WEBVTT - Student Loan Whiplash - Lab 095 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:09.920 I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah, and this is Dope Labs. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.600 Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.639 science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.640 I don't know about you, but there has been a 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.280 lot on my timeline about whether or not people should 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.520 pay their student loans if they can dispute it the 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.040 same way you dispute a late payment fee on your MX. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.159 I think TikTok is not the place for that advice. Honestly, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.240 it feels like everybody is on the internet telling folks 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.120 what to do, and it doesn't feel like it's coming 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.640 from the right place. Feels like it's coming from an 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.240 angry spot in their heart. And we need facts. Facts, facts, Yeah, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.000 facts minus emotion. Now, I'm not saying emotion is not compelling, 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.760 but that emotion is not gonna do justice to your 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:57.400 credit report. 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:58.920 It's not. It's not. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.840 So we had to turn to one of our favorites 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.119 and get some answers. Yes, but before we do that, 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.120 let's jump into the recitation and figure out what we 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:14.120 know already and what we want to know. First of all, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.640 I know that there are a lot of misconceptions about 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.120 who has student loans. People angry saying like, oh, it's 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.520 just folks getting multiple degrees, and I'm like, that's not 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.240 even the majority of folks that have student loans, right, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.160 And we found that out the last time we talked 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.640 about student loans in an episode in the first semester, right, yes, yeah, 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.319 And we know that it's complicated. I mean, honestly, the 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.199 loan process is complicated, and it didn't get any better 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.319 when the pandemic hit and loans were paused, and there's 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.360 all of these like ripple effects that we're feeling now 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.720 that they're being unpaused. And we also know that there 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.160 are people that are taking advantage of the miscommunication or 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.680 the unclear communication. I don't have any student loans right now, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.640 still getting text messages that say call me about your 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.680 student loan, and if I had them at this point, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.360 I would be confused or possibly scammed. Right, report as junk, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.880 Report as junk. Yes, I think one of the things 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.280 that I want to know is how we got here? 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.400 Mm hmm, Like where is it? What happened? 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:25.760 Who fault is it? 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:26.720 Fault is it? 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.480 Because I want to know because I've got questions for 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.639 them specifically, and are they really garnishing wages. I think 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.400 I saw something that was like, they can garnish your 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.240 wages just like child support. They can do the same 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.519 thing about your student loans. Is that true? I have 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.639 no idea, but that sounds wild and I would be 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.520 very nervous. I also want to know is it too 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.560 late to write the ship? And is student loan forgiveness 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.760 a thing of the past? Will we never see the thing? Yeah? 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.320 And with all these cuts, is a Department of Education 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.000 still a thing doesn't have teeth? And do those cuts 0:02:58.040 --> 0:02:59.919 effect whether or not you have to pay your student loans? 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:03.600 I think this is a great time to jump into 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.880 the dissection with our friend Colleen Campbell that we had 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.800 back in the first semester when we were talking about 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.400 student loans. 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:16.840 I am Colleen Campbell. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.000 I have published a substact called on Detail, and I've 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.639 spent the last fifteen or so years working at think tanks, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.359 at colleges and in the federal government working on higher 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.119 education affordability and federal student loans. 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.280 You know, last time we were here, the conversation was different. Colleen. 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.160 You were up close and personal with the changes that 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.680 started coming out of the Trump administration. Now, before we 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.839 get started really diving into what's different, can you walk 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.760 us through just in the past year so the major 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.840 changes that have been happening inside the Department of Education, 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.440 particularly related to loan servicing and borrow support. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:55.640 Ooh. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:00.920 So, I had worked at the Department for five and 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.360 a half years and my last day was March thirty. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:04.720 First. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.840 I quit as part of a response to everything that's 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.080 going on and the Trump administration, especially in terms of layoffs. 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.880 When I left the federal government, I was the newly 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.760 appointed executive director of the Office of Loan Portfolio Management, 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.200 which is a newly created group at the Office of 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.919 Federal Student Aid which manages all of higher education student 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.640 aid programs. That group manages all of student loans and 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.680 so public service loan Forgiveness, Income driveny Payment Plan, the 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:41.719 SAVE Plan, all loan forgiveness stuff, any debt collection for 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.800 asaulted student loans, student loan oversight. I have about two hundred 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.279 people reporting to me, and I took over that position 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.200 in January twenty twenty five. 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.840 Okay, so before we jump into everything that has changed, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.560 can you walk us through some of the most commonly 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.960 used student loan payments programs because we all know that 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:03.760 it's complicated. 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.920 So when you borrow your student loans after you leave school, 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.520 you are expected to repay, and the federal government offers 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.200 a variety of repayment plans available to student loan borrowers. 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.080 You kind of get put by default into a plan 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.400 that's called the standard plan, which has fixed payments every 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.800 month for a ten year period. Now that might be 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.720 affordable for you if you're making okay money coming out 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.400 of college and you didn't borrow a crazy amount, but 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.000 especially for people with a lot of debt, or people 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.400 that have been in repayment for a long time and 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:43.680 haven't been paying down their balances, or even people with 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.000 lower incomes, that Standard Plan is just like not a 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:52.160 viable option for you. And so the government in nineteen 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.960 eighty two, actually Congress created the first income driven repayment plan, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.760 which bases your monthly payments off of your income, and 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.479 over time those plans have expanded. So Congress created the 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.440 first one in ninety two, then Congress created another one 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.159 in two thousand and eight. That plan, income based Repayment, 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.560 allowed barbers to pay zero dollars per month for the 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:19.680 first time ever, and then as time went on, and 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:21.600 student loans started to become more and more of a 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.280 pressing issue for so many Americans. The executive branch, the 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.960 President and President Obama got a little creative with how 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.719 they were approaching these things and looked at the Higher 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.200 Education Act, which governs a lot of higher ed policy, 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.480 and said, we need to create some new repayment plans. 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.360 We can't wait for Congress to do it. We got 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:40.720 to do it. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.880 And so they created a variety of plans through regulatory action, 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.320 so without Congress passing laws, and over time there were 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.640 more and more plans that grew out of this barrow. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:53.240 You know, folks who have been paying loans for a 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.120 while might be familiar with the pay as you earn 0:06:55.200 --> 0:07:01.200 plan or pay revised pays you earn plan or repay. Yeah, 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.000 we're really cool in acronyms and higher out here. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.599 That brings us to the Biden administration's safe program. 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:12.960 The Biden administration had taken an extremely aggressive policy agenda 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:18.119 for higher education, perhaps the most aggressive policy agenda ever 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.080 for higher education, at least from the executive branch. And 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.520 so this was really the most generous plan available to 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.280 doing the law and borrowers instead of offering forgiveness after 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.120 twenty or twenty five years of repayment, which is common 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.600 for most of the income driven repayment plans. It offered 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.640 forgiveness for some borrowers at ten years, especially if you 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.840 know you weren't making a ton of money and so 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.400 save was a planned that a lot of people flocked 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.960 toward because they saw it as a way for them 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:49.840 to really be able to afford their monthly payments and 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.920 potentially get out of debt that they just never saw 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:53.880 a way of paying down. 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.440 This sounds great to me, I mean forgiveness after a 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.640 shorter amount of time. That seems really great for folks 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.760 that were really struggling with paying down their student loans. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:06.880 But I know everything that glitters is my goal. It 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:08.120 has got to be something else to it. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.040 They had tried and failed to forgive student loans. They 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.559 had tried to create this new, more affordable repayment plan. 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.840 We had succeeded in awarding new loan servicing contracts and 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.760 rebuilding the way that public service loan forgiveness worked. And 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.280 by the time that the Trump administration came in, there 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.200 were a lot of policies that were kind of half done. 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:33.439 What I do know is that there were a lot 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.680 of legal challenges for the Biden administration. So when that 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.599 administration will put a policy in place, there would be 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.320 an injunction and the court would put a halt to it, 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.080 and that would leave borrowers in limbo because yes, this 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.760 thing was being proposed, but then it doesn't get enacted. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.720 And so by the time that I took charge of 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.480 the Office of Lone Portfolio Management, we had eight million 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.800 borrowers that were in a forbearance, not paying their loans 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.000 on as part of the Save plan. We had borrowers 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.400 who largely hadn't really been paying their loans for the 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.760 last five years, and so we're trying to figure out 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.360 how to get those folks back into the habit of 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.760 paying their loans and for borrowers and defaults. Those folks 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.880 hadn't had any collections happening to them over the course 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:18.880 the last five years either, and so there were just 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:20.720 a lot of pieces of the puzzle that were very 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.240 much up in the air. Barrowers didn't really know how 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.120 to navigate them, and probably still don't. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.040 Depending on when you entered the portal, like when you 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.240 generated loans, you might not even realize like what used 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.440 to be available, what is available if you generate it 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.240 really early on? How do you know if you can 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.040 get into a plan that might let you pay zero 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:40.800 dollars now? 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:46.040 I literally had somebody contact me yesterday asking to know 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.439 more information about student loans. 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.200 Like Sally May, like girl Sally May has not been 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:52.719 around for. 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:54.640 A whiles, did. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:21.400 Bad deceased. There's just so much people don't know. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.000 And I think that the people that have student loans, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.760 I feel like they be knowing. But then the people 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.840 who don't or they're so far removed, they don't be knowing. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.080 Like the people with the student knows they be knowing 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.840 that it's complicated, But the people that don't, they just 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.800 think it's They're like, oh, what's the big deal? And 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.280 so I feel like my next question is just about 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.000 the Trump administration and what they're trying to do. So 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.480 we know that they're trying to make things more efficient 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.880 and whatever whatever. Can you talk about the roles and 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.440 functions that are being reduced and removed or deprioritized in 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:04.000 this shift? And there's also talk about moving DOE to 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.320 another agency. Can you talk about what issues are going 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.160 to arise from that? If that does happen. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.480 Ooh yeah, this is a big question. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.560 One of the reasons that I left was because I 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.360 had a group in January that was like two hundred 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.600 Dish people, and even just looking at that group, I 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.240 had four divisions. One of those divisions was an oversight division, 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.920 which basically managed all of the oversight of the different 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.320 servicers and other contractors that are involved in the space. 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.320 And that was about fifty people, so at a quarter 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.120 of my organization. We also had a lot of people, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.520 which is also similarly important because oversight gets tons of 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:45.280 tension right. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:50.640 The Trump administration hates oversight, from student loans to clean 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.760 air to consumer protections. The Trump administration has systematically gutted 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.160 oversight agencies, and oversight is how the government holds powerful 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:04.800 actors like corporate rations, schools, and lenders accountable to us 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.760 the public. But under Trump, the watchdogs were sidelined, regulations 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.880 have been rolled back, and oversight has been weakened across 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.720 the board, which makes it harder for us, the everyday 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.000 people to get justice or relief. 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.960 Right, you have lots of news articles being written about 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.720 like the gutting of oversight functions and that like CSB 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.719 going away oversay at the department being a subject to 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.400 the reduction and force of the riff, which is people 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:33.640 getting fired essentially. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:34.840 Okay, pause. 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:39.560 So the CFPB, that's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.000 that's a government agency that was created after the two 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.560 thousand and eight financial crisis. Yeah, it will set up 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.280 to protect regular people from getting scammed by shady lenders, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.160 credit card companies, and even student loan services. They handle complaints, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.720 they write rules, and hold banks and financial companies accountable 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.200 when they mess up. Yeah, it was a big deal 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.160 when it launched back twenty ten. And I don't know 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.280 if you remember, but Elizabeth Warren was one of the 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.640 main people pushing for it, right, And so of course 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.640 the Trump administration gutted it and leadership pulled back on 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:16.359 enforcement and the rules that protected borrowers, especially student loan borrowers. 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.400 But the other prong of this that I think is 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.280 really important to understand is that they're all the government 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.840 does is oversight. The government basically is overseeing a ton 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.640 of contractors that are actually doing the work, coding the technology, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.320 collecting the payments from people, talking on the phone to 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.440 people whenever you call a government phone number, and need 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.160 to talk to somebody. Ninety percent shot that that is 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:44.960 a contractor, and there are federal employees overseeing those contractors, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.560 which are private businesses. And so, you know, when I 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.680 was hard to predict what exactly was going to happen. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.079 By the time we got to people even just being fired, 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.000 I had lost a good fifty people in my area 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.880 just from people them saying you're not gonna be able to 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.440 work remote anymore, either moved to. 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.199 Washington, d C. Or quit. 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.800 There were people who you know, were offered the fork 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.080 in the road that decided to take that, especially people 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.280 who were pretty close to retirement, a lot of the 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.680 federal workforce, and so I had lost some of my 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:24.520 best people even before the riffs happened. And when you 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.680 lose oversight, that's bad. When you lose operations and oversight, 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:30.520 there's no way for you to function. 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.320 That's wow, because without the folks to do the work 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.040 and the oversight to make sure that they're doing right 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.880 by the American people, a lot of things can fall 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:40.520 through the crucs. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.360 And it's the onus is going to be on borrowers 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.280 and students to figure out when they're not getting the 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:47.560 benefits that are entitled to. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.320 I think that's a very good point because I've seen 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.040 a little bit of chatter on threads. I've shifted from 0:14:55.080 --> 0:15:00.400 mixed to threads folks friends, But people are saying like, oh, well, 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.360 I went to pay, or this site was down, or 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.960 I was having issues getting through. I called didn't get anybody. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.520 And so for somebody that hasn't interacted with these systems, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.720 even if their old school only paid with Sally May 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.800 was that girl, or if they're just are really lucky 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.120 and don't have any student loans, I think it would 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.040 be helpful for you to explain, like what kind of 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.680 support used to be there that's now disappearing or is 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:26.560 on the cusp of disappearing. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:31.280 Yeah, and this has an interesting interactivity with what happened 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.440 during the COVID payment pause when people weren't being expectatory pay. 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.720 So there are this is what we're seeing right now 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.480 is not just And I think it's almost convenient in 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.800 a way for Democrats to just be able to say, like, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:44.640 everything failing right now is the fault of the Trump 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.040 administration of laying people off and cutting programs, et cetera, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:47.440 et cetera. 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:49.320 But this has been building over. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.400 A long period of time, and there's negligence kind of 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.280 on both sides. And so what you're seeing is, you know, 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.560 during COVID, there are a lot of fits and starts 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.600 around terenty payment, and people with student loans might notice 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:04.600 that it would be like, get ready, you're gonna have 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:06.800 to pay loans in August, and then it would come 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.440 like July thirtieth and be like, just. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:15.840 Kidding, January January and then like and that happened five 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.480 or six times to people over the course of the 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.360 four years of the COVID payment pause. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.320 And what this led to was a lot of instability 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.000 and confusion among borrowers. Right, Folks were leaving college and 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.640 never really getting into the habit of paying their student 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.840 loans or understanding that they had to repay their loans 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.400 or what options that they had. And so now many 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.040 years later, here we are telling these folks that, Okay, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.360 it's time to start paying and they need help. Right, 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.400 But also don't forget there was a reduction in force 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:51.560 or a riff, so there aren't as many loan officers 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.880 or people to pick up the phone to answer those questions. 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.440 People are in a payment pause. People are in a pause. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.400 You don't need people calling their servicer. People are worried 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.720 about it, but that accumulates over time. And so now 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:05.840 what you're saying is there have been cuts to single 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.880 and services over time. The culmination of all of these 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.480 cuts in all of these ways that services were trying 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.240 to stay afloat over the years, all of this burden 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.000 put on the department and on the servicers to take 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.280 care of burrowers, and then all of a sudden, you 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.000 have millions and millions of people coming into the system 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.120 saying I need help, and there aren't the resources there 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:26.760 to support them. 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.720 I think it's been very convenient, like you said, to 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.080 categorize this as belonging to one administration, So this goes 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.639 back multiple administrations. This is even Trump administration before paused 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:46.240 loan payment. Yeah, and I feel like now they're aggressively 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.160 going after those folks, even though we've kind of put 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.720 them in this position. You know, we've talked about a 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.920 little bit in one of our our last semester of 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.520 Dope Labs. We've talked about inflation, and we've talked about 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.720 what's going on with the economy. I just want folks 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.800 who are listening for a second to think about if 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.240 you hadn't been paying a bill, and not even that 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.240 you just hadn't been paying it. You were told zero 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.639 dollars due. Okay, somebody's telling you zero dollars due. And 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:18.000 then one day somebody calls you, or probably doesn't call you, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.520 probably sends you some mail because their workforce has been cut, 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.280 and it says, now you got to start paying eight 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.679 hundred dollars a month in this economy. Maybe where's the 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:29.960 cash coming from? 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:39.360 Exactly? It's like eggs a caviar. Yeah, and there's no jobs. 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:41.840 I went to buy some pickles yesterday and they were 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:42.760 five dollars a jar. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.960 No put those that I don't need that. 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.280 I'm like, can I live without pickles in my life? 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.000 I don't know. You become a home sitter. Now you're 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:50.000 cutting up qucumbers. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.400 Yo, this is what they're trying to do. They're trying 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.000 to take us down. That dollary in a farm pipeline. 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:56.840 Don't see me dollars, don't. 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:58.840 Want it, and I don't care what anybody says. That 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:04.120 lady's not happy. Let's just be real. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:05.560 They don't want any of us either. 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:15.720 We're not the top candidates. Colleen, You've talked about this 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.920 before that, you know, and some of the narrative becomes like, oh, 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.560 those kids are irresponsible, and people have student loans they 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.600 want to get four and five degrees. And for people 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.520 who haven't heard you in a previous episode, I think 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.480 it's so important to understand, like who are these borrowers? 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:37.920 These are not folks who are doctor, doctor, masters, public 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.200 policy masters, and also a master's of fine arts. That's 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.199 not what the typical borrower looks like. 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:45.440 Shots fired. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:52.320 Okay, I just called everybody on the call. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.560 Our history degrees. I'm trying to go right now. I 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:04.720 want to, I can't afford it. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.159 One of the things that really stands out to me 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.760 here is like the good intentions of policymakers in most cases, right, 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.000 Like we want to expand access higher education. We want 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.280 to create prist differentiations so that if you have the money, 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.360 you pay out of pocket. If you don't have the money, 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.200 you get grants or loans to go to school. Initially 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.679 it was intended that loans go to middle income people. 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.480 Then over time that got expended to lower income people, 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.160 and now they've become really the only way that anyone 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:37.000 can afford to go to school, and you end up, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:42.600 especially in situations where schools that enroll large loancome populations, 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.159 like historically black colleges and universities or community colleges to 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.760 a lesser extent, but you have students who are getting 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:54.080 a pel grant that this past year was almost seven 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.800 thousand dollars per year. There aren't that many schools that 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.159 you can get super far. And with seven thousand dollars 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:02.360 in a grant. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.200 We spend in that at the grocery store now. 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.359 Wild, And so people have to rely on loans, and 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:12.960 because of the way that loans are structured, they aren't 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.800 you know, as much as folks go on about like 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:17.800 how much student debt people have and how out of 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.840 control it is, really still people who are undergraduate students 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.920 are borrowing. I'm going to say, use the word only 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:27.080 only borrowing about thirty thousand dollars on average when they 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.400 leave school for four year degree. That number hasn't really 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.080 gone up significantly in. 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:34.240 The last ten fifteen years or so. 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.399 And that you know, that amount is not insubstantial, but 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:40.840 it is certainly not what we're talking about like eight 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:41.920 hundred dollars a month. 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:42.240 Right. 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.680 What we're seeing is people growing to graduate at school 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.600 especially and being able to borrow all the way up 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.479 to the cost of attendance, so not just their two 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.280 and not since their forty fifty thousand dollars tuition, but 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.400 also their living expenses and their food and their books 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.280 and whatever else they need. And finishing a one under 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.439 to your graduate program with one hundred thousand, two hundred 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:04.240 thousand dollars in. 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.960 That this is such a great point. Most people who 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.359 have money are paying the tuition. The loans are mostly 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.119