts in all of these ways that services were trying
to stay afloat over the years, all of this burden
put on the department and on the servicers to take
(17:18):
care of burrowers, and then all of a sudden, you
have millions and millions of people coming into the system
saying I need help, and there aren't the resources there
to support them.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I think it's been very convenient, like you said, to
categorize this as belonging to one administration, So this goes
back multiple administrations. This is even Trump administration before paused
loan payment. Yeah, and I feel like now they're aggressively
going after those folks, even though we've kind of put
(17:49):
them in this position. You know, we've talked about a
little bit in one of our our last semester of
Dope Labs. We've talked about inflation, and we've talked about
what's going on with the economy. I just want folks
who are listening for a second to think about if
you hadn't been paying a bill, and not even that
you just hadn't been paying it. You were told zero
(18:09):
dollars due. Okay, somebody's telling you zero dollars due. And
then one day somebody calls you, or probably doesn't call you,
probably sends you some mail because their workforce has been cut,
and it says, now you got to start paying eight
hundred dollars a month in this economy. Maybe where's the
cash coming from?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Exactly? It's like eggs a caviar. Yeah, and there's no jobs.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I went to buy some pickles yesterday and they were
five dollars a jar.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
No put those that I don't need that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I'm like, can I live without pickles in my life?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I don't know. You become a home sitter. Now you're
cutting up qucumbers.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yo, this is what they're trying to do. They're trying
to take us down. That dollary in a farm pipeline.
Don't see me dollars, don't.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Want it, and I don't care what anybody says. That
lady's not happy. Let's just be real.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
They don't want any of us either.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
We're not the top candidates. Colleen, You've talked about this
before that, you know, and some of the narrative becomes like, oh,
those kids are irresponsible, and people have student loans they
want to get four and five degrees. And for people
who haven't heard you in a previous episode, I think
it's so important to understand, like who are these borrowers?
(19:30):
These are not folks who are doctor, doctor, masters, public
policy masters, and also a master's of fine arts. That's
not what the typical borrower looks like.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Shots fired.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Okay, I just called everybody on the call.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Our history degrees. I'm trying to go right now. I
want to, I can't afford it.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
One of the things that really stands out to me
here is like the good intentions of policymakers in most cases, right,
Like we want to expand access higher education. We want
to create prist differentiations so that if you have the money,
you pay out of pocket. If you don't have the money,
you get grants or loans to go to school. Initially
it was intended that loans go to middle income people.
Then over time that got expended to lower income people,
(20:28):
and now they've become really the only way that anyone
can afford to go to school, and you end up,
especially in situations where schools that enroll large loancome populations,
like historically black colleges and universities or community colleges to
a lesser extent, but you have students who are getting
(20:49):
a pel grant that this past year was almost seven
thousand dollars per year. There aren't that many schools that
you can get super far. And with seven thousand dollars
in a grant.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We spend in that at the grocery store now.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Wild, And so people have to rely on loans, and
because of the way that loans are structured, they aren't
you know, as much as folks go on about like
how much student debt people have and how out of
control it is, really still people who are undergraduate students
are borrowing. I'm going to say, use the word only
(21:24):
only borrowing about thirty thousand dollars on average when they
leave school for four year degree. That number hasn't really
gone up significantly in.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The last ten fifteen years or so.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And that you know, that amount is not insubstantial, but
it is certainly not what we're talking about like eight
hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
What we're seeing is people growing to graduate at school
especially and being able to borrow all the way up
to the cost of attendance, so not just their two
and not since their forty fifty thousand dollars tuition, but
also their living expenses and their food and their books
and whatever else they need. And finishing a one under
to your graduate program with one hundred thousand, two hundred
(22:03):
thousand dollars in.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That this is such a great point. Most people who
have money are paying the tuition. The loans are mostly
going to low income folks who are trying to get
a degree to better their lives, but they also need
the additional set of funds for food or living expenses
or whatever. The Higher Education Act or HA was passed
in nineteen sixty five as a part of President Lyndon B.
(22:24):
Johnson's push to make college more accessible, and it's basically
a law that created the entire federal student aid system. Grants, loans,
work study, all of it. So that's the foundation for
things like PEIL grants and FAFSA. And every few years
Congress is supposed to reauthorize the law and that's when
they update the rules about college affordability, accountability, and student
(22:48):
loan repayment. But like the Congress that we know they are,
it hasn't been reauthorized since two thousand and eight. That
is long overdue for an update, and that's part of
why you see a lot of debate around how the
Department of Education can act on student debt.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Congress has really dropped the ball.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
It is unconscionable that we have not reauthorized the Higher
Education Act, which used to happen every.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Five, ten, maybe fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
We have barely touched it since two thousand and seven,
two thousand and eight, and that is wild considering the
rhetoric that you hear out of Congress about student loans
from both the left and the right, and with the
crisis that you know so many borrowers will talk about
that they've largely just let the rhetoric speak and have
(23:40):
given up on doing policymaking. And the Republicans have introduced
a lot of massive reforms to higher education.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
On April twenty eighth, and as I was listening to
the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
About the markup of this bill, I was just so
disappointed to hear how poor the agenda was from Democrats.
I mean, the first several amendments were I want the
Secretary of Education to certify that this won't raise the
cost of college for low income students.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Like they can't do that.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
What is that gonna do.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I'm just sure that Linda McMahon's gonna be like, let
me sign.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
On the Yeah, sure I certify that, sir. Like that
doesn't that's right. I would functionally do anything.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
And so I think that the problem that Democrats have
had on this issue especially is they've been in this
like defend, defend, defend posture and not int like what
is going to make the sustainable long term?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Something I heard recently about the administration now talking about
people who were borrowing even though payments have been paused.
Now they're going to say to the people who service
those loans, if they're not paying, report them to the
credit bureau, garnish their wages. And I'm like, is that real?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So I want it necessary.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I want everyone to take a deep breath, because most
people listening to this don't have loans in default.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So okay, that's only for loans in default.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Only for people in default exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So there are about forty three million people have student loans.
At the beginning of the pandemic, about eight million of
them were in default on their student loans, which means
that they didn't make payments for a year and they
got hit on their credit reports. They might have been
going in the collections process already and then those collections
(25:45):
were paused during the pandemic. The Biden administration had a
policy that was called Fresh Start that basically allowed those
people that were in default to get out of default,
no questions asked. They didn't have to do any pay
that was making any payments. They could just and get
out of default. About three million people to col advantage
of that opportunity. So there are five million borrowers right
now that are in default that had lots and lots
(26:08):
of opportunities to get out of default, that did not
do anything to get out of default. And those folks
have not had collections happened them plus five plus years.
It was five years in March, and so what the
Trump administration is doing is turning collections back on for
those folks.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Okay, so then what do you say to the people,
Because I see this all over TikTok. There's always somebody
who's taking a selfie style video walking down the street
and they're like, stop paying a student loans, don't pay.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Them back, don't give don't give those people money.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And I'm like, is this wise with what will you
just told us they're gonna COMFID that money.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
They're gonna get their coming.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
They're gonna get their money. They will listen, They're gonna
get their money. Like that is a bad idea.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
There was one So when I was still at Federal
Student Aid, there was a.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
TikTok video that was going around.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Of somebody being like, if dose accesses your student aid data,
they're violating FURPA.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And if they are violating FURPA, then you can get
your loans forgiven.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
So everybody call your student loan servicer or tell them
that they're in violation of your rights, and then dispute
your student loans at the credit Reporting Agency. I don't
know who that person was, but I'm just gonna tell
you that I reported that video a spam because that
was complete lized.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
It don't work that way, It does not work that way.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
But also, like I guess, like one of the big
things here is that, like I understand that people want
to like are trying.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
To make make it, make anything that they can happen.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Happen, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
However, when that week credit reporting agencies got flooded with
like fifteen thousand student loan disputes, that creates a ton
of work for the credit reporting agencies and for the
student loan servicers. That takes people away from answering calls.
So then your callwait time goes up because they're sitting
there being like, this is not a legitimate dispute, in
(28:14):
part because furba Family Education Rights Privacy Act.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Does not apply to the federal government.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
It applies to your school sharing information with other people
about you, not anything related to anything that might happen
in Tosh.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And the piece that we're leaving out is the emotional
aspect when we think about folks who are in this
position with so much debt or even a little bit
of debt, and thinking about what do I have, how
do I negotiate that with the reality of my income
right now, the reality of the increasing cost of living
like it can also feel very overwhelming to start to
(28:49):
even begin the process of looking into this, And so
I think that also plays a role in people's desperation
to find a way out of these situations.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Absolutely, absolutely, and that's create the chaos, creates opportunity for
folks who are going to scam you. Right The best
thing that if you have a student loan you're like,
I don't know what I'm supposed to do in right now,
go to student a dot gov. Create an account or
log in. That is the place to figure out what
your loan status is. If you don't know who your
(29:19):
loan servicer is, they will it will tell you who
your loan servicer is, will tell your balance, and your
loan servicer is like, can't emphasize this enough. Your loan
servicer is there to help you. I understand the like frustration.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And a lot of distrust right now, but.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Distrust totally that comes with a loan servicer, especially certain
loan services.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
You may see in the news all the time, But
at the end of the.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Day, there is anybody else that is able to provide
you with making payments and resources and support aside from
your federal student loan servicer.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
So is student loan for giveness it like is it
a thing of the past, Like that was just a
very special time in our history and it will never
come back.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Broad based student loan forgiveness has gone so like a
massive write off of student loans is there's no world
in which that happens. I think that some of this is, like,
you know, I have always kind of taken the perspective
here of it makes sense to fix college affordability before
you start spending hundreds of billions of dollars forgiving student loans,
(30:30):
because all of a sudden, what you're going to do
is spend I mean, just the Biden proposal, which we
need forgive everybody's student loans would have spent like five.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Hundred billion with a B dollars.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And when you're spending to that level, you are never
spending money on higher education for the next ten, fifteen,
twenty years. It becomes really really really hard, like we
need Unfortunately, a lot of policies have become like everything.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Should be free, we should be forgiving loans.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
But like at the end of the day, there is
a budget implication for all of this that is very real,
and we see that starting to play out with some
of the inflation that we're seeing and things like that.
When it becomes the the debt of the country and
financial situation of the country becomes more and more precarious,
you see higher interest rates, higher prices, all of those
(31:18):
types of things. When we look at higher ed and
we look at student loans, I see so many times
us trying to solve economic problems through either higher education
or student debt, and it's like, no, no, no, we
got to be talking about like wages in the economy
and providing people with affordable healthcare rather than addressing like
this one piece of the problem.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right, those are in a lot of cases see have
been seen as more difficult problems to solve.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But now as we've pushed the envelope on high red,
we've gotten to a place where it's like, well, now
we can't use any of these like more creative kind
of levers to get people on forgiveness. However, public service
loan forgiveness is absolutely still an option for people. There's
a program called Teacher Loan for Goodness, which is kind
of supplemental to public service on forgiveness that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Teachers can use.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
There's also programs that can help you if you are
have been like defrauded by your school, or if while
you were enrolled your school closed, you know, if somebody saw
your identity like those programs can also you know, potentially
help you and then also, you know, I don't want
to forget the income driven repayment plans, all of those
plans at the end of a long period admittedly twenty
(32:27):
to twenty five years right now, potentially thirty years in
the future of making pinions so.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
You can get your loans. Forgiven that is a really
long timeframe.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
It feels really untenable to a lot of folks, but
it is at least some light at the end of
the tunnel.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I think something that's also important to understand is that
all of these problems didn't come out of nowhere. Even
if Kamala hit one, we would still be going through
all of this, because this was just snowballing, you.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Know, right, Yeah, And I will say that, like the
payment pause ended over a year ago, about a year
and a half ago. But during the first year of
what we called in the government like returnatory payment starting
turning payments back on, the Biden administration opted to not
basically have like negative consequences to folks who are missing payments,
(33:18):
and so things like you didn't make a payment, or
you wouldn't be able to.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Get to a point where it would be reported to
your credit.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Reporting agency that you were a delinquent that it basically
just like we'd roll you back to current and then
like you'd start over. I think that was a beneficial thing,
Like we definitely needed an on REMP for people. The
problem was it wasn't paired with meaningful and appropriate outreach
to folks to say, like, hey, you're getting bills, you
got to pay these bills, right like, because at some
(33:45):
point there will be consequences. And part of the reason
for that was the Biden administration really didn't want to.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Take the heat of why.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Are you hitting my credit, why are you turning payments
back on and blah blah blah blah, And they were
kind of kicking the can down the road.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
And then when I lost the election, it was like, well,
now it's Trump's problem.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Now it's somebody else's problem.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
So like there's definitely some blame to go around here,
right Biden administration would be doing the exact thing that
the Trump administration is doing right now, Wow, it would
be doing the exact same thing. So I think that folks,
like I really want folks to understand that like some
of this is the Biden administration not wanting to kind
of face the facts. We cannot sustain an unlimited payment
(34:26):
ponuse on student loans, thrown unlimited pause and consequences on
student loans, and so like, we would be in the
exact same situation if Harris had won.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
If you were paying zero dollars and now you're being
asked to pay eight hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
What can someone do?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Is there options for them to not have to pay
the full amount every month or inn this economy, it
just feels unfair to just turn these things back on
on folks when there's all these tariffs and things are
getting more and more expensive, and then you're also saying, oh,
oh this thing that was free ninety nine, now it's
(35:04):
actually a huge.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Amount that you have to pay per month.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
You know, what folks.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Can do is if they're like getting a bill and
they're like, I cannot possibly manage this. There are a
variety of repayment plans available to people. So there are
the income driven repayment plans that are available to people
that base your payment off of your income. That can
reduce a lot of folks, especially if they have higher debt.
They are monthly payment amounts, but it's also worth looking
(35:29):
at plans like an extended payment plan or graduated repayment plan,
which can either increase your payment term so instead of
paying over ten years, you might pay over fifteen or twenty,
depending on how much debt you have, or a graduated
plan will like start your payments out lower for the
first couple of years and increase them every two years
(35:50):
so that you know, as time goes on you might
owe more, but at least they're more manageable in the
short term. And those are really nice because you don't
have to like some income information every year and like
deal with your loan servicer and all that.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
You just like enroll and you can stand that plan.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
If none of those options are either you know, affordable
or tenable for you, you can get in touch with
your loan servicer and request what's called an alternative repayment plan,
which is essentially a plan that you are able to
kind of like negotiate with your loan servicer, because at
the end of the day, it behooves your loan servicer
to have you in a current status in paying your
(36:27):
loans on a monthly basis, even if it's ten bucks
a month, then it is to have you going to
linkum and defaulting on your loan.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
For sure, I think a question I have just as
we think about all the things that you've told us,
it feels a little doom and gloom. But I'm curious
if there's anything or any movement that you see with
your magical eyes that makes you hopeful or that you
feel like, Okay, we're headed in the right direction, or
(36:55):
even if it feels doom and gloom right now, like
this is just a temporary crunch, I think there's something
on the other side of this, anything like that.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
This is a tough tough time obviously, you know, as
a the economy is really tough, Inflation is really rough
on people, prices, there's just there's a whole bunch that
folks have to navigate. I think for folks that are
really struggling, like looking at their situations right now, are
like I absolutely cannot.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Pay my federal student loans.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
There are options available right Like there's also deferments that
people can take advantage of, like economic hardship deferments if
they're unemployed or unploment deferments. There are some kind of
medical deferments that people can use if necessary, for temporary relief.
At least I think that for the for a lot
of folks. One of the things that we all need
(37:44):
to do right now, and I said this as an
unemployed person, is you've got to look at your budget
and see like where can I make up? Where can
I cut? Like it sucks, but this is where we're at.
And as like a millennial, is how to do that
my entire life. It's not cool or fun, but this
is a time to become empowered over yourself and your
finances and like taking care of yourself and your family.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And your community.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
You know.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I think that the other thing here is there is
appetite for change. And so I mentioned that the House
Republicans had introduced kind of a massive overhaul of higher.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Ed on Monday.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A lot of parts of that are not great and
even hazard to say, really bad, but there are other
parts of it where I think, like, you know, the
repayment Plan option, I nobody's really done like a deep
analysis of it yet, but I think it might not
be the worst option, especially for folks who are getting
buried in interest on their current student loans. There's a
(38:44):
lot of kind of measures in there to address going forward,
how much people can borrow and trying to hold schools
more accountable to the prices that they're charging for people.
And that's really you know where I see once policy
makers start really putting the pedal to the metal and
trying to make heart decisions and standing up to especially
(39:05):
with lobbying groups that have been real like the colleges
are one of the most powerful lobbies in the country
and have been forever and have had no resistance. If
the Republicans stand up to them, that's actually like a
pretty major win for everybody. And it's going to be
very interesting to see how all that adjusting goes forward
into the future.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think there's always unintended consequences to policies and always
secondary effects that might be challenging. But I do think that,
you know, it's always important when you see things happening
to just be like, you know, if Democrats are doing
or Republicans are doing it and you're on one side
or the other, that you're not just like, oh, it
must be terrible because it's these folks, right, Yeah, And
(39:48):
so I do think that, like, you know, there there
is policy making that I think is coming in spite
of the massive layoffs happening that have happened at the department.
There are, uh, there are really really good and smart
and dedicated federal employees that.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Are still around, and.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
You know, there are a lot of folks that are
really committed to make the situation better for everybody.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
This really illuminated a lot for me. I think the
main thing is that this is not a Trump administration
faux pas. This is something that has gone back many
administrations and we're just now feeling the repercussions from you know,
the sins of president's past, you know what I mean,
and legislators as well. I feel like you got to
(40:41):
take it back to Game of Thrones when they walk
Thircee down that path and be like, shame on all
of you for not renewing this stuff, you know, and
for letting it get this bad.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
I know.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
And it's just like a lot of these politicians, I
feel like they're so out of touch with the people
that they are supposed to be serving, and because of
that disconnect, they are focused on all the wrong things.
People are like, hey, hey, hey, I need help, and
they're like, hmm, let's cut the funding for the Parks Department.
(41:15):
I'm like, first of all, what did them folks do
to you as yet bigger fish to fry y'aller what
is going on?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And it's like we're all just tired.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Everybody on the left and the right people are feeling
the effects of all of this bad legislation, and it
feels like this is only the beginning. So we're gonna
be keeping an eye out and updating all of you
to make sure that you are up to date and
up to speed on the legislation that's coming out. And
if you want to go back and hear Colleen's previous episode,
that's Lab seven Show Me the Money, and that was
(41:49):
great also, so just to see where we came from
and how hopeful we were.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Hope, we were so hopeful, so stupid. You can find
us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Podcast, tt is on X and Instagram at d R
Underscore t Shoe.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And you can find Takiya at Z said so.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our senior
supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate producer is
Issara Savez. Dope Labs is sound design edited and mixed
by James Farber, Lamanada Media's Vice president of Partnerships and
production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is
(42:37):
Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed
and produced by Taka Yatsuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with
additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced
by US T T Show, Dia and Kia Wattley.
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