Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA app Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording once again from the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bunker. Folks, I'm very excited to bring this episode
Speaker 1: to you today on one of the biggest crises, as
Speaker 1: if there aren't seventeen thousand of them happening at the
Speaker 1: same time, but the horrific crisis that is affecting over
Speaker 1: forty five million Americans, and that is the student debt crisis. Right.
Speaker 1: The fact that over forty five million Americans are in
Speaker 1: one point eight a collective one point eight trillion dollars
Speaker 1: worth of debt. You've heard from progressives asking for debt relief.
Speaker 1: You've heard the Biden administration once again hit pause on
Speaker 1: paybacks on student loans right, and on student loan interests
Speaker 1: in the wake of COVID nineteen. But this is something
Speaker 1: that once again in a couple of months back in May,
Speaker 1: will they hit pause again because what seems to be
Speaker 1: happening is a consistency in kicking the can down the
Speaker 1: road instead of dealing with the student loan debt crisis.
Speaker 1: You should not, right, we should not be in debt
Speaker 1: in order to get an education, which as one of
Speaker 1: my guests. We have two today, but one of them.
Speaker 1: First up, doctor Elizabeth Tandy Scharmer, who is the author
Speaker 1: of Indentured Students How government guaranteeing loans left generations drowning
Speaker 1: in college debt. How. Doctor Scharmer will talk about the
Speaker 1: ways in which essentially this has looked like entrapment for
Speaker 1: low income students, students of color, and women. When we
Speaker 1: look at the demographic breakdown of who those over forty
Speaker 1: five million are, it is those students, right, So what
Speaker 1: is this administration doing? Coming behind doctor Shermer will be
Speaker 1: doctor John Oberg, who you may have heard of. He
Speaker 1: is a whistleblower from the Department of Education and a
Speaker 1: political scientist who recognize that the lenders were cheating. We're
Speaker 1: cheating students looking for loans, right, We're cheating the Department
Speaker 1: of Education in terms of the amount of money that
Speaker 1: they were going to be giving back to them. The
Speaker 1: Department of Education was complicit in what the lenders were
Speaker 1: doing and then decided to turn the money that they
Speaker 1: supposedly owed, right, that the lenders owed to the Department
Speaker 1: of Education into additional loans to place the burden on
Speaker 1: students as opposed to the lenders. And what doctor John
Speaker 1: Oberg will tell us is that the Department of Education
Speaker 1: is and was complicit in this action. Right, So, not
Speaker 1: only are we kicking student loan relieved student debt down
Speaker 1: the road, but we're also continuing the vicious cycle of
Speaker 1: turning these students, as doctor Shermer says, into indentured servants. Right,
Speaker 1: So what is this administration going to do and what
Speaker 1: are the ideas that both doctor Shermer and doctor Orberg
Speaker 1: will offer to us as ways out of this crisis, folks?
Speaker 1: That is coming up next, folks. I am very excited
Speaker 1: to welcome to wok F Daily for the very first
Speaker 1: time doctor Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, who is the author of
Speaker 1: Indentured Students How government guaranteed loans left generations drowning in
Speaker 1: college debt. And by generations, we're talking about forty five
Speaker 1: million Americans. Over forty five million Americans are affected by
Speaker 1: the student loan debt crisis, which many have referred to
Speaker 1: as being predatory, as it is women and people of
Speaker 1: color who are the ones that are most disadvantaged by
Speaker 1: this loan system and therefore caught in this And I
Speaker 1: love that I love the title of your book, caught
Speaker 1: in this indentured servitude once they finished school. So Dr Shermer,
Speaker 1: let's just start off with, you know, tell us big picture.
Speaker 1: How did we get here? How did we get into
Speaker 1: a space where one point eight trilliant trillion dollars of
Speaker 1: student loan debt is just hanging over the heads of
Speaker 1: over forty five million Americans. It's a story of the
Speaker 1: worst of intentions. And I know because the classic story
Speaker 1: is like the best of intentions and was just so
Speaker 1: well thought and as only recently, but actually we've been
Speaker 1: having a problem with college affordability for more than a century.
Speaker 1: And I think the real issue is that when I
Speaker 1: say the worst of intentions, it was policymakers refusing to
Speaker 1: actually invest in the public goods and public needs that
Speaker 1: we need, like colleges and universities which provide the research
Speaker 1: that we need for vaccines, also the social science research
Speaker 1: about how to for example, roll them out, and then
Speaker 1: also help fund the humanities which kept us sane and
Speaker 1: gave us the critical reading and thinking skills to understand
Speaker 1: how to get out of this crisis. And we need
Speaker 1: an educated citizenry. We need that. But what we're going
Speaker 1: to do is instead of actually investing in these institutions,
Speaker 1: stop them from competing for tuition revenue, do own or
Speaker 1: revenue all these other kinds of things. We are going
Speaker 1: to create a really terrible financial product, because let's just
Speaker 1: think this true. I am going to give you a
Speaker 1: loan for something that I can't repossess and sell to
Speaker 1: someone else. That's what a terrible idea. And even if
Speaker 1: I could, you could never then and actually compete for
Speaker 1: the job in order to get the money to ever
Speaker 1: pay me back. And by the way, you're only collateral
Speaker 1: for being forgetting this loan is being admitted to a
Speaker 1: college university that needs your tuition revenue. So what a
Speaker 1: shitty idea. And it was actually modeled on one of
Speaker 1: the most on a very now infamous federal program, the
Speaker 1: federal mortgage program, which we now know has disproportionately widened
Speaker 1: racial and gender wealth gaps, period full stop. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what they did in the sixties. I know what
Speaker 1: we'll do. Let's use that federal mortgage program and will
Speaker 1: model it for something it is nothing like a mortgage,
Speaker 1: a student loan, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: just deeply troubles me right about about this entire system,
Speaker 1: and it and you know, and it is it is
Speaker 1: criminal to me, right, it's criminal to tell people, especially
Speaker 1: those that are low income, that in order for you
Speaker 1: to succeed in this capitalist, you know, factory that we
Speaker 1: have created, that you need to go to college. Right.
Speaker 1: I can remember from when I was in elementary school,
Speaker 1: that was beat into everyone's head, right in my you know,
Speaker 1: middle income suburban school district. Go to college, Go to college,
Speaker 1: Go to college. No one ever talked about what the
Speaker 1: burden was going to be after you left college. No
Speaker 1: one ever talked about the fact that, you know, folks
Speaker 1: weren't retiring at the rates that they were retiring at
Speaker 1: that you were. Your first job at a college in
Speaker 1: many places wasn't even going to cover right, the loan
Speaker 1: that you took out. But we made it impossible right
Speaker 1: for you to continue on with just a high school
Speaker 1: education and a majority of places, so we made it
Speaker 1: like a necessity to go to college, but didn't create
Speaker 1: a system that would allow people to do that without
Speaker 1: tying a noose around their necks. You're totally right, and
Speaker 1: it is this faith that you know, what, if you
Speaker 1: just go to college, you'll be able to compete for
Speaker 1: the well paying work. That was the whole idea of
Speaker 1: social ability, never actually tackling the problems within the labor market.
Speaker 1: The reason that women for reason that women and people
Speaker 1: of color have a harder time dealing with this is
Speaker 1: one the financial aid officers. Despite what y'all might have
Speaker 1: heard about affirmative action, they don't tend to get. They
Speaker 1: don't tend to get the financial aid to stop them
Speaker 1: from borrowing. More importantly, when they're actually out on the
Speaker 1: labor market, they are still paid pennies on the dollar
Speaker 1: two white men, period, full stop. And then in the
Speaker 1: case of women, women women are the ones who are
Speaker 1: more likely to be constantly moving in and out of
Speaker 1: the labor market to provide unpaid care and to pause
Speaker 1: those loans. This is what's unique about this moratorium period
Speaker 1: right now, when you pause those loans. Sorry for the language,
Speaker 1: The fucking interest is still accruing for women who are
Speaker 1: doing the care that we need them to do for
Speaker 1: both elderly librelats for children, and we're going to penalize
Speaker 1: them by having more, by just indebting them further. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm so glad that you appreciated
Speaker 1: the title indentured students because I got it. I got
Speaker 1: used to get a lot of pushback from it, but
Speaker 1: I always pointed out, but that's how people talk about it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about being indentured. And when we realize the racial
Speaker 1: and gender aspects built into this program from the beginning,
Speaker 1: why are we not saying that? Why are we not
Speaker 1: talking about that and really listening to the folks who
Speaker 1: are feeling the biggest burdens. Because it is a factor
Speaker 1: of race and a factor of gender, period, you know.
Speaker 1: And the reason why we don't talk about it is
Speaker 1: for those very two reasons, right, Because it is a
Speaker 1: factor of gender, and it's a factor of race, and
Speaker 1: that we like to pretend in this country that those
Speaker 1: things are accidental, right, like, oh, that you know that
Speaker 1: they are not purposefully paving the road to hell for
Speaker 1: those particular communities who are unable to come out of
Speaker 1: pocket right to pay four tuitions that are fifty sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year, right because we also then we've
Speaker 1: created an entire predatory system, so one for people who
Speaker 1: cannot afford those fifty sixty thousand dollars price tags for university.
Speaker 1: Then we created a for profit model, right, a predatory
Speaker 1: college where you can go and get your certificate for
Speaker 1: a quarter of that, but then that certificate is not real, right,
Speaker 1: Like no one's accepting it. Right. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: a series of Trump universities that we've created because we've
Speaker 1: created a system that doesn't allow people to really access
Speaker 1: right the educations that they need without all of these
Speaker 1: strings being attached. Absolutely, And the one thing I'm going
Speaker 1: to say here is that I think for me, and
Speaker 1: this is it's again my brilliant friend kat Ramirez, he
Speaker 1: teaches at University California, Santa Cruz. She has always said,
Speaker 1: is that we in higher education, in the nonprofit sectors
Speaker 1: are feeling what is happening in the K through twelve schools.
Speaker 1: We are being demanded to do more with less, and
Speaker 1: so yet I am getting right now in the middle
Speaker 1: of a whip shop pivot to going virtual. But to
Speaker 1: do that responsibly, to actually connect with people, to make
Speaker 1: it accessible and meaningful, means completely overhauling everything to actually
Speaker 1: meet the reality of students where they are, where the
Speaker 1: majority of students are working more than part time. It's
Speaker 1: bullshit to think that twenty five hours a week is
Speaker 1: part times. That's more than forty hours a week. And
Speaker 1: that's the reality of it. And so we are setting
Speaker 1: both up these basic public goods. We have turned them
Speaker 1: into private luxuries. And then those that are not the
Speaker 1: wealthy ones that can actually provide it, we are actually
Speaker 1: then damning them for not providing more with less. Why
Speaker 1: is it, why is it that so many college universities
Speaker 1: now have to have food banks. They are on the
Speaker 1: front lines of a food housing insecurity because we have
Speaker 1: so disinvested in the basic needs of the people of
Speaker 1: this country, all of the people of this country. I
Speaker 1: had no idea. Tell me more about these food banks
Speaker 1: and why schools have to have them. I have not
Speaker 1: heard this. This is new stop. It's food and housing insecurity, period,
Speaker 1: full stop. And so I am sure that this is
Speaker 1: still correct that University of California campus is each one
Speaker 1: has a food bank. Here in the city of Chicago,
Speaker 1: there is a I believe what they're doing now with
Speaker 1: the city colleges is a food truck coming in for
Speaker 1: a food bank. It's not a food truck is like
Speaker 1: you know millennials having tacos. It is literally a pantry,
Speaker 1: a food pantry, a mobile one coming to these city
Speaker 1: colleges because on the front lines are these college universities
Speaker 1: because so many people I'm thinking about what you said
Speaker 1: about what you were told about you have to go
Speaker 1: to college. You have to go to college. So many
Speaker 1: people are trying because it's so tied to getting a
Speaker 1: good job. But then there's so much inequality in this
Speaker 1: country that is worsening, just exacerbated by the pandemic. And
Speaker 1: if you're trying to do better and your first avenue college,
Speaker 1: then we're meeting. Colleges are meeting at the front lines
Speaker 1: the food and housing in security. At George Mason University
Speaker 1: m a university near where I grew up, they have
Speaker 1: many students. That is where my master's degree is from.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing Nova. Yeah, so I'm familiar. Yeah, but no,
Speaker 1: but we that is it is it is a it
Speaker 1: is a it is a it is a serious issue
Speaker 1: that we're seeing actually across the country. And this is
Speaker 1: the incredible work of UM Temple's Hope Center, which did
Speaker 1: the first big UM study to show that a third
Speaker 1: of American college and university students, and this, by the way,
Speaker 1: is pre pandemic, UM had food and housing insecurity, had
Speaker 1: basic food and housing insecurity. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: what we really need to talk about, is that we're
Speaker 1: meeting not just young people, but people going back at
Speaker 1: different points in their lives. In fact, I just got
Speaker 1: an email from a person who's returning after twelve years
Speaker 1: UM trying to restart her graduate program that this is
Speaker 1: UM college universities, just like K through twelve schools, are
Speaker 1: on the front lines in the case. If you're in
Speaker 1: the city of Chicago, your listeners might know what we're
Speaker 1: having a big standoff right now about going back safely.
Speaker 1: But even before that, CPS schools were actually open during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, not for construction, but actually I would walk
Speaker 1: by them. There's a couple in my neighborhood to deliver meals.
Speaker 1: So we have decided to put schools on the front
Speaker 1: lines of dealing with food and security. I'm an educator.
Speaker 1: I don't have the training to do that, and I
Speaker 1: have tried to educate myself on the issue and learn
Speaker 1: about the resources available. But we're asking colleges, universities K
Speaker 1: through twelve schools to do more with less and to
Speaker 1: be on the front lines of crisises. Before we even
Speaker 1: had this pandemic. Let me switch gears for a moment
Speaker 1: to talk about this current administration and what it was
Speaker 1: that they said that they were going to do with
Speaker 1: regard to the student loan debt crisis. And what we
Speaker 1: have seen right by of the pandemic is the can
Speaker 1: being kicked down the road. We'll just continue to pause, right,
Speaker 1: We'll continue to press pause, but we won't try and
Speaker 1: actually stop or fix the problem um with you know you,
Speaker 1: we'll pause you paying back. But like you said, the
Speaker 1: interest is still occurring. It's still the interest right now
Speaker 1: is not accruing the interest is That's what that is,
Speaker 1: what's really important right now it's happening. Is this is
Speaker 1: historic because they they they hit pause on the interest
Speaker 1: as well, for sure. But and that's that not everyone
Speaker 1: qualifies for that. That's the thing. There's there's some federal
Speaker 1: loans that don't qualify for this pause, and then the
Speaker 1: private loans don't. So, I mean, my my feeling is,
Speaker 1: you know why if this is a bipartisan issue, and
Speaker 1: let me just pretend right now that we have an
Speaker 1: actual two party system, Let's just pretend that Republicans care
Speaker 1: um knowing that they don't. But there have been bipartisan
Speaker 1: solutions that have been put together right to deal with
Speaker 1: this crisis, and yet nothing has happened. My feeling, because
Speaker 1: I'm a cynic but also a realist, is the fact that, oh,
Speaker 1: it's because of who it's affecting, the same reason why
Speaker 1: we wanted to open up, you know, the economies of
Speaker 1: various states at the height of the first wave of
Speaker 1: the pandemic because it was only people of color and
Speaker 1: women that were that were being affected. It wasn't anybody else.
Speaker 1: So you know, go with God, why is this stuck?
Speaker 1: Why are we stuck here knowing that this is a
Speaker 1: major major problem and that is going to have legs
Speaker 1: that affect all all industries right, all areas of our lives. Well,
Speaker 1: so the first thing is, like, I do actually think
Speaker 1: the people empower many of them do not have to borrow.
Speaker 1: If seventy of students now need to borrow and families
Speaker 1: need to borrow, there is that top thirty percent. And
Speaker 1: I think from my perspective of someone who's trying to
Speaker 1: get this book published, it was interesting to me that
Speaker 1: a lot of the publishers they didn't ever have to borrow, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's who's at the helm, it's a pipeline thing.
Speaker 1: But then once I got into, once I got into
Speaker 1: the folks who are actually helping me with like actually
Speaker 1: getting the book ready to the editors and things like that,
Speaker 1: they all had to borrow. And I think it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting thing about who the gatekeepers at the top
Speaker 1: actually are. But I think the other thing I think
Speaker 1: that's really important is that I completely agree with you.
Speaker 1: What's really I always talked about this the Indentured Students book,
Speaker 1: which is everyone wanted a book about a bunch of big,
Speaker 1: bad bankers. Well, actually, the banking industry actually initially fought
Speaker 1: the federal loan program. They didn't want it. They didn't
Speaker 1: want besides the fact that it's a terrible investment, they
Speaker 1: didn't want more expansion of federal power. And it was
Speaker 1: a bipartisan doubling down on creative financing as opposed to
Speaker 1: investing in the American people in the nineteen sixties. We're
Speaker 1: just going to give them another financial product. We didn't
Speaker 1: give them housing the thirties. We're going to give them
Speaker 1: a financial product we didn't give that. We actually didn't
Speaker 1: give them schooling in the sixties. We're going to give
Speaker 1: them a financial product to creatively pay for it. And
Speaker 1: I think for me is that when you actually look
Speaker 1: at it is we are dealing with a twenty first
Speaker 1: century democracy with real ideas about you know, majority rule
Speaker 1: and things like that, based on an eighteenth century constitution
Speaker 1: that has been so supported and so to me, to
Speaker 1: be honest, if I could only have one thing, like
Speaker 1: I had a magical ferry, and I could have one thing,
Speaker 1: I would actually start to get to because the student
Speaker 1: deck crisis is just an example of many crisises of
Speaker 1: Americans having to pay out a pocket for basic goods.
Speaker 1: I would start with voting rights. And I mean, actually
Speaker 1: beyond what's going on right now and they're fighting about
Speaker 1: in the House and the Senate, I would why is
Speaker 1: it that we only have four hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: representatives in Congress that was set in the late twenties.
Speaker 1: You know, the country is lot bigger right now. It's
Speaker 1: just a lot bigger right now. We do not have
Speaker 1: real representation, real representation dealing with this the undemocratic aspects
Speaker 1: baked into a constitution written more than two hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: We are a twenty first century democracy that isn't good
Speaker 1: enough anymore. And if we want to start with this
Speaker 1: crisis and everything else that's intertwined with it, like a
Speaker 1: healthcare crisis, all these things, it's got to start actually
Speaker 1: with having a really functioning democracy, you know, everything to
Speaker 1: in everything needs to start with the foundation of a
Speaker 1: functional and actually representative democracy, right, which, if we are
Speaker 1: honest with ourselves, to your point, we've actually never had, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: particular and you know, particularly somebody like myself who is
Speaker 1: at the intersection of multiple marginalized communities, as a black woman,
Speaker 1: as a queer woman, you know, as a as a
Speaker 1: child of immigrants, Like there is just there. There has
Speaker 1: never been equity in that way. But we also have
Speaker 1: to be honest about the fact that it was set
Speaker 1: up like that, right, Like it is it is succeeding
Speaker 1: in who it was choosing to keep out, right, because
Speaker 1: you need in order to have a functional pitalist society,
Speaker 1: somebody needs to be on the bottom, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's how you want to talk about, like the actual
Speaker 1: pyramid scheme, like it's capitalism, right, and who is on
Speaker 1: the bottom and who and why you need to stay
Speaker 1: there in order to aid those at the top. Please
Speaker 1: go ahead, And what I had to be what I like,
Speaker 1: what I think is really important to remember when we
Speaker 1: talk about the origins of all this, the real origins
Speaker 1: of the Guaranteed Student Loan program hidden and seemingly hidden
Speaker 1: in that like mid nineteen sixties a celebrated Higher Education Act.
Speaker 1: It's called the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. But the guarantee
Speaker 1: was not for the students that they not that they
Speaker 1: would get admitted, not that they would actually finish. The
Speaker 1: guarantee was not for the schools if they would actually
Speaker 1: be able to expand and meet public demand and new
Speaker 1: expectations for all their many uses. The guarantee was that
Speaker 1: bankers would be repaid on one of the worst financial
Speaker 1: products you could ever come with. That's what it always
Speaker 1: comes down to, and that was built into that was
Speaker 1: modeled off of the guarantee in the thirties for housing.
Speaker 1: The guarantee for the federal mortgage program was bankers would
Speaker 1: be repaid for giving out mortgages. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we're going to construct this entire program to make it
Speaker 1: extremely hard for people of color and women to actually
Speaker 1: get a mortgage. There we go. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, and I say this all the
Speaker 1: time on woke AF It's like the more that I know,
Speaker 1: the angry or I become, and if you know me,
Speaker 1: then you know that there is really just no bottom
Speaker 1: to my rage. But it is so what pisses me
Speaker 1: off the most is that these dots are not connected. Right.
Speaker 1: What pisses me off the most is that we continue
Speaker 1: to look for band aid fixes for systemic problems that
Speaker 1: were created on purpose. Right, And I yes, and I
Speaker 1: also think too, Yes, I'm tired of band aids. You're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. That's where I was like, you want to
Speaker 1: go for the juggler, Let's go to voting. Let's go
Speaker 1: to voting and do that. But then also I think
Speaker 1: we have to look at the language because they're pretty
Speaker 1: freaking honestness, the guarantee student loan porker, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was tricky who actually is getting as guaranteed? But I
Speaker 1: also the one I don't like right now is the
Speaker 1: public sector loan forgiveness. No one need has done anything
Speaker 1: that needs to be forgiven. No person in this country
Speaker 1: who has student debt needs to be forgiven for the
Speaker 1: debt that they incurred for the education that we need
Speaker 1: them to have. As a twenty first century democracy right,
Speaker 1: not just for our workforce, but just to actually, you know,
Speaker 1: keep going. And then also they don't need any forgiveness
Speaker 1: for trying to do that for themselves. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is a real
Speaker 1: tragedy is that we've made it so much about the
Speaker 1: cost of this, how you're going to pay that back.
Speaker 1: We don't actually give those who cannot easily afford to
Speaker 1: go to college, and that's the majority of Americans now.
Speaker 1: We haven't give them the chance to actually go to
Speaker 1: college and explore what they might be interested in. We've
Speaker 1: just made it about the paycheck. And it's just such
Speaker 1: so corrosive, because is there any wonder why we are
Speaker 1: losing our arts and humanities right now because we've put
Speaker 1: such a massive price tech and it just keeps the
Speaker 1: arts and humanities the purview of a white, wealthy elite period,
Speaker 1: you know, and particularly particularly at a time when you
Speaker 1: know it's it's it's always a student of history, right,
Speaker 1: You're going back in time and you're thinking about these
Speaker 1: these moments in our civilization where things got incredibly dark, right,
Speaker 1: and then what comes out, right, it is art is
Speaker 1: beauty is questioning, right, so that we are not consistently
Speaker 1: moving through these cycles. And it is not lost on
Speaker 1: me that those are the first things to go right,
Speaker 1: because we don't want I think that what we need
Speaker 1: to recognize as this nation is that we don't want
Speaker 1: an educated citizenury because if you look at our K
Speaker 1: through twelve curriculum, if you look at the way that
Speaker 1: you have to buy into a higher education, right, we
Speaker 1: don't want that. Because if we actually wanted our citizens
Speaker 1: to be educated, then we would educate them in a
Speaker 1: way that functions with the now, not you know what
Speaker 1: was we wouldn't still be operating on an agrarian system
Speaker 1: in our K through twelve. We would have adapted, like
Speaker 1: you know, year round school. We would have expansive curriculum
Speaker 1: that isn't you know, electives as like stem or electives
Speaker 1: as art. It would be baked in to our society
Speaker 1: and we would listen to those experts. But the reality
Speaker 1: is is that capitalism thrives on the lack of knowledge.
Speaker 1: We need cogs in a machine in order for that
Speaker 1: to function. Right, Yes, I completely agree with you, and
Speaker 1: especially since for me, I mean I when I some
Speaker 1: folks in the education departments, by an inscription department, I've
Speaker 1: actually read my book and we were talking about it
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, we have to think
Speaker 1: about how incredibly complex these financial products are. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that I do when I teach the
Speaker 1: US History Survey, the first thing I do is I
Speaker 1: ask my students, hey, do you live in a union
Speaker 1: of states or a nation of people? And they all
Speaker 1: first day or like nation of people? It's like, really,
Speaker 1: show me, show me your id. Oh is it a state? Ide?
Speaker 1: Are you actually registered to vote it a state? Not
Speaker 1: actually as a US citizen. And then I show them
Speaker 1: how I'm actually to show them how to teach this.
Speaker 1: How you teach the class as I showed them a
Speaker 1: pay stub and I was like, so, tell me on
Speaker 1: first day, what are all these deductions? What is this
Speaker 1: social security thing? Whendn't that get pass Why did that
Speaker 1: get passed? And in most classes they might know it's
Speaker 1: something there's money for old people, but they have no
Speaker 1: idea about all the other kinds of things. So it's like, well,
Speaker 1: this is citizenship on the page, but these are if
Speaker 1: you look at that pay stub, that's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of taxes and financial products. Because on your pay stub
Speaker 1: is probably deductions from your employer if you're lucky to
Speaker 1: have it for your healthcare and all this other kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and thinking about your your point about like
Speaker 1: robbing us of these basic rights which for some reason
Speaker 1: are still high to where we're working in the labor
Speaker 1: market in this country as opposed to just the fact
Speaker 1: that we are here being, you know, contributing. The thing
Speaker 1: is I end the class by showing them the ten
Speaker 1: ninety nine that independent contractors get and there's no deductions,
Speaker 1: there's nothing on that for their basic rights and needs
Speaker 1: because we're so still back there that you have to
Speaker 1: work for your worth as opposed to recognizing the worth
Speaker 1: of all of us. Is it any wonder that this
Speaker 1: again is disproportionately leaving a lack of citizenship for those
Speaker 1: who don't have the hardest time getting good work that
Speaker 1: is steadily disappearing. What is the fix, doctor ship No, No, no.
Speaker 1: And I say that knowing that the problem is so
Speaker 1: complex because it was created to be right that if
Speaker 1: you were to actually pull the thread, then the whole
Speaker 1: thing would fall apart. But I think that there are
Speaker 1: some things that have been highlighted throughout the pandemic over
Speaker 1: the last two years, which is remote learning right has
Speaker 1: affected a lot of universities where people are just like,
Speaker 1: so why am I paying this high bill when I
Speaker 1: could be online and probably getting you know, a similar edge,
Speaker 1: like why why am I paying for my kid? Or
Speaker 1: them taking out strapping themselves with loans when you could
Speaker 1: go to state school? Right if we're not going to
Speaker 1: go back, and like there are there are all of
Speaker 1: these things that I think we're highlighted. So I just
Speaker 1: want to hear from you, well I do so for me,
Speaker 1: my thought is that, like, so I will say that
Speaker 1: I think the future is hybrid, and so as a historian,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, like, you know, no one can predict
Speaker 1: the future. But what we do know is that moments
Speaker 1: of crisis tend to accelerate. Was already happening. There wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, dabbling in just doing completely online. But that's
Speaker 1: a lot of the predatory for profits. But hybrid where
Speaker 1: I now actually record my lectures and so when I'm
Speaker 1: actually in the classroom with students, I'm spending it doing
Speaker 1: much more interactive connections with them. It's a better learning
Speaker 1: environment for them. There's no reason for me to just
Speaker 1: lecture at a bunch of students. I use other kinds
Speaker 1: of hybrid technologies as well, so to actually have a
Speaker 1: more meaningful experience for what we're going to do online
Speaker 1: and what we're going to do when we're lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be able to come in person. It tends to
Speaker 1: have better outcomes. The second thing, though, is but actually
Speaker 1: in terms of what and I love what you brought
Speaker 1: about the state schools, state schools are also pretty unaffordable
Speaker 1: right now too. And if again, if that now you're
Speaker 1: letting me have a ferry that is going to give
Speaker 1: me whatever I want. So FIRSTUS voting rights versus voting
Speaker 1: rights real expansive ideas about voting rights. The second is
Speaker 1: actually having genuinely tuition free public options all freaking four years.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's really important, and that's the
Speaker 1: College for All Act and what that would do. And
Speaker 1: this I hesitate to say this because it does reach
Speaker 1: back to an American tradition of having what we call
Speaker 1: the public competitor. That's actually how we got affordable utilities
Speaker 1: was having the Tennessee Valley Authority. It actually had this
Speaker 1: public competitor for cheap electricity. It actually had also good
Speaker 1: jobs with it, better jobs with it, and then it
Speaker 1: just created this pressure across the country to lower the
Speaker 1: rates of the utilities and literally started turning lights on
Speaker 1: in rural communities and urban communities in nineteen thirties. Huge difference.
Speaker 1: But that was what was supposed to be a part
Speaker 1: of Obamacare. We were supposed to have that public option,
Speaker 1: to have that public competitor to work in there to
Speaker 1: police that. Now, obviously, in the case of healthcare better,
Speaker 1: it would be to actually have healthcare, not health insurance.
Speaker 1: That's the other big thing I tell my Soud's like,
Speaker 1: have you noticed this, It's actually just insurance that's a
Speaker 1: financial product. It's actually not care. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know that. But I think that having genuinely robustly funded,
Speaker 1: tuition free public options would do a lot. Now, the
Speaker 1: only thing we got with the Biden administration's agenda They're
Speaker 1: Build Back Better agenda was and it was interesting, it
Speaker 1: was robustly funded community colleges. So you would have done
Speaker 1: your first you had the opportunity to your is two
Speaker 1: years for free, a competitive pressure. It's not perfect, it's
Speaker 1: not what we should By the way, that was an
Speaker 1: idea of seventy five years ago, and I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh you guys, you're just now trying that again. It's
Speaker 1: actually one of my favorite reports. It's it's there's a
Speaker 1: commission report. They're like, we're gonna have we're gonna build
Speaker 1: community colleges across the country. They're going to be free,
Speaker 1: and also we're going to make them free and put
Speaker 1: them in all sorts of different communities to deal with
Speaker 1: the systemic racial, religious, and gender inequality across the country.
Speaker 1: Like they like, literally residential report, this is what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do with nowhere. Hold your surprise. Smaller fixes that
Speaker 1: And I hate to see this because you're so right.
Speaker 1: We don't need a band aid talking understanding that everyone
Speaker 1: who that essential workers and so many people were shown
Speaker 1: to be essential during this pandemic. They need to be
Speaker 1: a part of the debt cancellation programs called public service
Speaker 1: low and forgiveness. Put them in there. They've proved it.
Speaker 1: Governor get Fretchen Whitmore and in Michigan is starting to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that these folks actually need to be acknowledged and
Speaker 1: genuinely rewarded for their service. And then another temporary fix
Speaker 1: is this big fight to get to something really meaningful,
Speaker 1: a meaningful systemic change, not just to reform, a change
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy. Let student debt be discharged during bankruptcy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hate to do that because it's giving into it,
Speaker 1: but if we can just give some relief now and
Speaker 1: also obviously talking about some really now, there are demands.
Speaker 1: In the Democratic primaries, we had two candidates who wanted
Speaker 1: mass cancelation. Again, not forgiveness. No one did anything wrong here,
Speaker 1: mass cancelation. It does not sound like the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is going to do that. But I want to give
Speaker 1: credit to the many people who are continuing to hammer him,
Speaker 1: both activists, both education experts, activists, education experts, but also
Speaker 1: the progressive Democrats and Congress are doing it. To just
Speaker 1: keep hammering it and keep this issue alive because it
Speaker 1: really matters. And so there's a bunch of different things
Speaker 1: trying to get to what really needs to be an
Speaker 1: overhaul about how we fund this basic public good to
Speaker 1: stop it from being a private luxury. Oh, doctor Sherman,
Speaker 1: I could talk to you forever too, you know, because
Speaker 1: this this this issue is just so deep and it
Speaker 1: cuts through so many different things that are fundamentally wrong.
Speaker 1: Um tell us about the conversation that you are going
Speaker 1: to be moderating towards the end of this week, and
Speaker 1: how folks can connect and learn and learn more. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a very exciting panel that you're that you're
Speaker 1: going to be by rating. I'm really excited about it too.
Speaker 1: So it's the University of Southern California has an institute
Speaker 1: and we are going to show clips on the next
Speaker 1: episode of a new documentary that is coming out. It's
Speaker 1: a six part documentary cult Um Um, and we're going
Speaker 1: to show clips from that. These are the clips that
Speaker 1: highlight the whistleblower, John Oberg, who was in the in
Speaker 1: the Department of Education, blowing the whistle on these predatory practices.
Speaker 1: But on the panel as we talk about these issues
Speaker 1: about what to do now to go when the moratorium
Speaker 1: likely ends in May, is going to be some amazing activists,
Speaker 1: the founder of Student Loan Justice Alan and then another
Speaker 1: incredible actist out of California, Kiomi. And then we also
Speaker 1: have two education experts Berkeley Law who's been at the
Speaker 1: forefront of actually talking about the student loan law and
Speaker 1: that's Jonathan. And then we have Mitchell Stevens up at
Speaker 1: Stanford about the Pathways Lab I'll be on there too,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to be a really great
Speaker 1: event and your audience can find out more all the
Speaker 1: details we're looking at the past the hopefully they gave
Speaker 1: you a link that you can put in the show
Speaker 1: notes and we'll do that. And so that is Thursday
Speaker 1: at seven. I only know because of Central time, because
Speaker 1: I can never do the math in my head. I've
Speaker 1: lived in so many different times zones. Seven o'clock Central,
Speaker 1: which I'm nine nine percent sure is five pm Specific time,
Speaker 1: eight pm Eastern time. Yeah. I really hope all of
Speaker 1: your viewers will will will zoom into it. And where
Speaker 1: is the So the documentary, folks is entitled Scared to Debt,
Speaker 1: which I think is also a very good title, Scared
Speaker 1: to Debt? Um, where is the docuseries? I believe Um
Speaker 1: there's I go to the Scared to Debt and they'll
Speaker 1: help it different. I think they're a different place. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I think one of the episodes is on
Speaker 1: is still online for sure, And it didn't win Okay,
Speaker 1: the great episode did win some awards for sure. Okay. Awesome, Uh,
Speaker 1: Doctor Elizabeth Tandy Shermott, thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join woka at daily, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you will come back to talk to us more
Speaker 1: about an issue that doesn't seem to be going anywhere
Speaker 1: anytime soon. I would love to thank you so much
Speaker 1: for inviting me. I really appreciate it, folks. I am
Speaker 1: very excited to welcome to okay F for the very
Speaker 1: first time doctor John Oberg, who's a political scientist and
Speaker 1: whistleblower at the Department of Education raising the alarms with
Speaker 1: regard to how different lenders were in fact gouging the
Speaker 1: Department of Education of funds as it pertains to student
Speaker 1: debt and payback of those loans. John, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for making the time to join woke F. I
Speaker 1: will say that this is an issue that I think
Speaker 1: is not covered enough, and I think that when we
Speaker 1: talk about the student debt crisis, we oftentimes are not
Speaker 1: putting a human face to it and we're not walking
Speaker 1: through all of the ways in which forty over forty
Speaker 1: five million Americans in this country are affected by this debt.
Speaker 1: So I want to open up with asking you what
Speaker 1: made you make the decision to blow the whistle at
Speaker 1: the Department of Education, What was occurring at that time, yes,
Speaker 1: happy to answer that question. Before I do, let me
Speaker 1: say I agree with you entirely that more focus needs
Speaker 1: to be on a lot of these issues surrounding student
Speaker 1: loan debt and the amazing amount that has been accumulated.
Speaker 1: Too few people have asked, how did this happen? Really?
Speaker 1: What was behind it? How could we wind up with
Speaker 1: this situation which has been called a national catastrophe in
Speaker 1: a wonderful book by Josh Mitchell and a wonderful book
Speaker 1: by doctor Shermer calling it indentured students. To answer your
Speaker 1: question about that, about why I decided to become a whistleblower,
Speaker 1: I was an lay in the Department of Education's Research office.
Speaker 1: I had previously been in the Office of Legislation and
Speaker 1: Congressional Affairs, and I had handled a lot of the
Speaker 1: legislation between the Department and the Congress as the liaison person.
Speaker 1: So I was very familiar with the statutes and the
Speaker 1: laws and so on. I was curious in two thousand
Speaker 1: starting in two thousand three, as to what happened with
Speaker 1: one particular issue that I had been so involved in legislatively,
Speaker 1: and that was trying to phase out an excessive subsidy
Speaker 1: that existed for lenders going all the way back to
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty and the agreement that we reached with the
Speaker 1: Congress in the nineteen ninety eight reauthorization of the Higher
Speaker 1: Education Acts, and oh, that will be phased out. It'll
Speaker 1: be gone soon because all those old loans will have
Speaker 1: been paid off. To my amazement, when I started to
Speaker 1: check it, I found that the amount was growing and
Speaker 1: that essentially lenders were claiming from taxpayers astounding amounts which
Speaker 1: I started to project would be in the billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: And this I thought was inappropriate. It was actually fraudulent.
Speaker 1: I brought it to the attention of the Department. I
Speaker 1: was told, no, you're not supposed to look into that.
Speaker 1: That's not something that we want any attention to. I
Speaker 1: brought the situation to the attention of the Inspector General.
Speaker 1: I went to my office office of Ethics at the
Speaker 1: Department and said, may I do analysis on my own
Speaker 1: if the department won't let me do it, and bring
Speaker 1: my work to the attention of the General Accounting Office.
Speaker 1: The Government Accountability Office is called now and so soon
Speaker 1: got involved and cut off part of the part part
Speaker 1: of the excess subsidies. So we capped at it probably
Speaker 1: close to a billion dollars and I retired from the
Speaker 1: Department of Education. But then Margaret Spellings, the secretary, said, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: that was illegal, but we're not going to ask for
Speaker 1: any of the money back. Why at that time, I
Speaker 1: said no, I'm in a position then under the law
Speaker 1: in order to file a suit so called keytam that
Speaker 1: is a whistleblower suit against on behalf of the United States,
Speaker 1: in order to recover the funds. I spent an eleven
Speaker 1: years trying to recover the funds, and we had quite
Speaker 1: a bit of success against several of the lenders. Why
Speaker 1: were why was the response from the secretary that they
Speaker 1: were not going to try and get funds that were
Speaker 1: rightly there's back? Why why would the reaction be just
Speaker 1: leave it alone. Well, the answer lies in the fact
Speaker 1: that the department was complicit. Many people in the department
Speaker 1: had come out of the lenders and they wanted the money. Uh.
Speaker 1: They initially were complicit in setting up the false claims,
Speaker 1: and they were still very much in power when when
Speaker 1: the time came to ask for the money back, some
Speaker 1: of the lenders actually thought they would They were going
Speaker 1: to have to pay the money back because they didn't
Speaker 1: think it was legal in the first place, and it
Speaker 1: had actually escrowed funds to do so. But Secretary Spellings
Speaker 1: did not ask, and I think that is part of
Speaker 1: the part of the part of the question is how
Speaker 1: did this happen? Is to look at who was in
Speaker 1: the department at the time, who was calling the shots,
Speaker 1: who was making the decisions. We have, of course, from
Speaker 1: discovery in my lawsuit, many documents that show the emails
Speaker 1: both internally in the in the in the lenders who
Speaker 1: were making these false claims, and between them as to
Speaker 1: how they were doing it, why they were doing it.
Speaker 1: And then of course, of course we also have considerable
Speaker 1: evidence after this became public about how these funds were
Speaker 1: then turned into loans that should never have been made
Speaker 1: to students in order to burden We have attorneys attorney
Speaker 1: general report in Iowa in two thousand and eight. We
Speaker 1: have an auditor general in Pennsylvania in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven who said the lender there had lost sight of
Speaker 1: its mission. We have cases in Kentucky, we have all
Speaker 1: over the country, and it's important, I think, to be
Speaker 1: able somehow to draw a straight line from these illegal
Speaker 1: claims and so on to the current crisis that we
Speaker 1: have in the country. So essentially, the loss that the
Speaker 1: Department of Education and I put that in quotations, the
Speaker 1: loss meaning the money that the lenders then took, they
Speaker 1: decided to create new loans to essentially put place that
Speaker 1: burden of recouping of those lost funds on potential students.
Speaker 1: Am I hearing that right? Yes, they used they used
Speaker 1: the excess funds. For example in Iowa, there they had
Speaker 1: claimed approximately fifty eight million illegally. That was determined to
Speaker 1: have been an illegal claim. And then along comes the
Speaker 1: the Attorney General of Iowa a few years later and
Speaker 1: is able to say, look at what Iowa Student Loan
Speaker 1: has been doing. It has been loading Iowa students up
Speaker 1: with debt that they really shouldn't have. And that's an
Speaker 1: important that's an important line to draw, I think between
Speaker 1: the illegal the complicity of the Department of Education in
Speaker 1: allowing the lenders to do this, not getting the money back,
Speaker 1: the money then being used inappropriately in order to increase
Speaker 1: the debt burden of the borrowers. So, John, here we
Speaker 1: are where we have an administration that campaigned on essentially
Speaker 1: relieving this debt for over forty five million Americans. One
Speaker 1: point eight I believe one point eight trillion dollars in
Speaker 1: debt is held by over forty five million America has.
Speaker 1: And you know, we are watching because of the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen cross crisis, some pause that is happening in payback.
Speaker 1: But isn't that essentially just kicking the can down the road?
Speaker 1: What do you see this administration doing or that is
Speaker 1: going to tackle this outsized crisis. Well that's a terribly
Speaker 1: good question, and a lot of people are are pondering
Speaker 1: exactly what should happen. And you framed it, You framed
Speaker 1: it correctly. These pauses are kicking the can down the road.
Speaker 1: They are, however, very valuable because a lot of people
Speaker 1: are just not in the position right now to resume repayment,
Speaker 1: and it I think it would be unconscionable to try
Speaker 1: to force them into repayment, and at least the Biden
Speaker 1: administration twice, I believe his as delayed that. As to
Speaker 1: what else they are going to do, let me give
Speaker 1: some credit, and I hope it's a harbinger of what
Speaker 1: they're going to do, because they have done some good things.
Speaker 1: They have come in and straightened out some of the
Speaker 1: messes that were left from decades past, not just the
Speaker 1: previous administration, but many, many previous problems. The so called
Speaker 1: borrower defense issue. They did a good, pretty good job
Speaker 1: on that. On permanent disability students and so on, and
Speaker 1: veterans and so on. They came in and straightened that
Speaker 1: out and aggressively tried to get to cancelation for those
Speaker 1: totally and permanently disabled that had a legal right to
Speaker 1: loan cancelation. The Biden administration came in and looked at
Speaker 1: the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which it had been
Speaker 1: run into the ground totally by a lender and servicer
Speaker 1: that was one of the defendants in my lawsuits, so
Speaker 1: I knew all about it. They should never have gotten
Speaker 1: the contract. But the Biden administration came in and used
Speaker 1: authority under the so called Heroes Act going back to
Speaker 1: almost two decades in order to straighten that out. So
Speaker 1: those are indicators that this administration can do the right thing.
Speaker 1: The big question now is what is the appropriate response
Speaker 1: to the whole to the whole shebang, the big picture
Speaker 1: at one point eight trillion. They did pretty well on
Speaker 1: these others, and I would like to see them be
Speaker 1: aggressive in addressing this. I have been among those who
Speaker 1: has looked at the secretary's authority in order to address
Speaker 1: some very significant broad cancelation. It's called the Compromise and
Speaker 1: Settlement Provision of the law, and I have seen it used.
Speaker 1: I've been in the room when it has been used
Speaker 1: over the decades. I know the history of that particularly,
Speaker 1: and I have a broad interpretation of that. There is
Speaker 1: a general Counsel Officer. General Counsel is given an opinion
Speaker 1: to the Secretary and to the White House about the
Speaker 1: powers of the Secretary to cancel loan short of anything
Speaker 1: else from Congress. However, that has been redacted, so the
Speaker 1: public doesn't know what's in there. I think that's probably
Speaker 1: what is in there is a secretary has a lot
Speaker 1: of authority. The one thing that no one seems to
Speaker 1: be talking about very much, if at all, and why
Speaker 1: to discuss it with you is I think not only
Speaker 1: does the Secretary have the power under this provision, but
Speaker 1: the Secretary has an obligation to act in order to
Speaker 1: square things up with many borrowers who have been misled
Speaker 1: through no fault of their own because of the complicity
Speaker 1: of the Department of education itself in driving up this debt.
Speaker 1: A lot of borrowers are in trouble. They are in default,
Speaker 1: they're behind on their payments. It's astounding to people when
Speaker 1: they learn that many borrowers have actually paid off principle
Speaker 1: and interest and more, but they still have a huge
Speaker 1: debt in front of them. Why is that, Well, there
Speaker 1: are fees, and there are penalties, and there's a crude interest,
Speaker 1: and there's capitalized interest in the exists, and there's that,
Speaker 1: and many of the borrowers never had the chance to say,
Speaker 1: I didn't sign up for that. The service the servicer
Speaker 1: has led me astray with bad information as to what
Speaker 1: my choices were, as to how to get out of default,
Speaker 1: as to how to get out of trouble if I
Speaker 1: lost my job. There's and there's plenty of evidence to
Speaker 1: show that the servicing has been terrible. I believe the
Speaker 1: Secretary has an obligation, because of the Complicity Department and
Speaker 1: the lack of supervision of the of the servicers, to
Speaker 1: take some bold action under the Compromise and Settlement provision
Speaker 1: of the law. What would it look like? Can you
Speaker 1: can you paint a picture for us, John? What would
Speaker 1: it look like if the Secretary, believing that they have
Speaker 1: the authority, if they were to wipe out right as
Speaker 1: people are saying, wipe out the one point eight trillion
Speaker 1: dollars worth a debt, what does that look like? What beens?
Speaker 1: What happens to lenders, what happens to the department, what
Speaker 1: happens to those with the loans. Well, there are several
Speaker 1: proposals out there, and as I say, I am in
Speaker 1: favor of doing something bolder rather than weaker on this.
Speaker 1: There is, of course the idea of just canceling at all.
Speaker 1: There is the idea that's been advanced by several people
Speaker 1: of doing fifty thousand. There's the idea of doing ten
Speaker 1: thousand that was advanced as a campaign issue by President
Speaker 1: Biden himself. There many of these have run into some
Speaker 1: criticism because of equity issues, or this is a wrong approach.
Speaker 1: There ought to be another one, and I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with all of them, but there have been some rather
Speaker 1: inventive alternatives that have been discussed, one of which has
Speaker 1: intrigued me. Some think tank has come up with the
Speaker 1: idea of a retroactive pell grant. If pell grants had
Speaker 1: been what they were supposed to and had been applied
Speaker 1: to a student's loan package in the first place, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had to borrow so much. And if you
Speaker 1: were to go back in and apply the pel eligibility
Speaker 1: to the outstanding debt. Now I don't have the numbers,
Speaker 1: but I think that would that would be a targeted approach.
Speaker 1: People couldn't criticize the approach on that, and it might
Speaker 1: do an awful lot for a lot of borrowers who
Speaker 1: are struggling because they were low income in the first place.
Speaker 1: Right Another thing that I have thrown out, and some
Speaker 1: people have said, well, yes, that's a good idea, would
Speaker 1: be for everybody who is still in debt who has
Speaker 1: paid principal plus the cost of money, cancel those debts.
Speaker 1: That would I don't know exactly how many people would
Speaker 1: be affected by that, but it would be a very
Speaker 1: significant number. And it would also help the department right
Speaker 1: now because you have two of these servicers who are
Speaker 1: going out of business simply because they are so fraught
Speaker 1: with problems that they no longer can comply with the
Speaker 1: government requirements on it, and millions of accounts have to
Speaker 1: be moved from those servicers to other servicers. Unfortunately, there
Speaker 1: is not a long line along other servicers who may
Speaker 1: be doing who may be able to do a good
Speaker 1: job on that. And so it's quite it's quite a
Speaker 1: logistical undertaking. If a lot of loans could be canceled
Speaker 1: right now so they didn't have to be transferred, that
Speaker 1: would be in the interest of everybody. That would be
Speaker 1: an interest of taxpayers, of the Department of Education, of
Speaker 1: the borrowers, of of the servicers who might be overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: So that's another kind of an alternative. I don't have
Speaker 1: all the alternatives at at my disposal. All I can
Speaker 1: say is I believe it's an obligation of the Secretary
Speaker 1: of Education to take bold action in order to address
Speaker 1: the crisis. Um, John, you know what troubles me to
Speaker 1: is the constant conversation that we have in this country
Speaker 1: right about the shrinking middle class, about low income folks,
Speaker 1: about those that we deemed, you know, in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: as essential workers, right, and then others that were able
Speaker 1: to stay within the confines of their homes, uh and
Speaker 1: and and work right. And what I what I look
Speaker 1: at this debt crisis. I think of the ways that
Speaker 1: people are locked into jobs and careers that they don't want.
Speaker 1: How do you think just for the just for the
Speaker 1: sheer ability to be able to offer a couple one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month to pay off this debt that
Speaker 1: was supposed to give them greater opportunity and privilege right
Speaker 1: in our in our society, how do you think that
Speaker 1: this debt, like this, this shackle really does go to
Speaker 1: affect our society and affect our economy. I know that
Speaker 1: you're not an economist, but like I do want your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that. Well. I think some good demographic analyzes
Speaker 1: would shed a lot of light on the situation you
Speaker 1: just described. Yes, a lot of people have been shackled
Speaker 1: to jobs they don't really want because of student loan debt.
Speaker 1: Some of those might be the lucky ones. Some people
Speaker 1: have actually been burdened with debt without any college completion
Speaker 1: and credential that helped them get a job to start with,
Speaker 1: and so they may be in dire trouble. We also
Speaker 1: should look at the demographics of this as to who
Speaker 1: who really makes up this one point eight trillion dollars
Speaker 1: and is there I did analysis back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three and published a working paper that showed that
Speaker 1: we were really disadvantaging in the way we put student
Speaker 1: loan packages together the low income and particularly the black
Speaker 1: low income. So I think that a lot of work
Speaker 1: has to be done, and I would hope that that
Speaker 1: work is being done right now, to look at all
Speaker 1: the categories of people who are in trouble, to look
Speaker 1: at the obligation of the secretary to address them, because
Speaker 1: a lot of this has been known for a long
Speaker 1: time and there should be numbers on them, and somehow
Speaker 1: Taylor the response to those demographics. Yeah, you know, John,
Speaker 1: I just want to say, and I'm certain that you've
Speaker 1: probably received this so many times over, but thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your outspokenness right to offer the truth
Speaker 1: at a time when that is something that is waning.
Speaker 1: To say that people are being squeezed out of the
Speaker 1: very little that they have, and what are we doing
Speaker 1: about that? Why are we why is the department being
Speaker 1: complicit in that? And then out of one instance, talking
Speaker 1: about creating a robust middle class when they are actually
Speaker 1: complicit in the ways in which people stay trapped in
Speaker 1: a low incommon in poverty because of debt. So I
Speaker 1: really appreciate the work that you continue to do on
Speaker 1: this crisis. Can you offer folks, You're going to be
Speaker 1: on a panel with our guests that we also had
Speaker 1: on doctor Shermer that is going to be looking at
Speaker 1: the documentary Scared to Debt. That is that is happening
Speaker 1: five pm? What is at five pm Pacific time? Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit more about this panel
Speaker 1: and why it's important. Yes, I'm eager to be on
Speaker 1: this panel because I'm a big admirer of Professor Shermer's
Speaker 1: book about student loans and how we got into trouble
Speaker 1: on this. We're going to have a panel that looks
Speaker 1: at Mike Comoin's film Scared to Debt, and I believe
Speaker 1: this is the second installment, a second chapter of his film.
Speaker 1: We saw the first part of it and now we're
Speaker 1: going to see the second part of it. And if
Speaker 1: I understand correctly, it is entitled The Whistleblower and it
Speaker 1: focuses on me. I will be interested in seeing what
Speaker 1: it is. But then we will have a panel moderated
Speaker 1: by Professor Schrmer, and it has some other people on it.
Speaker 1: I'm very eager to hear their views. I will, of
Speaker 1: course say some of the same things that I have
Speaker 1: just shared with you that I believe the Department is complicit.
Speaker 1: I believe the Secretary has an obligation under the law.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make just good economic sense, but I think
Speaker 1: there is an obligation there to act. And I would
Speaker 1: say also that, yes, some people have commended me, but
Speaker 1: you also have to understand and that from my standpoint,
Speaker 1: I was a federal civil servant. I was under oath
Speaker 1: in order to execute the laws of the United States properly.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that I had any option, especially since
Speaker 1: I was the one who uncovered the manipulations of laws
Speaker 1: loans among bond estates, and no one else had standing
Speaker 1: to do it, And so if I hadn't stepped up,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would have lived with myself.
Speaker 1: It was simply an obligation I had, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the way a lot of people who are whistleblowers
Speaker 1: feel about their actions. They were just doing their job. Well.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it because too few people actually do their
Speaker 1: job in looking out for other people other than themselves,
Speaker 1: So we appreciate that. Thank you so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time to join woke f Daily today. Appreciate you
Speaker 1: and good luck on the panel. Okay, thank you anytime.
Speaker 1: That is it for me to day on woke F
Speaker 1: daily as always. Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.