WEBVTT - The Inaccessible American Dream 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.400 Good morning, peep Sena. Welcome to Okay f Daily with 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.880 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Homebunker. Folks, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:26.440 the student loan debt crisis isn't like COVID. It isn't 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:32.280 something that was unheard of, came out of nowhere. We 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:37.280 have no idea how it happened. It's a man made crisis. 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.280 It was a crisis that was made by very greedy 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:47.320 politicians and cahoots with the banks and essentially loan sharks 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.080 to sucker people into believing that they could have access 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.240 to the American dream. All they needed was to go 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.160 to college. Because that's what we were all told, right 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.000 that if you wanted better opportunity and more opportunity and 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.440 a lucrative job, then you needed to get a four 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.160 year degree and then after that potentially get another two 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.200 or three year degree to up your chances at living 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:21.600 the American dream. Well, Low and behold. As decades have passed, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.479 college the cost of college went from being a couple 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.200 of hundred dollars a year or a couple of thousand 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:36.720 dollars a year two in some places, fifty sixty eighty 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.880 thousand dollars a year we tell people that the better 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.759 the institution that you get into, the better the opportunities accept. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:50.920 The better the institution, the higher the cost. Forty five 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:57.280 million people in this country are drowning under student loan 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:02.520 debt that is in the trillions of dollars. Now, when 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.440 we say things like trillions, it's hard for us to 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.799 readily wrap our minds around it, because, I mean, frankly, 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.760 once we get past hundreds of millions, or even into 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.800 the billions, most of our eyes glaze over because that's 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.800 money we'll never know, we'll never see, we'll never be 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:29.040 able to comprehend. There are people who wanted to become teachers, veterinarians, 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:39.360 lawyers who are struggling under six figures worth of debt. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.800 There are older people. We think about this crisis as 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:50.440 something that plagues the young. Well it doesn't just plague 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.880 the young. Because you graduate from school roughly at twenty 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.680 twenty one years old, you get into your first job, 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.920 and immediately you're hit with that letter that says you 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.600 need to start paying back your student loans. Well, if 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.160 you get the bill, and the bill is one hundred 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:13.359 thousand dollars and you're twenty one, chances of you being 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.000 able to pay more than a couple hundred dollars out 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.920 of your paycheck, after you pay rent, after you pay 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.720 a car note, after you pay your cell phone bill, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.239 after you pay for transit to get to the job 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.720 that is helping you pay these things, you only have 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:37.360 a little bit that is left over. Well, Blake zeph 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:43.720 an investigative reporter, after dealing with his wife's own six 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.200 figure worth of debt and the struggle that she was 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.440 going through to pay that off after wanting to procure 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.400 a psychology degree, decided to get to the root of 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:01.520 the route. Took to the road travel cross country in 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:08.320 his new documentary Loan Wolves to talk with Americans of 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:14.520 all persuasions, of all political backgrounds about their crushing student 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.760 loan debt and the lie that they have been sold 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.720 that they will have access to the American dream if 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:27.360 only they're willing to, you know, work hard. You'll see 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:32.599 some familiar faces in Blake's documentary. Our friend, doctor Christina Greer, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:38.400 who is a professor at Fordham University, will talk about 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:44.039 the fact that young people who she talks to on 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:49.000 a regular basis say, well, their dreams are already dashed. 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.080 These are young people that haven't even left undergraduate yet, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.359 who believe that their dreams of going into a profession 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.920 that was going to be their passion, their drive no 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.560 longer makes sense, not with the debt that they're incurring. 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.560 Now they just need to go in and make money. 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:17.320 That's devastating. And what does it say for generations to 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.000 come if they are hip to the idea that their 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.960 parents are still paying off their student loan debt, then 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.960 they're trying to go into further debt to pay for 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.800 their children, to help support them in some way, go 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:38.360 to college to incur more debt. Well, then guess what 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:44.400 there's going to be a generation of young people that decide, yeah, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.520 maybe colleges inform me? What does that mean about our 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.279 competitiveness as a nation? What does that mean about the 0:05:53.360 --> 0:06:00.799 future of this country, our economy, our output? If people 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.920 can no longer access the American dream, if it really 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.840 is just something that you can hold onto at night 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.200 when you're asleep, and not something that you can readily 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.920 access in the day, what does that mean for our 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:22.200 future collectively? Coming up next, my conversation with investigative reporter 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:27.839 and the man behind the documentary that is airing on 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:36.839 both MSNBC and Peacock. Lone Wolves Blake Zef Folks, I 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.080 am very excited to welcome to WOKA after Daily for 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:46.760 the first time investigative reporter Blake Jeff who has Blake 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:53.960 zaff excuse me? Who has captivated me? It's not often 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.760 that I watch commercials, Blake. I'll tell you on MSNBC, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:06:59.719 I kind of you know, I'm that person that will 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.160 flip back and forth. You know, as soon as commercial 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:09.240 goes up, I'm like onto the next station and the documentary. 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:17.520 Your documentary Loan Wolves. I the trailer was so thrilling, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:23.760 So folks, Lone Wolves documents a cross country adventure uncovering 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:28.800 the effects of the student loan debt crisis. And you 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:35.120 investigate Blake exactly who is to blame for the crisis 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.120 that we're in, and you you know, it kind of 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.400 signals to me and I, you know, and we'll jump 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:47.480 right in that this was purposefully done. That the fact 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:51.800 that we have a student loan crisis. This isn't like COVID, 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.360 like we don't know where it came from, right, and 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.480 we just have to kind of deal with the effects 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.800 of this. You know, we were sold and I mean 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:05.280 as the American people were sold this idea that everyone 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.080 needs to go to college, and if you go to college, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.440 you will come out with a good paying job, you'll 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.880 be better off than your parents, and you know, and 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.280 the psycho will progress well. Over the course of I 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.080 don't know how many decades, college went from being affordable 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.200 where states were largely flipping the bill if you were 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:29.640 going to a state school and if you had the 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:31.840 means or you got a scholarship to go to a 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.880 private school, God bless you know, good for you. Then 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:41.320 over the decades, college went from being readily affordable to 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:48.920 putting mostly black people of color, low income people in 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:53.520 six figures worth of debt to get a four year degree. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.760 So I just want to I want you to tell 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.319 to tell us you know why you decided to do this, 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:05.719 is what prompted this cross country investigation, and then give 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.360 us a little bit of insight into some of the 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:16.880 things that you heard. Having me, let me say, I 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.040 I agree with everything you just said. It really started 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.880 for me. I saw my wife. You know, she grew 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.520 up in middle class family and she went to grad 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.520 school to become a psychologist to help veterans with PTSD, 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.480 which is a nice thing, right, something thinks that our government, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.680 society would want to encourage. But she ended up graduating 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.520 with two hundred thousand dollars of student debt. And I 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.400 saw her dealing with the student loan companies, and it 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.200 wasn't just the numbers, Daniel, which the numbers are bad enough, right, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.559 two hundred thousand dollars, two thousand dollars a month we're paying, 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.480 but they're really sketchy the way. And you know, your 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.840 listeners who deal with student loans will know this, they'll 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.120 recognize this. There's a lot of fine print. You get 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.400 these notices claiming you didn't pay when you did pay, 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.320 a lot of that kind of stuff, really sketchy stuff. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.959 So the journalist in me started to smell a rat 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.600 and I thought to myself, well, we're dealing with this, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:12.600 and there's forty forty five million Americans who have student debt. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:14.560 This has got to be a huge, massive issue. And 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:16.240 so as I started to look into this more and 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.280 more and more, it kind even worse than I ever 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.880 could have imagined. I mean, you talked before about how 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.880 you know this was a man made crisis, a disaster. 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.880 It's not like COVID this was the people who represent 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.680 us in Congress. Politicians are supposed to work for us, 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.760 are supposed to help us. But I found as I 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.280 dug deeper and deeper into this, that they were doing 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:42.160 the exact opposite. I mean, you know it what is 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:47.240 so heartbreaking? And this came up in you know, in 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:53.080 a couple of the people that you interviewed, that they 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:58.000 were sold a lie, right, that they were sold a lie. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.120 And it isn't even just about the fine print in 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.199 terms of the actual loans that they are taking out. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.240 They were sold a lie as to what this degree 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.080 right was going to be able to offer them. And 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.560 I can tell you I have two younger cousins who 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:20.719 are much much younger than me graduated. One of them 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.600 decided to was able to graduate six figure debt. The 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.360 other one had to leave school because he could no 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.280 longer afford it. Still has considerable debt, which I know 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.480 is also a large part of this as well, which 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:40.960 is people that go into higher education and then part 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.760 way through can't afford the tuition, but still are now 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.720 paying off the degree that they didn't get. So talk 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.440 about some of the things that the themes I guess 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.800 that came up in conversations and again this is striking 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:02.920 all Americans, not just one particular group, and talk about 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:10.560 what they said. Well, broad theme, say this movie one 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.240 is what you just said, the complete live the quote 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.560 unquote American dream. Like you said, people are seventeen years old, 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:18.360 eighteen years old, what are you told in this country? 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.920 Work hard? And if you work hard, whether you grow 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:22.840 up in poverty or in the middle class, whatever you 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:24.800 might want to do to have a good life, if 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.400 you work hard, study, go to school, you'll get a 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.199 good job when you graduate, and you'll have a good life. Well, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.800 it turns out that for most Americans who can't afford college, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.520 some colleges right now, Danielle cost eighty five thousand dollars, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:41.199 which is in santeen eighty five thousand dollars. It was 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.120 eighty five thousand dollars for the four years I would 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.440 still need, insane amount. Eighty five thousand years is crazy. Okay, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.839 So you could we tell these people, these young people 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.400 seventeen years old, eighteen years old, better yourself and work 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.320 really really hard. And what happens is they do that 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.440 and then they're handed the stack of loan papers that 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.200 you know, even at h Now, I wouldn't understand half 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.679 the things. There's something called compounding interest, which basically says, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.680 if you're behind on a payment, you're interesting. You know, 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.920 they could do compounding interest, which means, you know, like 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.840 when you take out a loan, you'll pay the principle 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.320 and then there's a little bit of interest. Compounding interest 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.280 is interest on the interest yea, So that if you're behind, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.240 they'll start compounding your interest to the point where your 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.080 loans just get out of control. So we talked to 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.720 one guy was a teacher, first in his family to 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.719 go to college, and you start off with thirty five 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.640 thousand dollars in debt, and after missing a few payments, 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.640 they kept compounding his interest to the point where now 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.960 he's got one hundred fifty thousand dollars of debt. And 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:39.800 we talk about this in the film. You've seen it. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.760 He's considering. He was considering suicide because it's you can 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:45.760 provide for his family. He felt like a failure. And 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.760 this guy did everything, excuse me, did everything right. He 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:50.800 was a first in his family go to college. He's 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.400 a teaching it's a great job, he's serving society. But 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.200 it's that American dream is just not true for many people. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.240 The other thing I want to mention about the big 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.160 theme is about our democracy, and I kind hinted at 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.600 this in my last answer, which is the politicians are 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.880 supposed to be looking out for us. In a way, 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.200 they helped cause this crisis and have done nothing to 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.440 stop it. In nineteen ninety eight, two lines, and you 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.360 know this, I'm watching two lines were added to a 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.160 massive education bill. They were snuck in these two lines 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.880 that said student loans are basically one of the only 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.000 debts who can't get rid of through bankruptcy. And not 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:32.520 that everyone is dying to. Yeah, but it's a way 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.560 out for some. But the other reason that it's important 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.520 is if the loan companies the student lenders know that 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.680 there's not even a potential threat of bankruptcy, they will 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.040 just lend out tons of money to anyone, whether they 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.480 can pay it back or not. And the colleges know that, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.000 so they'll just raise their prices at will. And that's 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.080 why tuition has gotten so high, because there's nothing checking 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.720 the colleges or the college lenders because they know the 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.080 repayment is guaranteed. So this system is totally out of control. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.040 And it needs absolute reform. So you know a lot 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.000 of people are for canceling student debt. That's great, but 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.120 that's like a backwards looking solution. That's where people already 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.160 have the debt. You still also need to fix the 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.000 structural problems in the lending system because people will start 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.600 having new debt tomorrow if you cancel the debt. And 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.360 so we get into that. But the government was the 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:19.360 one who did that, And in the movie, I try 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.120 to track down who was the one responsible for it, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.600 and it takes me on this journey that I never 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.120 would have expected, and ultimately confront the person about it, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.720 and we have a very heated conversation. You know. It's 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.600 it's so unfortunate because you know, when we think about bankruptcy, right, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.240 bankruptcy is a tool of the rich. Bankruptcy is you know, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.600 just to remind people, it is a way to wipe 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.800 out your debt and be able to start over again. Right, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:56.360 And to think that somebody would have six figures worth 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.680 of debt, that is a teacher, blake, That is a 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.760 team John. We know in this country we love to 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.080 applaud teachers, but that's about it. We don't pay them, right, 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.320 So to have six figures worth of debt to get 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.480 into a job where you're not in most places, not 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:19.480 making six figures is basically setting up a trap. And 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.360 so you know, one of the things as Joe Biden 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:28.200 Biden administration came out is we're waiting on the verdict 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:33.280 visa the courts because of Republican governors deciding to sue 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.600 the Biden administration. And I want to get your thoughts 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:42.360 on that. Joe Biden says on the campaign trail, we 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.160 need to do something about student loan debt. Everyone should 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.960 have access to the American dream, and student loan debt 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.560 is not allowing people to be able to do that. 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.320 So he cancels up to twenty thousand dollars worth of 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:59.240 PELL grants, ten thousand dollars of other grants to give 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.040 people a fighting chance. Now, to the person that you 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.080 spoke about in the film, one hundred and fifty thousand 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.080 dollars worth of debt, if you can even take away 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.679 thirty thousand dollars, you know, that doesn't seem like a 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.639 whole large sum, but it is something, right, It is 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:24.680 something that is significant. And now you have an entire 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.359 political party that has decided to sue so that people 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.320 can suffer. How do you make sense of that, blake. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:43.600 It's cruel, it's political, it's unbelievable. So in the film 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:49.840 where we have Republicans trull, we've got this guy named 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.160 Wayne Johnson who this is unbelievable. I think most most 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:55.879 people listeners won't know about it. If I didn't know 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.440 about it, and I really studied this topic. Wayne Johnson 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.800 appointed by President Trump to overseein the student aid program 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:09.320 for the government a couple of years ago. He quit 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.439 his job because he couldn't believe how messed up this 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.680 system was and how it was hurting so many people. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.480 He felt it was ruining the fabric of America because 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.240 it was putting these young people in life altering debt. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.640 By the way, not just young people, we should talk 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.160 about this too, it's parents, parents sometimes, you know, parents 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.720 and grandparents are co signing on these loans, or in 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.080 other cases just people who have had these debts for 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.400 so long now they're older in life and they still 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.200 have it. So he's seen generations of people who are 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.840 being put in this position, and he quit his job 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:41.240 after six months. He's like, I can't take this anymore. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.280 And he this Republican serving Donald Trump has now come 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.000 out in favor of canceling student debt. He came out 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.480 for canceling more student debt than Elizabeth Warren did even 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.760 And I mentioned this to say that there are people 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.440 of good conscience who when they see what is happening 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:58.639 and they actually are really involved in here, like this 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.560 is unbelievable. Problem is that politically, this has become so 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.520 politicized that you're right, You've got the Republican Party simply 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.560 because Joe Biden wanted to do something, it became very political. 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.800 And so Biden did this debt cancelation and right away 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:14.800 they had to try to sue to stop it in court. 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.040 And we've got a very political Supreme Court. I don't 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:19.760 have to tell you that, and that's who's going to 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.119 be hearing this case. And so this is just a 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.040 few months from now, the Supreme Court is going to 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.520 be ruling on this. And if you're the Biden administration, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.040 you can't be too optimistic about what's going to happen there. 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:34.440 So m to answer your question. It's highly political. It's 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.919 highly partisan, and it's not about the substance because people 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:43.200 of all you know, political when they look at this, yeah, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.240 and they're they're also as you're saying, it's it's not 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.040 just democrats web student debt. There's forty five million people 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.600 in this country, you have it, right, So they're very constituents. 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.639 They're more people probably in red states who are student 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.320 now then in blue states. So it's really one of 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.680 these situations where the politicians are not representing their content 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:06.399 their constituents interests, you know, And I think about to 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:11.320 a lot of these sept Nigerians actin Nigerians that are 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:16.840 representing us in government. And when you know, literally one 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:21.080 hundred years ago when they were in college college who 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.240 was either free or it was really like a couple 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.119 of hundred dollars for a four year degree. So to 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:35.440 even you can't even um equate, oh well I paid 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.159 back my student loans. Well, you were never going to 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:44.560 incure a six figures worth of debt um And I 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.320 think that you know, what is what is really terrifying 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:51.080 with regard to the weaponized Supreme Court that you mentioned 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.120 is that you know, the majority of the Supreme Court 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.840 is wealthy, right, these are these are wealthy people. I 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:00.640 want you to be able to talk talk about too, 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.520 Who is making money off of this? Who is making 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:09.480 money off of forty five million Americans suffering in this country? 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.439 Did a couple of really good points there. First, I 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.320 want to tell the first point you made though about 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.600 the older generation is so important because I've never seen 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.600 an issue, Danielle, where the impact on Americans was so 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:29.560 severe and punishing, and yet the ability of the powerful people, 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.439 the policymakers, and even the media to understand it was 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.160 so low. There's such a gap between what is happening 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.000 and what is perceived the older people. We've We've a 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.560 professor in the film named Chrissy Greer at Fordham. She's 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.160 a friend of the show and a friend of mine. Okay, okay, awesome, 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.960 Well let's give her a plug day. Yeah Greer from Fordham, 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.200 who's awesome, is in the stone and she says, oh, 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.879 you know, the older generation says I paid for my 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.719 colleague or whatever, and she's like, yeah, college back then 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.359 was two thousand dollars a year. Now it's like sixty 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.880 five thousand dollars and you haven't even bought a book yet. 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.639 She talks about how she's nervous and feels bad about 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.000 assigning books to students because she knows how hard it 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.359 is to afford even the books, because the tuition is 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:16.320 so much. And she says she has students who say 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.760 to her, they've already given up on their dreams. They're 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.119 in college, they've already given up on their dream jobs 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.920 because they have to do something that will pay, because 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.600 they're already in such a day that is so messed up. 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.200 That defeats the whole purpose of going to college. It's 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.320 really really horrible. So in terms of your other point 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.080 about who benefits from this, there are college lending companies. 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.200 There's a whole industry as student loan industry banks who 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.639 are making so much money, and they love when he 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.520 can't declare bankruptcy on your students. That's great repayment for 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.080 them is totally guaranteed. It's a great system for them. 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:52.520 By the way, who do they give money to the politicians? 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.520 So they donate money to the politicians, by the way, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.520 it's happening on both parties, and these politicians no skin 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.000 off there. They just give the student loan industry what 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.359 they want and as a self perpetuating cycle, and the 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.360 victim are the American people. This is not at all 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.040 working in a way that benefits the people were supposedly 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:14.680 trying to help achieve the American dream. I mean, like, 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:20.960 it's such a horrific cycle, right to your point that 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:27.480 even this canceling of student loan debt even a little bit, 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.680 is not doing anything to fix the student loan situation 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.720 to begin with. Right, the cycle will just start over 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:42.639 again for the next group of Americans that want to 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:48.800 get a higher education. What is the solution and where 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.920 is the hope? Right? Like, does this does it just 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:59.359 mean that we're going to have a generation that isn't 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:04.320 going to go to college because they're going to say, 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.280 what the hell is the point? Right? I might as 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:11.840 well just go and start working, because at the end 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:15.840 of the day, I'm getting six figures of worth of 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.240 debt to go try and get a six figure job 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:22.160 that I'm going to spend the entirety of my professional 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:25.280 career trying to pay down this debt, not being able 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.080 to buy a home a car. How does that even 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:33.920 make sense? So what is the long term crisis look 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:38.400 like if it's not disrupted and fixed by the very 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:46.160 people that cost it three good day? It's the ultimate question. 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:48.479 I think something's got to give I think the system 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:50.719 is going to collapse under its own weight. You cannot 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:53.280 have a situation where we tell young people that in 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:56.320 order to have a decent life, you've got to work 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:58.119 hard and go to college, and then we make college 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:01.960 totally unaffordable, and in hid this crushing we're not talking 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:05.120 about two thousand dollars debt, five thousand dollars that I mean, 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:08.320 there's almost two trillion dollars worth of student debt in 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:10.080 this country. I know, when you hear a number like that, 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:12.520 it just feels like monopoly money. So let's break it down. 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:15.440 There's about forty five million people who have it, so 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:17.840 on average ends of being about forty thousand per person. 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:21.280 That's not the nightmare scenario. That's the average. Okay, when 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:22.600 you look at when you look at people go to 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:25.240 grad school, and you know, we're telling people nowadays go 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:28.080 to grad school that that's a competitive advantage. Sometimes a 0:25:28.200 --> 0:25:30.200 college degree is in even enough for a lot of jobs. 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:32.280 Right there are people who are struggling the job market. 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.920