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"content": "\u003cp>In the fall of 1918, Edward Kidder Graham, the president of the University of North Carolina, tried to reassure anxious parents. The Spanish flu was spreading rapidly, but Graham insisted the university was doing all it could to keep students safe. Weeks later, Graham himself contracted the virus and died. His successor, Marvin Hendrix Stacy, promptly succumbed to the epidemic two months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many universities endured similar chaos during the Spanish flu, as I learned from reading a chapter in a forthcoming book on higher education, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53895/upheaval-action\">From Upheaval to Action: What Works in Changing Higher Ed\u003c/a>,” by sociologist and Brandeis University President Arthur Levine and University of Pennsylvania administrator Scott Van Pelt. (\u003cem>Disclosure: Levine was the president of Teachers College, Columbia University from 1994 to 2006, during which he launched The Hechinger Institute, the precursor to The Hechinger Report.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what really struck me was how many colleges’ experiences resembled those of the Covid-19 era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 1918 pandemic, Harvard canceled lectures with more than 50 students. Yale shut down its campus after partial measures failed to contain the spread. Many urban colleges closed temporarily. Orientations, commencements and large public gatherings were canceled or postponed. At Iowa State University, gymnasiums were converted into makeshift hospitals as cases surged. At the University of Michigan, dormitories transformed into quarantine facilities after infirmaries overflowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then came a second wave — deadlier than the first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66098\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66098\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2.jpg\" alt=\"Signatures on a sheet of paper\" width=\"780\" height=\"1006\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2.jpg 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2-768x991.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The first page of a signed petition from the students of the University of Idaho requesting cancellation of studies, school functions, and other duties until after the Thanksgiving Holiday due to the pandemic quarantine, ca. 1918. Credit: University of Idaho Library Digital Collections\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Spanish flu ultimately killed about 675,000 Americans at a time when the U.S. population was roughly 100 million — nearly twice the proportional death rate of Covid-19, which has claimed about 1.2 million lives in a country more than three times as large. Unlike Covid, the Spanish flu struck hardest at young adults in their 20s and 30s, the very ages colleges relied on to fill their classrooms and new faculty seats. Yet, Levine argues, higher education never managed to help that generation recover — academically, socially or psychologically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, institutions moved on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We essentially aged out of it,” said Levine, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in January about \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/tackling-higher-educations-challenges-a-conversation-with-frederick-m-hess-and-brandeis-university-president-arthur-levine/\">higher education’s challenges\u003c/a>. “Pretty soon the people who were home weren’t in college anymore. It’s a relatively short number of years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were innovations. In what we would now call remote learning, colleges expanded correspondence courses. In 1922, Penn State became the first institution to use radio for instruction. Female enrollment grew, particularly in nursing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was little evidence of repair or recovery. Students who had seen their education disrupted by both World War I and the pandemic were depleted in number and altered in outlook. They would come to be known as the lost generation: disillusioned, cynical, psychologically scarred and searching for meaning in a world that had failed to make sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What prevented this loss from registering as a lasting crisis was scale. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, only about 5 percent of young Americans attended college. There were far fewer colleges and universities. And higher education was not yet central to economic and social life in the way it is today. When one cohort faltered, institutions simply admitted the next. Replacement took the place of recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the cultural effects were visible. Writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the lingering disillusionment of a generation shaped by war and disease. The Roaring Twenties, Levine argues, were less a sign of healing than a counterreaction that would be followed, a decade later, by the Great Depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine doesn’t romanticize the past. “Everything I’ve read makes it sound like the Spanish flu combined with World War I may have been a harder slog,” he said in an interview. “So many lives were lost — not only students but faculty and staff. Mental health resources were primitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parallels to the present are unsettling, but the differences may matter even more. Today, well over 60 percent of young adults attend college immediately or shortly after high school. Higher education has become a mass institution, deeply intertwined with economic mobility and social identity. And Covid did not just disrupt schooling; it imposed prolonged social isolation at a formative stage of development for teens and young adults. Levine notes that it is impossible to disentangle the effects of the pandemic from the rise of smartphones and social media, which were already reshaping how young people relate to one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enrollment declines following Covid echo those of the Spanish flu era. But replacement may no longer be a viable strategy. When higher education serves a small elite, institutions can absorb loss quietly. When it serves a majority, the consequences of disruption are broader, more visible, and harder to outrun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson of the Spanish flu is not that young people inevitably bounce back. It is that institutions endured by waiting. A century ago, that carried limited cost. Today, with a far larger and more psychologically vulnerable young adult population, the price may be far higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about how the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-spanish-flu-universities/\">\u003cem>Spanish flu\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> affected universities was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the fall of 1918, Edward Kidder Graham, the president of the University of North Carolina, tried to reassure anxious parents. The Spanish flu was spreading rapidly, but Graham insisted the university was doing all it could to keep students safe. Weeks later, Graham himself contracted the virus and died. His successor, Marvin Hendrix Stacy, promptly succumbed to the epidemic two months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many universities endured similar chaos during the Spanish flu, as I learned from reading a chapter in a forthcoming book on higher education, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53895/upheaval-action\">From Upheaval to Action: What Works in Changing Higher Ed\u003c/a>,” by sociologist and Brandeis University President Arthur Levine and University of Pennsylvania administrator Scott Van Pelt. (\u003cem>Disclosure: Levine was the president of Teachers College, Columbia University from 1994 to 2006, during which he launched The Hechinger Institute, the precursor to The Hechinger Report.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what really struck me was how many colleges’ experiences resembled those of the Covid-19 era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 1918 pandemic, Harvard canceled lectures with more than 50 students. Yale shut down its campus after partial measures failed to contain the spread. Many urban colleges closed temporarily. Orientations, commencements and large public gatherings were canceled or postponed. At Iowa State University, gymnasiums were converted into makeshift hospitals as cases surged. At the University of Michigan, dormitories transformed into quarantine facilities after infirmaries overflowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then came a second wave — deadlier than the first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66098\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66098\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2.jpg\" alt=\"Signatures on a sheet of paper\" width=\"780\" height=\"1006\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2.jpg 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/02/Signatures-2-768x991.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The first page of a signed petition from the students of the University of Idaho requesting cancellation of studies, school functions, and other duties until after the Thanksgiving Holiday due to the pandemic quarantine, ca. 1918. Credit: University of Idaho Library Digital Collections\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Spanish flu ultimately killed about 675,000 Americans at a time when the U.S. population was roughly 100 million — nearly twice the proportional death rate of Covid-19, which has claimed about 1.2 million lives in a country more than three times as large. Unlike Covid, the Spanish flu struck hardest at young adults in their 20s and 30s, the very ages colleges relied on to fill their classrooms and new faculty seats. Yet, Levine argues, higher education never managed to help that generation recover — academically, socially or psychologically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, institutions moved on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We essentially aged out of it,” said Levine, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in January about \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/tackling-higher-educations-challenges-a-conversation-with-frederick-m-hess-and-brandeis-university-president-arthur-levine/\">higher education’s challenges\u003c/a>. “Pretty soon the people who were home weren’t in college anymore. It’s a relatively short number of years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were innovations. In what we would now call remote learning, colleges expanded correspondence courses. In 1922, Penn State became the first institution to use radio for instruction. Female enrollment grew, particularly in nursing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was little evidence of repair or recovery. Students who had seen their education disrupted by both World War I and the pandemic were depleted in number and altered in outlook. They would come to be known as the lost generation: disillusioned, cynical, psychologically scarred and searching for meaning in a world that had failed to make sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What prevented this loss from registering as a lasting crisis was scale. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, only about 5 percent of young Americans attended college. There were far fewer colleges and universities. And higher education was not yet central to economic and social life in the way it is today. When one cohort faltered, institutions simply admitted the next. Replacement took the place of recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the cultural effects were visible. Writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the lingering disillusionment of a generation shaped by war and disease. The Roaring Twenties, Levine argues, were less a sign of healing than a counterreaction that would be followed, a decade later, by the Great Depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine doesn’t romanticize the past. “Everything I’ve read makes it sound like the Spanish flu combined with World War I may have been a harder slog,” he said in an interview. “So many lives were lost — not only students but faculty and staff. Mental health resources were primitive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parallels to the present are unsettling, but the differences may matter even more. Today, well over 60 percent of young adults attend college immediately or shortly after high school. Higher education has become a mass institution, deeply intertwined with economic mobility and social identity. And Covid did not just disrupt schooling; it imposed prolonged social isolation at a formative stage of development for teens and young adults. Levine notes that it is impossible to disentangle the effects of the pandemic from the rise of smartphones and social media, which were already reshaping how young people relate to one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enrollment declines following Covid echo those of the Spanish flu era. But replacement may no longer be a viable strategy. When higher education serves a small elite, institutions can absorb loss quietly. When it serves a majority, the consequences of disruption are broader, more visible, and harder to outrun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson of the Spanish flu is not that young people inevitably bounce back. It is that institutions endured by waiting. A century ago, that carried limited cost. Today, with a far larger and more psychologically vulnerable young adult population, the price may be far higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about how the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-spanish-flu-universities/\">\u003cem>Spanish flu\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> affected universities was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>College enrollment in the U.S. continued to rise last fall, surpassing prepandemic levels, new figures out on Thursday show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across undergraduate and graduate programs, total enrollment reached 19.4 million students, growing 1.0% compared with the fall of 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a nonprofit that studies higher education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Higher education has stabilized and is growing again,” says Matthew Holsapple, senior director of research at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That growth, Holsapple says, is uneven this academic year: Enrollment at private four-year colleges is down, and fewer people are getting master’s degrees. But enrollment rose at four-year public universities and at community colleges, where short-term credentials tied to the workforce grew by 28% when compared with a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re continuing to see students shifting out of some of the more traditional pathways into these shorter-term, these more flexible, perhaps more job- and career-oriented fields,” explains Holsapple.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Gains and shifts, despite concerns about value\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The numbers provide welcome news and some clear insights to college leaders worried about reports showing many Americans questioning the value of a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Confidence in college is coming back, but it is conditional,” says Courtney Brown, who studies public opinion on colleges for the Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit aimed at improving higher education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public’s been telling us that cost, flexibility and career relevance shape their view of college’s worth,” Brown says. “So people aren’t turning away from education — they’re just getting more precise about what kind of education they want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could reflect uncertainty in the economy and news about hiring slowdowns, says Jeff Strohl, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. He says when job prospects feel shaky and the economy is struggling, people return to college, especially community college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we think about what’s going on in the U.S. economy as of late, especially a growing economic uncertainty, this kind of follows that pattern,” he says. “It’s easier to test the waters at a local community college than it is necessarily to go through the steps of enrolling in a four-year program, especially if a student doesn’t really know what they want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A big drop in international students at the graduate level\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While the number of international students enrolling in undergraduate programs grew this academic year by 3.2%, it was overshadowed by a significant drop at the graduate level, by about 10,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That graduate-level drop — mostly in master’s programs — followed several years of strong growth in which the number of international graduate students had risen by about 50%. The downturn reflects federal policies that limited or disrupted the student visa process and the billions of dollars in canceled federal dollars flowing to research universities, disrupting the pipeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another key finding from the latest enrollment data was a big decline in students studying computer and information sciences. The drop in both graduate and undergraduate programs came after years of steady expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to a consequence of fewer international students, Holsapple, at the Clearinghouse, explains that the shift away from CS majors is also influenced by the rise of artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are seeing the same trends that we all are seeing,” he says. “They see the same news reports of layoffs in the tech field. They see the rise of AI like we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’s encouraged by these trends. “Students are making different choices, which I think is a real positive for the field and particularly for students because they have those options.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the colleges that are rising to the occasion — offering nontraditional pathways and more-affordable degrees — will continue to be the ones seeing growth in future years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College enrollment in the U.S. is up overall compared with last year. That’s because more Americans are going to community college and four-year public universities, even as polling shows people are losing confidence in higher education. Here’s NPR’s Elissa Nadworny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: The latest fall enrollment data shows a slight increase overall – up by about 200,000 students, according to the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JEFF STROHL: These findings might catch people a little bit by surprise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: Jeff Strohl is the director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STROHL: But if we think about what’s going on in the U.S. economy as of late, especially growing economic uncertainty, a lot of news about hiring slowdowns, the whole freezing of the labor market, it makes a lot of sense if people are returning back to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: While overall more people are choosing college, there are important shifts happening in where students are going and where they’re not. Enrollment at private four-year colleges is down. Fewer people are enrolled in master’s degree programs. But enrollment is up at four-year public universities and at community colleges. There, it’s driven by students choosing short-term credentials tied to the workforce. Courtney Brown is with the Lumina Foundation, which focuses on improving higher education. She’s been studying public opinion on college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COURTNEY BROWN: The public’s been telling us that cost, flexibility and career relevance shape their view of college’s worth. So people aren’t turning away from education. They’re just getting more precise about what kind of education they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: There were also big declines in international students enrolled in graduate programs – down by about 10,000 students. This may reflect billions in canceled federal dollars flowing to research universities disrupting the pipeline, plus federal policies that limited the student visa process. Another finding – a huge drop in students enrolled in computer science programs. Here’s how Matthew Holsapple, the senior director of research at the clearinghouse, explains it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MATTHEW HOLSAPPLE: Students are – they’re seeing the same trends that we all are seeing. They see the same news reports of layoffs in the tech field. They see the rise of AI like we do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: Still, the biggest takeaway is that overall enrollment has continued to surpass prepandemic levels. Students are simply making different choices about where to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elissa Nadworny, NPR News.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF BRASSTRACKS’ “IN MY FEELINGS”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>College enrollment in the U.S. continued to rise last fall, surpassing prepandemic levels, new figures out on Thursday show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across undergraduate and graduate programs, total enrollment reached 19.4 million students, growing 1.0% compared with the fall of 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a nonprofit that studies higher education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Higher education has stabilized and is growing again,” says Matthew Holsapple, senior director of research at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That growth, Holsapple says, is uneven this academic year: Enrollment at private four-year colleges is down, and fewer people are getting master’s degrees. But enrollment rose at four-year public universities and at community colleges, where short-term credentials tied to the workforce grew by 28% when compared with a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re continuing to see students shifting out of some of the more traditional pathways into these shorter-term, these more flexible, perhaps more job- and career-oriented fields,” explains Holsapple.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Gains and shifts, despite concerns about value\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The numbers provide welcome news and some clear insights to college leaders worried about reports showing many Americans questioning the value of a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Confidence in college is coming back, but it is conditional,” says Courtney Brown, who studies public opinion on colleges for the Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit aimed at improving higher education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public’s been telling us that cost, flexibility and career relevance shape their view of college’s worth,” Brown says. “So people aren’t turning away from education — they’re just getting more precise about what kind of education they want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could reflect uncertainty in the economy and news about hiring slowdowns, says Jeff Strohl, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. He says when job prospects feel shaky and the economy is struggling, people return to college, especially community college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we think about what’s going on in the U.S. economy as of late, especially a growing economic uncertainty, this kind of follows that pattern,” he says. “It’s easier to test the waters at a local community college than it is necessarily to go through the steps of enrolling in a four-year program, especially if a student doesn’t really know what they want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A big drop in international students at the graduate level\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While the number of international students enrolling in undergraduate programs grew this academic year by 3.2%, it was overshadowed by a significant drop at the graduate level, by about 10,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That graduate-level drop — mostly in master’s programs — followed several years of strong growth in which the number of international graduate students had risen by about 50%. The downturn reflects federal policies that limited or disrupted the student visa process and the billions of dollars in canceled federal dollars flowing to research universities, disrupting the pipeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another key finding from the latest enrollment data was a big decline in students studying computer and information sciences. The drop in both graduate and undergraduate programs came after years of steady expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to a consequence of fewer international students, Holsapple, at the Clearinghouse, explains that the shift away from CS majors is also influenced by the rise of artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are seeing the same trends that we all are seeing,” he says. “They see the same news reports of layoffs in the tech field. They see the rise of AI like we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’s encouraged by these trends. “Students are making different choices, which I think is a real positive for the field and particularly for students because they have those options.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the colleges that are rising to the occasion — offering nontraditional pathways and more-affordable degrees — will continue to be the ones seeing growth in future years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College enrollment in the U.S. is up overall compared with last year. That’s because more Americans are going to community college and four-year public universities, even as polling shows people are losing confidence in higher education. Here’s NPR’s Elissa Nadworny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: The latest fall enrollment data shows a slight increase overall – up by about 200,000 students, according to the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JEFF STROHL: These findings might catch people a little bit by surprise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: Jeff Strohl is the director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STROHL: But if we think about what’s going on in the U.S. economy as of late, especially growing economic uncertainty, a lot of news about hiring slowdowns, the whole freezing of the labor market, it makes a lot of sense if people are returning back to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: While overall more people are choosing college, there are important shifts happening in where students are going and where they’re not. Enrollment at private four-year colleges is down. Fewer people are enrolled in master’s degree programs. But enrollment is up at four-year public universities and at community colleges. There, it’s driven by students choosing short-term credentials tied to the workforce. Courtney Brown is with the Lumina Foundation, which focuses on improving higher education. She’s been studying public opinion on college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COURTNEY BROWN: The public’s been telling us that cost, flexibility and career relevance shape their view of college’s worth. So people aren’t turning away from education. They’re just getting more precise about what kind of education they want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: There were also big declines in international students enrolled in graduate programs – down by about 10,000 students. This may reflect billions in canceled federal dollars flowing to research universities disrupting the pipeline, plus federal policies that limited the student visa process. Another finding – a huge drop in students enrolled in computer science programs. Here’s how Matthew Holsapple, the senior director of research at the clearinghouse, explains it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MATTHEW HOLSAPPLE: Students are – they’re seeing the same trends that we all are seeing. They see the same news reports of layoffs in the tech field. They see the rise of AI like we do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NADWORNY: Still, the biggest takeaway is that overall enrollment has continued to surpass prepandemic levels. Students are simply making different choices about where to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elissa Nadworny, NPR News.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF BRASSTRACKS’ “IN MY FEELINGS”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-agreement-missouri-end-biden-administrations-illegal-save-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced Tuesday\u003c/a> that it had reached a proposed settlement agreement to end a popular, yet controversial Biden-era student loan repayment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Saving on a Valuable Education plan, better known as SAVE, was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most flexible and generous\u003c/a> of all income-driven repayment plans, promising expedited loan forgiveness and monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. Republican state attorneys general, led by Missouri, sued the Biden administration, arguing in court that SAVE was too generous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The legal challenges put all SAVE borrowers in limbo for months, during which they were not required to make payments on their loans – even after many had already spent years in a pandemic payment pause. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interest resumed accruing\u003c/a> on SAVE loans in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed agreement. “Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s agreement, pending court approval, would end the long legal battle over SAVE by ending SAVE itself. The Education Department would commit not to enroll more borrowers in SAVE, to deny all pending SAVE applications and to move the roughly 7 million borrowers still enrolled in SAVE into other repayment plans – though some of those plans \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are also in flux\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also said student loan borrowers would have “a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan.” Borrowers will have to choose between two types of plans: 1.) \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#fixed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fixed payment plans\u003c/a> or 2.) plans with \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">payments based on a borrower’s income\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two new plans\u003c/a> created by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will roll out in July 2026, and will include a revised standard plan and a new income-driven plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan. Though SAVE borrowers will likely be expected to change plans before then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAVE plan’s days were already numbered. Under the OBBBA, borrowers would have had to change plans by July 1, 2028. Tuesday’s news would move that deadline up, though the administration has not provided a timeframe for the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposal is approved by the court, transitioning millions of borrowers to other plans will be a Herculean feat for loan servicing companies that handle day-to-day loan operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s gonna be bumpy,” says Scott Buchanan, head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. “Remember, SAVE borrowers have not been in repayment for years. They’re gonna have a ton of questions and will need a ton of hand-holding to get back into repayment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement arrives as millions of borrowers are struggling to keep up with their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are sitting on the precipice of millions of borrowers defaulting on their loans,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers. “And instead of choosing to defend a plan that would have been affordable for these borrowers, this Department of Education has capitulated to the AGs and is going to make life much more expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/new-student-loan-data-show-a-historic-spike-in-borrowers-falling-behind/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently published an analysis\u003c/a> of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages of delinquency. In all, some 12 million borrowers are worryingly behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s big news today for millions of federal student loan borrowers. The U.S. Department of Education says it’s reached a proposed settlement. It would end a Biden-era repayment plan that has been tied up in the courts for more than a year. NPR’s Cory Turner has been following the story and joins us now. Hi, Cory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Before we get to the news of the settlement, remind us what this repayment plan was and why it ended up in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. It’s the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, but it’s better known as SAVE. It was the most flexible and generous of all the income-driven repayment plans. It promised fast-tracked loan forgiveness, monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. But it turns out, Scott, it was so generous that Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration, arguing in court it was too generous and that if Congress had wanted to create a plan like this, it would have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so SAVE has been in legal limbo ever since. Now though, you know, President Trump’s Education Department agrees with those Republican AGs, and so they appear to have cut a deal. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed settlement today, quote, “American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: There’s probably a lot of people listening who are enrolled in the SAVE plan. What do they need to know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, they’re in good company. There are about 7 million borrowers still in SAVE. So this agreement is a big deal, pending court approval. It’s also worth saying many of these borrowers haven’t had to make payments in years because of the legal limbo I just mentioned, during which they didn’t have to make payments. But that followed on the heels of the long pandemic payment pause. Not only, though, is this going to be a financial stretch for many borrowers, it’s going to be a huge logistical challenge for the servicing companies that manage the federal student loan portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was talking earlier today with Scott Buchanan. He’s head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, and he told me it’s going to be bumpy. That was his word. He said SAVE borrowers are going to have a ton of questions. They will need a ton of handholding to get back into repayment. And part of the problem here is the options available to them are a little murky. Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act created two new repayment plans, but they’re not going to roll out till July, which is too late for the purposes of SAVE borrowers now. Meanwhile, borrower advocates were sounding in the alarm today. Here’s Persis Yu with the group Protect Borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PERSIS YU: The reality is, is that the SAVE plan was created because the other plans were unaffordable for millions of borrowers. So many borrowers are going to be in the difficult spot of making this decision about whether or not to stay current on their loans or feed their families and keep a roof over their head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And Scott, this settlement lands at a time when millions of other borrowers are already way behind on their loan payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Yeah. Do we have a sense of what exactly is going on there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. According to the latest tranche of data from the Education Department, some 12 million borrowers are either really behind on their payments or already in default. That’s at least a quarter of all federal student loan borrowers. And everybody I talk to on both sides of the aisle here say this is a crisis. And now we’re talking about how to get these 7 million SAVE borrowers, many of whom are low-income, back into repayment. This is going to be an incredible test for the department and obviously for these borrowers. And my best advice right now to these borrowers is to go to studentaid.gov and start reading up on the other repayment plans out there so you know what your options are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: That is NPR education correspondent Cory Turner. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB SONG, “GAT D***”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-agreement-missouri-end-biden-administrations-illegal-save-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced Tuesday\u003c/a> that it had reached a proposed settlement agreement to end a popular, yet controversial Biden-era student loan repayment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Saving on a Valuable Education plan, better known as SAVE, was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">most flexible and generous\u003c/a> of all income-driven repayment plans, promising expedited loan forgiveness and monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. Republican state attorneys general, led by Missouri, sued the Biden administration, arguing in court that SAVE was too generous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The legal challenges put all SAVE borrowers in limbo for months, during which they were not required to make payments on their loans – even after many had already spent years in a pandemic payment pause. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interest resumed accruing\u003c/a> on SAVE loans in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed agreement. “Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s agreement, pending court approval, would end the long legal battle over SAVE by ending SAVE itself. The Education Department would commit not to enroll more borrowers in SAVE, to deny all pending SAVE applications and to move the roughly 7 million borrowers still enrolled in SAVE into other repayment plans – though some of those plans \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are also in flux\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also said student loan borrowers would have “a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan.” Borrowers will have to choose between two types of plans: 1.) \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#fixed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fixed payment plans\u003c/a> or 2.) plans with \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans#income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">payments based on a borrower’s income\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two new plans\u003c/a> created by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will roll out in July 2026, and will include a revised standard plan and a new income-driven plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan. Though SAVE borrowers will likely be expected to change plans before then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SAVE plan’s days were already numbered. Under the OBBBA, borrowers would have had to change plans by July 1, 2028. Tuesday’s news would move that deadline up, though the administration has not provided a timeframe for the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the proposal is approved by the court, transitioning millions of borrowers to other plans will be a Herculean feat for loan servicing companies that handle day-to-day loan operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s gonna be bumpy,” says Scott Buchanan, head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. “Remember, SAVE borrowers have not been in repayment for years. They’re gonna have a ton of questions and will need a ton of hand-holding to get back into repayment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The settlement arrives as millions of borrowers are struggling to keep up with their payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are sitting on the precipice of millions of borrowers defaulting on their loans,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers. “And instead of choosing to defend a plan that would have been affordable for these borrowers, this Department of Education has capitulated to the AGs and is going to make life much more expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/new-student-loan-data-show-a-historic-spike-in-borrowers-falling-behind/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently published an analysis\u003c/a> of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages of delinquency. In all, some 12 million borrowers are worryingly behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SCOTT DETROW, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s big news today for millions of federal student loan borrowers. The U.S. Department of Education says it’s reached a proposed settlement. It would end a Biden-era repayment plan that has been tied up in the courts for more than a year. NPR’s Cory Turner has been following the story and joins us now. Hi, Cory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Before we get to the news of the settlement, remind us what this repayment plan was and why it ended up in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. It’s the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, but it’s better known as SAVE. It was the most flexible and generous of all the income-driven repayment plans. It promised fast-tracked loan forgiveness, monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. But it turns out, Scott, it was so generous that Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration, arguing in court it was too generous and that if Congress had wanted to create a plan like this, it would have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so SAVE has been in legal limbo ever since. Now though, you know, President Trump’s Education Department agrees with those Republican AGs, and so they appear to have cut a deal. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed settlement today, quote, “American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: There’s probably a lot of people listening who are enrolled in the SAVE plan. What do they need to know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Well, they’re in good company. There are about 7 million borrowers still in SAVE. So this agreement is a big deal, pending court approval. It’s also worth saying many of these borrowers haven’t had to make payments in years because of the legal limbo I just mentioned, during which they didn’t have to make payments. But that followed on the heels of the long pandemic payment pause. Not only, though, is this going to be a financial stretch for many borrowers, it’s going to be a huge logistical challenge for the servicing companies that manage the federal student loan portfolio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was talking earlier today with Scott Buchanan. He’s head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, and he told me it’s going to be bumpy. That was his word. He said SAVE borrowers are going to have a ton of questions. They will need a ton of handholding to get back into repayment. And part of the problem here is the options available to them are a little murky. Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act created two new repayment plans, but they’re not going to roll out till July, which is too late for the purposes of SAVE borrowers now. Meanwhile, borrower advocates were sounding in the alarm today. Here’s Persis Yu with the group Protect Borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PERSIS YU: The reality is, is that the SAVE plan was created because the other plans were unaffordable for millions of borrowers. So many borrowers are going to be in the difficult spot of making this decision about whether or not to stay current on their loans or feed their families and keep a roof over their head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: And Scott, this settlement lands at a time when millions of other borrowers are already way behind on their loan payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: Yeah. Do we have a sense of what exactly is going on there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah. According to the latest tranche of data from the Education Department, some 12 million borrowers are either really behind on their payments or already in default. That’s at least a quarter of all federal student loan borrowers. And everybody I talk to on both sides of the aisle here say this is a crisis. And now we’re talking about how to get these 7 million SAVE borrowers, many of whom are low-income, back into repayment. This is going to be an incredible test for the department and obviously for these borrowers. And my best advice right now to these borrowers is to go to studentaid.gov and start reading up on the other repayment plans out there so you know what your options are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DETROW: That is NPR education correspondent Cory Turner. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB SONG, “GAT D***”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The cities of Albuquerque, N.M., Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are suing the Trump administration over changes it plans to make to the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit, which also includes the nation’s two largest teachers unions and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/31/2025-19729/william-d-ford-federal-direct-loan-direct-loan-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published a rule change\u003c/a> to PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effective July 1, 2026, the department says the change will allow it to deny loan forgiveness to workers whose government or nonprofit employers engage in activities with a “substantial illegal purpose.” The job of defining “substantial illegal purpose” will fall not to the courts but to the education secretary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PSLF was created by Congress in 2007, and signed by then-President George W. Bush, to cancel the federal student loan debts of borrowers who spend a decade working in public service, including teaching, nursing and policing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the plaintiffs fear that a city or county government’s resistance to the administration’s immigration actions, for example, or anti-DEI policies, could lead the secretary to exclude that government’s public workers from loan forgiveness. They worry that a local nurse or first responder could be denied loan forgiveness because their local leaders defied the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint argues the rule is “an attempt to target organizations and jurisdictions whose missions and policies do not align with [the Trump administration’s] political positions on immigration, race, gender, free speech, and public protest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Politically motivated retaliation, like what the administration has done here, should have no place in America,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaintiff group also includes the National Council of Nonprofits, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/pressreleases/nonprofits-oppose-unlawful-public-service-loan-forgiveness-final-rule-limiting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a statement\u003c/a> upon the rule’s release:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nonprofits operate food banks, serve veterans, assist domestic violence survivors, deliver meals to seniors, respond to disasters, and much more. Nonprofits must be able to identify and meet those needs without political interference, fear of retribution, or exclusion from a program designed to support their employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent denounced the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for criminal activity,” Kent said in a statement to NPR. “This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to plaintiffs’ concerns that the administration could use PSLF as a weapon to punish political opponents, Kent insisted “the Department will enforce [the rule] neutrally, without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology, or the population they serve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint says PSLF has allowed local governments to retain employees, including lawyers and engineers, who could earn more in the private sector. Albuquerque’s leaders say that losing access to PSLF “would likely create an untenable staffing crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu added: “The City is joining with cities, unions, and nonprofits across the country to protect a program that helps Boston’s workforce and millions of Americans in public service careers pay for college.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What activities does the administration consider to be illegal?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One key question raised by this rule change, and the lawsuit, is: How will the Education Department define activities with “substantial illegal purpose”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the rule itself, such activities could include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\" style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;\">\n\u003cli>“aiding and abetting violations of Federal immigration laws”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“supporting terrorism or engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of Federal or state law”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in the trafficking of children to another State for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents in violation of Federal or State law”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“and engaging in a pattern of violating State laws.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>If the secretary determines that an employer has behaved with “substantial illegal purpose,” according to the rule, the employer can either engage with the department and accept a corrective action plan or risk losing access to PSLF for its employees for 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to public comments, the Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19729.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has said\u003c/a>, “[it] would have no basis to remove eligibility from nonprofits engaged in work related to immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, or racial justice if those organizations are following the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the plaintiff cities, which sit on the U.S. Justice Department’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-publishes-list-sanctuary-jurisdictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“sanctuary jurisdictions”\u003c/a> list, say the Trump administration has already accused them of impeding the enforcement of federal law, and that this rule “represents yet another attack on politically disfavored local governments and nonprofits that have local laws, policies, and missions that are anathemas to the Administration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The actions of these cities are legal,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers, another organization representing the plaintiffs. What’s more, she says, “whether or not these activities are legal, is not a [determination] that the secretary of education has either the right or the expertise to be making.”\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rule is the culmination of \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-public-service-loan-forgiveness/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a presidential action\u003c/a>, issued in March, in which President Trump accused the Biden administration of abusing PSLF, and said the program “has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What did Congress intend when it created PSLF?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The plaintiffs argue Congress was clear about what should qualify as “public service” when it wrote the law, and that this new rule goes against lawmakers’ intent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Higher Education Act defines public service jobs as including government or a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. It does not provide any discretion or wiggle room within that definition,” Yu says. “Congress has said that this is who is entitled to public service loan forgiveness. The secretary doesn’t have the authority to change that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to public comments, the Education Department has \u003ca href=\"https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19729.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disagreed\u003c/a>, writing that “[it] rejects the suggestion that this rule exceeds its legal authority. The [Higher Education Act] grants the Secretary explicit power to regulate title IV programs. PSLF is a title IV program, and its proper administration requires clear, enforceable standards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another lawsuit was filed in tandem Monday, by a coalition of 21 state attorneys general, arguing on behalf of Democratic-leaning state governments that worry their public employees could likewise be denied loan forgiveness because of state leaders’ decisions to support immigrants, promote DEI or provide gender affirming care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coalition of attorneys general warned in a press release that the rule would result in “widespread confusion, fear, and instability in the public workforce, forcing states to confront severe staffing shortages, higher turnover, and skyrocketing costs to maintain essential services.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to federal data, more than 1.1 million public service workers have thus far had their federal student loan debts discharged under PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was updated to include comment from the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a million Americans have had their student loan debts erased because they’ve worked in public service. Many teachers, nurses, government and nonprofit workers have stayed in their jobs in hopes of benefiting from the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Now, though, the Trump administration is changing the rules around who can qualify. Today, a host of cities and 21 states led by Democrats filed a pair of lawsuits saying they fear their public workers could soon be excluded. NPR’s Cory Turner is here in the studio with more. Hey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: So Cory, let’s just start with a quick reminder of the PSLF program. How is it supposed to work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, it was created by Congress in 2007, signed by then-President George W. Bush. And the law offers what is essentially a quid pro quo to federal student loan borrowers. If you work for 10 years in public service, the government agrees to erase whatever is left of your student loan debts. The idea was to help nonprofits and state and local governments hire and retain good people even if they can’t pay private sector wages. And Congress, we should say, defined public service really broadly in the law to include anyone working in government or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: Right, OK. So help me understand, then, how does the Trump administration hope to change this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, they released a final rule change last week that will go into effect in July, and it allows the education secretary to deny loan forgiveness if employers engage in activities with, quote, “substantial illegal purpose,” Juana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: There, the department includes, quote, “aiding and abetting violations of federal immigration laws,” also engaging in, quote, “the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of federal or state law.” The concern among these states and cities with this lawsuit is that by being what the Justice Department has called sanctuary jurisdictions, for example, or by following state or local laws that promote diversity or protect the rights of transgender people, the secretary of education could say to them, look, I think your leaders are acting with illegal purpose, and then bar any of that state or local government’s employees from getting loan forgiveness. These suits accuse the administration, essentially, of trying to weaponize PSLF and they argue the secretary doesn’t have the authority, let alone the expertise, to decide what is illegal purpose or to add restrictions that Congress never intended in the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: Cory, what’s the Trump administration had to say about those accusations?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, in a statement today from the undersecretary of education, Nicholas Kent, he called it – opposition to the rule unconscionable. Kent also said, quote, “this is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm.” He also insisted the rule would be enforced, quote, “without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology or the population they serve.” One last thing, Juana. Employers at risk of failing this new standard will have two options. They can risk being excluded from loan forgiveness for 10 years or they can change their policies as part of a corrective action plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: NPR education correspondent Cory Turner, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The cities of Albuquerque, N.M., Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are suing the Trump administration over changes it plans to make to the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit, which also includes the nation’s two largest teachers unions and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of Education \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/31/2025-19729/william-d-ford-federal-direct-loan-direct-loan-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published a rule change\u003c/a> to PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effective July 1, 2026, the department says the change will allow it to deny loan forgiveness to workers whose government or nonprofit employers engage in activities with a “substantial illegal purpose.” The job of defining “substantial illegal purpose” will fall not to the courts but to the education secretary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PSLF was created by Congress in 2007, and signed by then-President George W. Bush, to cancel the federal student loan debts of borrowers who spend a decade working in public service, including teaching, nursing and policing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the plaintiffs fear that a city or county government’s resistance to the administration’s immigration actions, for example, or anti-DEI policies, could lead the secretary to exclude that government’s public workers from loan forgiveness. They worry that a local nurse or first responder could be denied loan forgiveness because their local leaders defied the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint argues the rule is “an attempt to target organizations and jurisdictions whose missions and policies do not align with [the Trump administration’s] political positions on immigration, race, gender, free speech, and public protest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Politically motivated retaliation, like what the administration has done here, should have no place in America,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaintiff group also includes the National Council of Nonprofits, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/pressreleases/nonprofits-oppose-unlawful-public-service-loan-forgiveness-final-rule-limiting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a statement\u003c/a> upon the rule’s release:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nonprofits operate food banks, serve veterans, assist domestic violence survivors, deliver meals to seniors, respond to disasters, and much more. Nonprofits must be able to identify and meet those needs without political interference, fear of retribution, or exclusion from a program designed to support their employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent denounced the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for criminal activity,” Kent said in a statement to NPR. “This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to plaintiffs’ concerns that the administration could use PSLF as a weapon to punish political opponents, Kent insisted “the Department will enforce [the rule] neutrally, without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology, or the population they serve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint says PSLF has allowed local governments to retain employees, including lawyers and engineers, who could earn more in the private sector. Albuquerque’s leaders say that losing access to PSLF “would likely create an untenable staffing crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu added: “The City is joining with cities, unions, and nonprofits across the country to protect a program that helps Boston’s workforce and millions of Americans in public service careers pay for college.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What activities does the administration consider to be illegal?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One key question raised by this rule change, and the lawsuit, is: How will the Education Department define activities with “substantial illegal purpose”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the rule itself, such activities could include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\" style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;\">\n\u003cli>“aiding and abetting violations of Federal immigration laws”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“supporting terrorism or engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of Federal or state law”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in the trafficking of children to another State for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents in violation of Federal or State law”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“and engaging in a pattern of violating State laws.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>If the secretary determines that an employer has behaved with “substantial illegal purpose,” according to the rule, the employer can either engage with the department and accept a corrective action plan or risk losing access to PSLF for its employees for 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to public comments, the Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19729.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has said\u003c/a>, “[it] would have no basis to remove eligibility from nonprofits engaged in work related to immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, or racial justice if those organizations are following the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the plaintiff cities, which sit on the U.S. Justice Department’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-publishes-list-sanctuary-jurisdictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“sanctuary jurisdictions”\u003c/a> list, say the Trump administration has already accused them of impeding the enforcement of federal law, and that this rule “represents yet another attack on politically disfavored local governments and nonprofits that have local laws, policies, and missions that are anathemas to the Administration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The actions of these cities are legal,” says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers, another organization representing the plaintiffs. What’s more, she says, “whether or not these activities are legal, is not a [determination] that the secretary of education has either the right or the expertise to be making.”\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rule is the culmination of \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-public-service-loan-forgiveness/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a presidential action\u003c/a>, issued in March, in which President Trump accused the Biden administration of abusing PSLF, and said the program “has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What did Congress intend when it created PSLF?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The plaintiffs argue Congress was clear about what should qualify as “public service” when it wrote the law, and that this new rule goes against lawmakers’ intent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Higher Education Act defines public service jobs as including government or a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. It does not provide any discretion or wiggle room within that definition,” Yu says. “Congress has said that this is who is entitled to public service loan forgiveness. The secretary doesn’t have the authority to change that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to public comments, the Education Department has \u003ca href=\"https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19729.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disagreed\u003c/a>, writing that “[it] rejects the suggestion that this rule exceeds its legal authority. The [Higher Education Act] grants the Secretary explicit power to regulate title IV programs. PSLF is a title IV program, and its proper administration requires clear, enforceable standards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another lawsuit was filed in tandem Monday, by a coalition of 21 state attorneys general, arguing on behalf of Democratic-leaning state governments that worry their public employees could likewise be denied loan forgiveness because of state leaders’ decisions to support immigrants, promote DEI or provide gender affirming care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coalition of attorneys general warned in a press release that the rule would result in “widespread confusion, fear, and instability in the public workforce, forcing states to confront severe staffing shortages, higher turnover, and skyrocketing costs to maintain essential services.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to federal data, more than 1.1 million public service workers have thus far had their federal student loan debts discharged under PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was updated to include comment from the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a million Americans have had their student loan debts erased because they’ve worked in public service. Many teachers, nurses, government and nonprofit workers have stayed in their jobs in hopes of benefiting from the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Now, though, the Trump administration is changing the rules around who can qualify. Today, a host of cities and 21 states led by Democrats filed a pair of lawsuits saying they fear their public workers could soon be excluded. NPR’s Cory Turner is here in the studio with more. Hey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: So Cory, let’s just start with a quick reminder of the PSLF program. How is it supposed to work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, it was created by Congress in 2007, signed by then-President George W. Bush. And the law offers what is essentially a quid pro quo to federal student loan borrowers. If you work for 10 years in public service, the government agrees to erase whatever is left of your student loan debts. The idea was to help nonprofits and state and local governments hire and retain good people even if they can’t pay private sector wages. And Congress, we should say, defined public service really broadly in the law to include anyone working in government or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: Right, OK. So help me understand, then, how does the Trump administration hope to change this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, they released a final rule change last week that will go into effect in July, and it allows the education secretary to deny loan forgiveness if employers engage in activities with, quote, “substantial illegal purpose,” Juana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: There, the department includes, quote, “aiding and abetting violations of federal immigration laws,” also engaging in, quote, “the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of federal or state law.” The concern among these states and cities with this lawsuit is that by being what the Justice Department has called sanctuary jurisdictions, for example, or by following state or local laws that promote diversity or protect the rights of transgender people, the secretary of education could say to them, look, I think your leaders are acting with illegal purpose, and then bar any of that state or local government’s employees from getting loan forgiveness. These suits accuse the administration, essentially, of trying to weaponize PSLF and they argue the secretary doesn’t have the authority, let alone the expertise, to decide what is illegal purpose or to add restrictions that Congress never intended in the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: Cory, what’s the Trump administration had to say about those accusations?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: Yeah, in a statement today from the undersecretary of education, Nicholas Kent, he called it – opposition to the rule unconscionable. Kent also said, quote, “this is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm.” He also insisted the rule would be enforced, quote, “without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology or the population they serve.” One last thing, Juana. Employers at risk of failing this new standard will have two options. They can risk being excluded from loan forgiveness for 10 years or they can change their policies as part of a corrective action plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SUMMERS: NPR education correspondent Cory Turner, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TURNER: You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69753739/44/american-federation-of-teachers-v-us-department-of-education/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">court filing\u003c/a>, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is asking a federal judge to force the U.S. Department of Education to follow the law and cancel the debts of borrowers who have met longstanding requirements for loan forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT argues the department is delaying cancellation for many borrowers in a way that is “unwarranted and unlawful” and will have “real and significant consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because the clock is ticking. With the American Rescue Plan, Congress temporarily stopped treating loan cancellation as taxable income until Jan. 1, 2026. Soon, many borrowers will again be expected to pay taxes on those cancelled debts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT is seeking an injunction to force the department to do a few things, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\" style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;\">\n\u003cli>Cancel the debts of borrowers on income-dependent repayment plans \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">like IBR, ICR and PAYE\u003c/a> when those borrowers have met the requirement that they be in repayment for 20 or 25 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Process thousands of outstanding requests for Public Service Loan Forgiveness from borrowers who “buy back” time that did not previously count.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>The trouble started with the SAVE Plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Education Department largely blames these delays in debt cancellation on the Biden administration and the federal courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Congress designed these [plans] to ensure that borrowers repay their loans, yet the Biden Administration tried to illegally force taxpayers to foot the bill,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a July statement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon is referring to the income-driven SAVE repayment plan, which was created by the Biden administration and was so generous in its terms that the courts forced the department to put the plan on ice, throwing much of the loan program into confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department has used the legal uncertainty around SAVE to justify halting cancellation under ICR, PAYE and IBR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBR was created by Congress and is not being challenged legally. But the department told NPR in July that questions about SAVE’s legality had made it difficult to determine eligibility for cancellation under IBR. As a result, many borrowers who are likely eligible for cancellation are still having to make payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For any borrower that makes a payment after they became eligible for forgiveness, the Department will refund overpayments when the discharges resume,” the department told NPR in a statement this week. As for when that might be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department would not commit to a timetable: “IBR discharges will resume as soon as the Department is able to establish the correct payment count.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>PSLF troubles\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Borrowers enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) have also encountered delays. According to court records, by the end of last month, the department had a backlog of nearly 75,000 applications for cancellation under the PSLF “Buyback” program. That allows borrowers with 10 years of verified public service to make qualifying payments for months they spent in forbearance or deferment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its amended suit, the AFT says, from May to August, the department received far more buyback applications than it processed. Each month, “the Department received an average of 9,902 new applications, but only processed an average of 3,604.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Education Department Deputy Press Secretary Ellen Keast says, with the PSLF “Buyback” program, the Biden administration was guilty of “weaponizing a legal discharge plan for political purposes. The Department is working its way through this backlog while ensuring that borrowers have submitted the required 120 payments of qualifying employment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Processing these buyback applications can be time-consuming, and the Trump administration’s move to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cut the Office of Federal Student Aid’s staff by half\u003c/a> may have slowed its efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Jan. 1, 2026, tax changes will not apply to Public Service Loan Forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Many borrowers are at risk of default\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More than 7 million borrowers are enrolled in SAVE and have not been required to make payments, but the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently resumed interest accrual\u003c/a> on these loans, looking to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nudge borrowers\u003c/a> into alternative plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527.42.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">court records show\u003c/a> enrolling in an alternative has been slow-going for months. In February, the department temporarily stopped accepting applications for all income-dependent repayment plans, and though it has resumed, more than a million were still pending as of the end of August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department’s Keast tells NPR this backlog began during the previous administration, and that the department “is actively working with federal student loan servicers and hopes to clear the Biden backlog over the next few months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amidst all this confusion and uncertainty, data suggest many federal student loan borrowers \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5521317/millions-of-student-loan-borrowers-are-at-risk-of-defaulting-data-shows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are failing to repay their loans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One in three federal student loan borrowers that are in repayment right now are in some stage of delinquency,” says Daniel Mangrum, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meaning millions of borrowers are now at serious risk of default.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69753739/44/american-federation-of-teachers-v-us-department-of-education/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">court filing\u003c/a>, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is asking a federal judge to force the U.S. Department of Education to follow the law and cancel the debts of borrowers who have met longstanding requirements for loan forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT argues the department is delaying cancellation for many borrowers in a way that is “unwarranted and unlawful” and will have “real and significant consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because the clock is ticking. With the American Rescue Plan, Congress temporarily stopped treating loan cancellation as taxable income until Jan. 1, 2026. Soon, many borrowers will again be expected to pay taxes on those cancelled debts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AFT is seeking an injunction to force the department to do a few things, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"rte2-style-ul\" style=\"margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;\">\n\u003cli>Cancel the debts of borrowers on income-dependent repayment plans \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">like IBR, ICR and PAYE\u003c/a> when those borrowers have met the requirement that they be in repayment for 20 or 25 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Process thousands of outstanding requests for Public Service Loan Forgiveness from borrowers who “buy back” time that did not previously count.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>The trouble started with the SAVE Plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Education Department largely blames these delays in debt cancellation on the Biden administration and the federal courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Congress designed these [plans] to ensure that borrowers repay their loans, yet the Biden Administration tried to illegally force taxpayers to foot the bill,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a July statement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon is referring to the income-driven SAVE repayment plan, which was created by the Biden administration and was so generous in its terms that the courts forced the department to put the plan on ice, throwing much of the loan program into confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department has used the legal uncertainty around SAVE to justify halting cancellation under ICR, PAYE and IBR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBR was created by Congress and is not being challenged legally. But the department told NPR in July that questions about SAVE’s legality had made it difficult to determine eligibility for cancellation under IBR. As a result, many borrowers who are likely eligible for cancellation are still having to make payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For any borrower that makes a payment after they became eligible for forgiveness, the Department will refund overpayments when the discharges resume,” the department told NPR in a statement this week. As for when that might be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department would not commit to a timetable: “IBR discharges will resume as soon as the Department is able to establish the correct payment count.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>PSLF troubles\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Borrowers enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) have also encountered delays. According to court records, by the end of last month, the department had a backlog of nearly 75,000 applications for cancellation under the PSLF “Buyback” program. That allows borrowers with 10 years of verified public service to make qualifying payments for months they spent in forbearance or deferment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its amended suit, the AFT says, from May to August, the department received far more buyback applications than it processed. Each month, “the Department received an average of 9,902 new applications, but only processed an average of 3,604.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Education Department Deputy Press Secretary Ellen Keast says, with the PSLF “Buyback” program, the Biden administration was guilty of “weaponizing a legal discharge plan for political purposes. The Department is working its way through this backlog while ensuring that borrowers have submitted the required 120 payments of qualifying employment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Processing these buyback applications can be time-consuming, and the Trump administration’s move to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cut the Office of Federal Student Aid’s staff by half\u003c/a> may have slowed its efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Jan. 1, 2026, tax changes will not apply to Public Service Loan Forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Many borrowers are at risk of default\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More than 7 million borrowers are enrolled in SAVE and have not been required to make payments, but the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477646/student-loan-repayment-forgiveness-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently resumed interest accrual\u003c/a> on these loans, looking to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nudge borrowers\u003c/a> into alternative plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527/gov.uscourts.dcd.278527.42.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">court records show\u003c/a> enrolling in an alternative has been slow-going for months. In February, the department temporarily stopped accepting applications for all income-dependent repayment plans, and though it has resumed, more than a million were still pending as of the end of August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department’s Keast tells NPR this backlog began during the previous administration, and that the department “is actively working with federal student loan servicers and hopes to clear the Biden backlog over the next few months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amidst all this confusion and uncertainty, data suggest many federal student loan borrowers \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5521317/millions-of-student-loan-borrowers-are-at-risk-of-defaulting-data-shows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">are failing to repay their loans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One in three federal student loan borrowers that are in repayment right now are in some stage of delinquency,” says Daniel Mangrum, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meaning millions of borrowers are now at serious risk of default.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>MOREHEAD, Ky. — The summer after ninth grade, Zoey Griffith found herself in an unfamiliar setting: a dorm on the Morehead State University campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There, she’d spend the months before her sophomore year taking classes in core subjects like math and biology, as well as electives like oil painting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Griffith, it was an opportunity, but a scary one. “It was a big deal for me to live on campus at the age of 14,” she said. Morehead State is about an hour from her hometown of Maysville. “I was nervous, and I remember that I cried the first time that my dad left me on move-in day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mother became a parent as a teenager and urged her daughter to avoid the same experience. Griffith’s father works as a mechanic, and he frowns upon the idea of higher education, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so college back then seemed a distant and unlikely dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Griffith’s stepsister had introduced her to a federal program called Upward Bound. It places high school students in college dorms during the summer, where they can take classes and participate in workshops on preparing for the SAT and financial literacy. During the school year, students get tutoring and work on what are called “individual success plans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s part of a group of federal programs, known as TRIO, aimed at helping low-income and first-generation students earn a college degree, often becoming the first in their families to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So thanks to that advice from her stepsister, Kirsty Beckett, who’s now 27 and pursuing a doctorate in psychology, Griffith signed up and found herself in that summer program at Morehead State. Now, Griffith is enrolled at Maysville Community and Technical College, with plans to become an ultrasound technician.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO, once a group of three programs — giving it a name that stuck — is now the umbrella over eight, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ope/trio/trio50anniv-factsheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some dating back to 1965\u003c/a>. Together they serve roughly 870,000 students nationwide a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has worked with millions of students and has \u003ca href=\"https://coenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TRIO-Caucus-List_061825.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bipartisan support\u003c/a> in Congress. Now, some in this part of the Appalachian region of Kentucky and across the country worry about students who won’t get the same assistance if President Trump ends federal spending on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A White House \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">budget proposal\u003c/a> would eliminate spending on TRIO. The document says “access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,” and it puts the onus on colleges to recruit and support students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates note that the programs, which cost roughly $1.2 billion each year, have a proven track record. Students in Upward Bound, for example, are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24 than other students from some of the United States’ poorest households, \u003ca href=\"https://coenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/COE_Overview-One-Pager_Advocacy_May-2025_v3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to the Council for Opportunity in Education\u003c/a>. COE is a nonprofit that represents TRIO programs nationwide and advocates for expanded opportunities for first-generation, low-income students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the high school class of 2022, 74% of Upward Bound students enrolled immediately in college — compared with only 56% of high school graduates in the bottom income quartile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2877x3821+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F65%2F2d%2F25daaf874cf0ba2bdcc32d0e292f%2Fhe-trio-6.jpg\" alt=\"Students Zoey Griffith (left) and Aniyah Caldwell say the Upward Bound program has been life-changing for them. Upward Bound is one of eight federal programs under the TRIO umbrella.\">\u003cfigcaption>Students Zoey Griffith (left) and Aniyah Caldwell say the Upward Bound program has been life-changing for them. Upward Bound is one of eight federal programs under the TRIO umbrella. \u003ccite> (Michael Vasquez | The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Upward Bound is for high school students. Another TRIO program, Talent Search, helps middle and high school students, without the residential component. One program called Student Support Services (SSS) provides tutoring, advising and other assistance to at-risk college students. Another program prepares students for graduate school and doctoral degrees, and yet another trains TRIO staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ope/trio/sssparticpantsinbpsls.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2019 study\u003c/a> found that after four years of college, students in SSS were 48% more likely to complete an associate’s degree or certificate, or transfer to a four-year institution, than a comparable group of students with similar backgrounds and similar levels of high school achievement who were not in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“TRIO has been around for 60 years,” said Kimberly Jones, the president of COE. “We’ve produced millions of college graduates. We know it works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the White House refer to the programs as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">relic of the past\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones countered that census data shows that “students from the poorest families still earn college degrees at rates far below that of students from the highest-income families,” demonstrating continued need for TRIO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon is challenging that and pushing for further study of those TRIO success rates. In 2020, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Government Accountability Office found\u003c/a> that even though the Education Department collects data on TRIO participants, the agency “has gaps in its evidence on program effectiveness.” The GAO criticized the Education Department for having “outdated” studies on some TRIO programs and no studies at all for others. Since then, the department has expanded its evaluations of TRIO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a Senate subcommittee hearing in June, McMahon acknowledged that “there is some effectiveness of the programs, in many circumstances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she said there is not enough research to justify TRIO’s total cost. “That’s a real drawback in these programs,” McMahon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she is asking lawmakers to eliminate TRIO spending after this year and has already canceled some previously approved TRIO grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Opening a door into a broader world\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“What are we supposed to do, especially here in eastern Kentucky?” asks David Green, a former Upward Bound participant who is now marketing director for a pair of Kentucky hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1366x768+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff8%2F69%2F4771cf194e918cbc91c3f5a9e242%2Fhe-trio-4.jpg\" alt=\"East Main Street in Morehead, Ky., just outside Morehead State University's campus.\">\u003cfigcaption>East Main Street in Morehead, Ky., just outside Morehead State University’s campus. \u003ccite> (Michael Vasquez | The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Green lives in a region that has some of the nation’s highest rates of unemployment, cancer and opioid addiction. “I mean, these people have big hearts — they want to grow,” he adds. Cutting these programs amounts to “stifling us even more than we’re already stifled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green described his experience with TRIO at Morehead State in the mid-1980s as “one of the best things that ever happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He grew up in a home without running water in Maysville, a city of about 8,000 people. It was on a TRIO trip to Washington, D.C., he recalled, that he stayed in a hotel for the first time. Green remembers bringing two suitcases so he could pack a pillow, sheets and a comforter — unaware the hotel room would have its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He met students from other towns and with different backgrounds. Some became lifelong friends. Green learned table manners, the kind of thing often required in business settings. After college, he was so grateful for TRIO that he became one of its tutors, working with the next generation of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Uncertain future in Congress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jones, of the Council for Opportunity in Education, said she is cautiously optimistic that Congress will continue funding TRIO, despite the Trump administration’s request. The programs serve students in all 50 states. According to the COE, about 34% are white, 32% are Black, 23% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian and 3% are Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, called TRIO “one of the most effective programs in the federal government,” which, he said, is supported by “many, many members of Congress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia and a former TRIO employee, spoke about its importance to her state. TRIO helps “a student that really needs the extra push, the camaraderie, the community,” she said. “I’ve gone to their graduations, and been their speaker, and it’s really quite delightful to see how far they’ve come in a short period of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO survived, with its funding intact, when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its budget last month. The House is expected to take up its version of the annual appropriations bill for education in early September. Both chambers ultimately have to agree on federal spending, a process that could drag on until December, leaving TRIO’s fate in Congress uncertain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While lawmakers debate its future, the Trump administration could also delay or halt TRIO funding on its own. This year, the administration took the unprecedented step of unilaterally \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/06/11/trio-advocates-worry-after-upward-bound-grants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">canceling about 20\u003c/a> previously approved new and continuing TRIO grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A big impact on young lives\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At Morehead State, leaders there say the university and the region it serves need the boost received from TRIO: While roughly 38% of American adults have earned at least a bachelor’s degree, in Kentucky that figure is only 16%. And locally, it’s 7%, according to Summer Fawn Bryant, the director of TRIO’s Talent Search programs at the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO works to counter the stigma of attending college that still exists in parts of eastern Kentucky, Bryant said, where a student from a humble background who is considering college might be scolded with the phrase: \u003cem>Don’t get above your raisin’\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A parent may say it,” Bryant said. “A teacher may say it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that she’s seen time and again how these programs can turn around the lives of young students from poor families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Students like Beth Cockrell, an Upward Bound alum from Pineville, Ky., who said her mom struggled with parenting. “Upward Bound stepped in as that kind of co-parent and helped me decide what my major was going to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cockrell went on to earn three degrees at Morehead State and has worked as a teacher for the past 19 years. She now works with students at her alma mater and teaches third grade at Conkwright Elementary School, about an hour away.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Long-term benefits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sherry Adkins, an eastern Kentucky native who attended TRIO more than 50 years ago and went on to become a registered nurse, said efforts to cut TRIO spending ignore the long-term benefits. “Do you want all of these people that are disadvantaged to continue like that? Where they’re taking money from society? Or do you want to help prepare us to become successful people who pay lots of taxes?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Washington considers TRIO’s future, program directors like Bryant, at Morehead State, press forward. She has saved a text message that a former student sent her two years ago to remind her of what’s at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After finishing college, the student was attending a conference on child abuse when a presenter showed a slide that included the quote: “Every child who winds up doing well has had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forever thankful,” the student texted Bryant, “that you were that supportive adult for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about TRIO was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>MOREHEAD, Ky. — The summer after ninth grade, Zoey Griffith found herself in an unfamiliar setting: a dorm on the Morehead State University campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There, she’d spend the months before her sophomore year taking classes in core subjects like math and biology, as well as electives like oil painting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Griffith, it was an opportunity, but a scary one. “It was a big deal for me to live on campus at the age of 14,” she said. Morehead State is about an hour from her hometown of Maysville. “I was nervous, and I remember that I cried the first time that my dad left me on move-in day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mother became a parent as a teenager and urged her daughter to avoid the same experience. Griffith’s father works as a mechanic, and he frowns upon the idea of higher education, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so college back then seemed a distant and unlikely dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Griffith’s stepsister had introduced her to a federal program called Upward Bound. It places high school students in college dorms during the summer, where they can take classes and participate in workshops on preparing for the SAT and financial literacy. During the school year, students get tutoring and work on what are called “individual success plans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s part of a group of federal programs, known as TRIO, aimed at helping low-income and first-generation students earn a college degree, often becoming the first in their families to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So thanks to that advice from her stepsister, Kirsty Beckett, who’s now 27 and pursuing a doctorate in psychology, Griffith signed up and found herself in that summer program at Morehead State. Now, Griffith is enrolled at Maysville Community and Technical College, with plans to become an ultrasound technician.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO, once a group of three programs — giving it a name that stuck — is now the umbrella over eight, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ope/trio/trio50anniv-factsheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some dating back to 1965\u003c/a>. Together they serve roughly 870,000 students nationwide a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has worked with millions of students and has \u003ca href=\"https://coenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TRIO-Caucus-List_061825.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bipartisan support\u003c/a> in Congress. Now, some in this part of the Appalachian region of Kentucky and across the country worry about students who won’t get the same assistance if President Trump ends federal spending on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A White House \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">budget proposal\u003c/a> would eliminate spending on TRIO. The document says “access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,” and it puts the onus on colleges to recruit and support students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates note that the programs, which cost roughly $1.2 billion each year, have a proven track record. Students in Upward Bound, for example, are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24 than other students from some of the United States’ poorest households, \u003ca href=\"https://coenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/COE_Overview-One-Pager_Advocacy_May-2025_v3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to the Council for Opportunity in Education\u003c/a>. COE is a nonprofit that represents TRIO programs nationwide and advocates for expanded opportunities for first-generation, low-income students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the high school class of 2022, 74% of Upward Bound students enrolled immediately in college — compared with only 56% of high school graduates in the bottom income quartile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2877x3821+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F65%2F2d%2F25daaf874cf0ba2bdcc32d0e292f%2Fhe-trio-6.jpg\" alt=\"Students Zoey Griffith (left) and Aniyah Caldwell say the Upward Bound program has been life-changing for them. Upward Bound is one of eight federal programs under the TRIO umbrella.\">\u003cfigcaption>Students Zoey Griffith (left) and Aniyah Caldwell say the Upward Bound program has been life-changing for them. Upward Bound is one of eight federal programs under the TRIO umbrella. \u003ccite> (Michael Vasquez | The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Upward Bound is for high school students. Another TRIO program, Talent Search, helps middle and high school students, without the residential component. One program called Student Support Services (SSS) provides tutoring, advising and other assistance to at-risk college students. Another program prepares students for graduate school and doctoral degrees, and yet another trains TRIO staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ope/trio/sssparticpantsinbpsls.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2019 study\u003c/a> found that after four years of college, students in SSS were 48% more likely to complete an associate’s degree or certificate, or transfer to a four-year institution, than a comparable group of students with similar backgrounds and similar levels of high school achievement who were not in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“TRIO has been around for 60 years,” said Kimberly Jones, the president of COE. “We’ve produced millions of college graduates. We know it works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the White House refer to the programs as a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">relic of the past\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones countered that census data shows that “students from the poorest families still earn college degrees at rates far below that of students from the highest-income families,” demonstrating continued need for TRIO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMahon is challenging that and pushing for further study of those TRIO success rates. In 2020, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Government Accountability Office found\u003c/a> that even though the Education Department collects data on TRIO participants, the agency “has gaps in its evidence on program effectiveness.” The GAO criticized the Education Department for having “outdated” studies on some TRIO programs and no studies at all for others. Since then, the department has expanded its evaluations of TRIO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a Senate subcommittee hearing in June, McMahon acknowledged that “there is some effectiveness of the programs, in many circumstances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she said there is not enough research to justify TRIO’s total cost. “That’s a real drawback in these programs,” McMahon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she is asking lawmakers to eliminate TRIO spending after this year and has already canceled some previously approved TRIO grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Opening a door into a broader world\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“What are we supposed to do, especially here in eastern Kentucky?” asks David Green, a former Upward Bound participant who is now marketing director for a pair of Kentucky hospitals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1366x768+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff8%2F69%2F4771cf194e918cbc91c3f5a9e242%2Fhe-trio-4.jpg\" alt=\"East Main Street in Morehead, Ky., just outside Morehead State University's campus.\">\u003cfigcaption>East Main Street in Morehead, Ky., just outside Morehead State University’s campus. \u003ccite> (Michael Vasquez | The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Green lives in a region that has some of the nation’s highest rates of unemployment, cancer and opioid addiction. “I mean, these people have big hearts — they want to grow,” he adds. Cutting these programs amounts to “stifling us even more than we’re already stifled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Green described his experience with TRIO at Morehead State in the mid-1980s as “one of the best things that ever happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He grew up in a home without running water in Maysville, a city of about 8,000 people. It was on a TRIO trip to Washington, D.C., he recalled, that he stayed in a hotel for the first time. Green remembers bringing two suitcases so he could pack a pillow, sheets and a comforter — unaware the hotel room would have its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He met students from other towns and with different backgrounds. Some became lifelong friends. Green learned table manners, the kind of thing often required in business settings. After college, he was so grateful for TRIO that he became one of its tutors, working with the next generation of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Uncertain future in Congress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jones, of the Council for Opportunity in Education, said she is cautiously optimistic that Congress will continue funding TRIO, despite the Trump administration’s request. The programs serve students in all 50 states. According to the COE, about 34% are white, 32% are Black, 23% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian and 3% are Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, called TRIO “one of the most effective programs in the federal government,” which, he said, is supported by “many, many members of Congress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia and a former TRIO employee, spoke about its importance to her state. TRIO helps “a student that really needs the extra push, the camaraderie, the community,” she said. “I’ve gone to their graduations, and been their speaker, and it’s really quite delightful to see how far they’ve come in a short period of time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO survived, with its funding intact, when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its budget last month. The House is expected to take up its version of the annual appropriations bill for education in early September. Both chambers ultimately have to agree on federal spending, a process that could drag on until December, leaving TRIO’s fate in Congress uncertain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While lawmakers debate its future, the Trump administration could also delay or halt TRIO funding on its own. This year, the administration took the unprecedented step of unilaterally \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/06/11/trio-advocates-worry-after-upward-bound-grants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">canceling about 20\u003c/a> previously approved new and continuing TRIO grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A big impact on young lives\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At Morehead State, leaders there say the university and the region it serves need the boost received from TRIO: While roughly 38% of American adults have earned at least a bachelor’s degree, in Kentucky that figure is only 16%. And locally, it’s 7%, according to Summer Fawn Bryant, the director of TRIO’s Talent Search programs at the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TRIO works to counter the stigma of attending college that still exists in parts of eastern Kentucky, Bryant said, where a student from a humble background who is considering college might be scolded with the phrase: \u003cem>Don’t get above your raisin’\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A parent may say it,” Bryant said. “A teacher may say it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that she’s seen time and again how these programs can turn around the lives of young students from poor families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Students like Beth Cockrell, an Upward Bound alum from Pineville, Ky., who said her mom struggled with parenting. “Upward Bound stepped in as that kind of co-parent and helped me decide what my major was going to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cockrell went on to earn three degrees at Morehead State and has worked as a teacher for the past 19 years. She now works with students at her alma mater and teaches third grade at Conkwright Elementary School, about an hour away.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Long-term benefits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sherry Adkins, an eastern Kentucky native who attended TRIO more than 50 years ago and went on to become a registered nurse, said efforts to cut TRIO spending ignore the long-term benefits. “Do you want all of these people that are disadvantaged to continue like that? Where they’re taking money from society? Or do you want to help prepare us to become successful people who pay lots of taxes?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Washington considers TRIO’s future, program directors like Bryant, at Morehead State, press forward. She has saved a text message that a former student sent her two years ago to remind her of what’s at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After finishing college, the student was attending a conference on child abuse when a presenter showed a slide that included the quote: “Every child who winds up doing well has had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forever thankful,” the student texted Bryant, “that you were that supportive adult for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about TRIO was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-is-your-student-loan-repayment-affected-by-the-one-big-beautiful-bill",
"title": "How Is Your Student Loan Repayment Affected By the One Big Beautiful Bill?",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you’re a federal student loan borrower or about to become one, your head may be spinning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 4, when President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/nx-s1-5454841/house-republicans-trump-tax-bill-medicaid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">into law\u003c/a>, he also greenlit a history-making overhaul of the federal student loan system — one that will affect the lives of many, if not most, of the United States’ nearly 43 million student loan borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And boy is it a lot to unpack, with new, tighter borrowing limits and dramatically reduced repayment options, to name just a few of the sweeping changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, we \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5389644/trump-student-loan-program-forgiveness-overhaul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained\u003c/a> this overhaul, as conceived by House Republicans. Now that a Senate compromise has been signed into law, here’s an updated guided tour of the final changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s start with the elephant in the room:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>President Biden’s SAVE plan is ending\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The most generous repayment plan is the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan. But it is so generous, with its low monthly payments and expedited loan forgiveness, that Republicans have so far successfully argued in court that it is \u003cem>too\u003c/em> generous. In fact, the nearly 7.7 million borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE have been in legal limbo for months, without interest accruing or required monthly payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s about to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For all practical purposes, I would say SAVE is just kind of dead at this point, even if it’s technically on life support,” said Preston Cooper at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, the U.S. Education Department announced that on Aug. 1, SAVE borrowers will, once again, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions#:~:text=Next%20Steps,well%20as%20their%20principal%20amounts.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">see their balances grow\u003c/a> — with interest. Because the SAVE plan is still enjoined, though, borrowers won’t yet be required to make payments. Still, Cooper said that many borrowers, rather than watch their loans balloon, will likely want to move to a different plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roxanne Garza, director of higher education policy at the liberal-leaning EdTrust, worries that the relatively last-minute announcement about interest accrual will cause problems for the Education Department, which saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">roughly half its staff cut\u003c/a> by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think what will likely happen now is you will see a rush of people trying to take action that will, again, likely create an even bigger backlog,” said Garza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, borrowers in SAVE will have to change plans by July 1, 2028, when SAVE will be officially shut down. If they wait, though they currently can’t be required to make payments, they will see their loans explode with interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the two new plans that the law creates won’t be ready for a year, and the department’s \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/loan-simulator/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">own website\u003c/a>, meant to help borrowers navigate their repayment options, does not reflect this confusing new landscape, except for a banner that says: “Loan Simulator will be updated at a later date to reflect recent legislative changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beginning July 1, 2026, new loans will be subject to new borrowing limits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Undergraduates won’t see any changes to their \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">loan limits\u003c/a>. But it’s a very different story for graduate students and parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For graduate students, new limits will make it harder for lower- and middle-income borrowers to attend pricier graduate programs. The current \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/plus/grad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">grad PLUS loan\u003c/a> allows students to borrow up to the cost of their graduate program, but Republicans are shutting it down this time next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, grad students’ borrowing will be capped at $20,500 a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of $100,000, a big drop from the previous cap of $138,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How big a deal will this be? AEI’s Cooper has been crunching the numbers and said, “Just under 20% of master’s students borrow above the proposed limits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers working toward a professional graduate degree (i.e., medical or law school) will have their borrowing capped at $50,000 a year and their lifetime cap increased from $138,500 to $200,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and caregivers who use parent PLUS loans to help students pay for college will also see new loan limits. They will be capped at $20,000 a year and, in aggregate, at $65,000 per child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper says only one-third of parent PLUS borrowers with dependent children currently take out more than this new annual loan cap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law also sets a new lifetime limit, for undergrad and graduate loans combined, at $257,500 per person.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Repayment options for borrowers are changing dramatically\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Republicans are reducing repayment options for new borrowers from the current seven plans down to two new plans. The new plans are:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>1. The standard plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>New borrowers will be assigned a repayment window of between 10 and 25 years, depending on the size of their debt, with equal monthly payments like a home mortgage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under \u003ca href=\"https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ans_el_recon_01_xml.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this plan\u003c/a>, borrowers with larger debts would qualify for a longer repayment period:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Owe less than $25,000, and repay over 10 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Owe $25,000 or more but less than $50,000? Repayment expands to 15 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Owe $50,000 or more but less than $100,000: Repay over 20 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Anyone owing $100,000 or more would repay over a 25-year period.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>2. The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For borrowers worried they don’t earn enough to cover the inflexible monthly payments of the new standard plan, Republicans have also created the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On RAP, payments would largely be based on borrowers’ total adjusted gross income (AGI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Borrowers earning no more than $10,000 would be asked to pay $10 a month.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earn more than $10,000 but not more than $20,000, and your payment will be based on 1% of AGI.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>More than $20,000 but not more than $30,000, it would be 2% of AGI and so on up the income scale.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Repayment tops out at 10% of AGI for borrowers earning $100,000 a year or more.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Current borrowers will also have access to this new RAP plan, as well as to some older plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAP is the latest in a long line of income-based repayment plans. How does it compare with previous plans?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Monthly payments for many middle-income borrowers on RAP will be \u003cem>lower \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>compared with earlier plans, \u003ca href=\"https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/House_Republicans_Proposed_IDR_Plan_for_Student_Loans.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to\u003c/a> multiple \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/an-analysis-of-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-effect-on-student-loans/#scrollSection7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">experts\u003c/a>. But RAP is not as generous as the Biden-era SAVE plan, which, again, is being phased out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAP will require even the lowest-income borrowers to make a minimum monthly payment of $10, ending the $0 option of previous plans and making it more expensive for these borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This new $10 minimum payment wouldn’t make a big difference to the government’s coffers, said Jason Delisle, who spoke to NPR \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5389644/trump-student-loan-program-forgiveness-overhaul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in May\u003c/a>, when he was studying student loan policy at the Urban Institute. Delisle has since been appointed to a position in the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delisle said the purpose of RAP’s new $10 minimum payment likely stems from “emerging research that requiring people to make some payment each month is good because it keeps them connected to the loan and makes it less likely that they’ll default\u003cem>.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some borrower advocates worry that this new minimum payment could have the opposite effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the lowest-income borrowers, asking for $120 a year is “significant,” EdTrust’s Garza told NPR in May. “I think having that be a required minimum payment will likely push more borrowers into default.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But RAP also comes with a few new perks that borrowers will likely appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>RAP will waive any interest that is left after a borrower makes their monthly payment. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If their monthly payment is $50 but they owe $75 a month in interest, the government will waive the remaining $25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result: Borrowers will no longer see their loans\u003cem> grow\u003c/em>, which was a common downside to previous income-driven repayment plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Borrowers on RAP will also see their balances go \u003cem>down \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/house-republicans-proposed-repayment-plan-fixes-vexing-student-loan-problem/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>every month\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The government will pitch in up to $50 to make sure lower-income borrowers see their principal balances shrink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, a borrower whose monthly payment makes only a $30 dent in their principal would see the government knocking off an extra $20 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers whose monthly payments already reduce their principal balance by at least $50 would get no extra help from the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a form of monthly loan forgiveness,” Delisle said. “It’s a drip, drip, drip of loan forgiveness, rather than waiting for the big payout at the end of 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The loan forgiveness math will change.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While previous plans offered forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, the RAP would extend that to 360 qualifying payments, or 30 years. That’s a big difference, said AEI’s Cooper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers with typical levels of debt “and typical incomes for their degree level are almost always gonna pay off well before they hit that 30-year mark,” Cooper said. “So if you’re going into RAP, I wouldn’t be thinking about forgiveness because you’re probably gonna pay it off before you hit 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, the days of what Delisle called “the big payout” are over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>But wait! Current borrowers have another loan forgiveness option (sort of).\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to RAP, an older plan known as Income-Based Repayment (IBR) will still be available to borrowers who take out their loans before July 1, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the reason IBR remains is that, unlike other income-driven repayment plans, IBR wasn’t created by the Education Department. It was created by Congress and is codified in statute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How does IBR work? For borrowers with loans older than July 2014, their payments are capped at 15% of discretionary income. Payments on younger loans are capped at 10%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Biden-era SAVE plan being wound down, Delisle said, most lower- and middle-income borrowers would likely have lower monthly payments on the new RAP compared with IBR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Delisle said, borrowers with older loans might still want to enroll in IBR if they’ve been in repayment for close to 20 or 25 years, so they can qualify for loan forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because, on IBR, pre-2014 loans qualify for forgiveness after 25 years. For newer loans, it’s just 20 years — both considerably shorter than RAP’s 30-year schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One big caveat to all this: The Education Department has temporarily stopped processing all loan forgiveness for borrowers on IBR because of the legal actions surrounding the SAVE plan, according to a statement from Education Department Deputy Press Secretary Ellen Keast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keast said the Biden-era rule explaining SAVE “provided the authority to count forbearances in IBR toward loan forgiveness” and, because that rule has been frozen by the courts, the department can’t accurately determine loan forgiveness under IBR. “Discharges will resume as soon as the Department is able to establish the correct payment count,” Keast said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department told NPR that any borrowers who make payments after they’re eligible for forgiveness will eventually get a refund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Nicole Cohen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’re a federal student loan borrower or about to become one, your head may be spinning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 4, when President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/nx-s1-5454841/house-republicans-trump-tax-bill-medicaid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">into law\u003c/a>, he also greenlit a history-making overhaul of the federal student loan system — one that will affect the lives of many, if not most, of the United States’ nearly 43 million student loan borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And boy is it a lot to unpack, with new, tighter borrowing limits and dramatically reduced repayment options, to name just a few of the sweeping changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, we \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5389644/trump-student-loan-program-forgiveness-overhaul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained\u003c/a> this overhaul, as conceived by House Republicans. Now that a Senate compromise has been signed into law, here’s an updated guided tour of the final changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s start with the elephant in the room:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>President Biden’s SAVE plan is ending\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The most generous repayment plan is the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan. But it is so generous, with its low monthly payments and expedited loan forgiveness, that Republicans have so far successfully argued in court that it is \u003cem>too\u003c/em> generous. In fact, the nearly 7.7 million borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE have been in legal limbo for months, without interest accruing or required monthly payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s about to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For all practical purposes, I would say SAVE is just kind of dead at this point, even if it’s technically on life support,” said Preston Cooper at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, the U.S. Education Department announced that on Aug. 1, SAVE borrowers will, once again, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-continues-improve-federal-student-loan-repayment-options-addresses-illegal-biden-administration-actions#:~:text=Next%20Steps,well%20as%20their%20principal%20amounts.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">see their balances grow\u003c/a> — with interest. Because the SAVE plan is still enjoined, though, borrowers won’t yet be required to make payments. Still, Cooper said that many borrowers, rather than watch their loans balloon, will likely want to move to a different plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roxanne Garza, director of higher education policy at the liberal-leaning EdTrust, worries that the relatively last-minute announcement about interest accrual will cause problems for the Education Department, which saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">roughly half its staff cut\u003c/a> by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think what will likely happen now is you will see a rush of people trying to take action that will, again, likely create an even bigger backlog,” said Garza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, borrowers in SAVE will have to change plans by July 1, 2028, when SAVE will be officially shut down. If they wait, though they currently can’t be required to make payments, they will see their loans explode with interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the two new plans that the law creates won’t be ready for a year, and the department’s \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/loan-simulator/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">own website\u003c/a>, meant to help borrowers navigate their repayment options, does not reflect this confusing new landscape, except for a banner that says: “Loan Simulator will be updated at a later date to reflect recent legislative changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beginning July 1, 2026, new loans will be subject to new borrowing limits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Undergraduates won’t see any changes to their \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">loan limits\u003c/a>. But it’s a very different story for graduate students and parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For graduate students, new limits will make it harder for lower- and middle-income borrowers to attend pricier graduate programs. The current \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/plus/grad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">grad PLUS loan\u003c/a> allows students to borrow up to the cost of their graduate program, but Republicans are shutting it down this time next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, grad students’ borrowing will be capped at $20,500 a year with a lifetime graduate school loan limit of $100,000, a big drop from the previous cap of $138,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How big a deal will this be? AEI’s Cooper has been crunching the numbers and said, “Just under 20% of master’s students borrow above the proposed limits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers working toward a professional graduate degree (i.e., medical or law school) will have their borrowing capped at $50,000 a year and their lifetime cap increased from $138,500 to $200,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and caregivers who use parent PLUS loans to help students pay for college will also see new loan limits. They will be capped at $20,000 a year and, in aggregate, at $65,000 per child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper says only one-third of parent PLUS borrowers with dependent children currently take out more than this new annual loan cap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law also sets a new lifetime limit, for undergrad and graduate loans combined, at $257,500 per person.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Repayment options for borrowers are changing dramatically\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Republicans are reducing repayment options for new borrowers from the current seven plans down to two new plans. The new plans are:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>1. The standard plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>New borrowers will be assigned a repayment window of between 10 and 25 years, depending on the size of their debt, with equal monthly payments like a home mortgage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under \u003ca href=\"https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ans_el_recon_01_xml.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this plan\u003c/a>, borrowers with larger debts would qualify for a longer repayment period:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Owe less than $25,000, and repay over 10 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Owe $25,000 or more but less than $50,000? Repayment expands to 15 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Owe $50,000 or more but less than $100,000: Repay over 20 years.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Anyone owing $100,000 or more would repay over a 25-year period.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>2. The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For borrowers worried they don’t earn enough to cover the inflexible monthly payments of the new standard plan, Republicans have also created the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On RAP, payments would largely be based on borrowers’ total adjusted gross income (AGI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Borrowers earning no more than $10,000 would be asked to pay $10 a month.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earn more than $10,000 but not more than $20,000, and your payment will be based on 1% of AGI.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>More than $20,000 but not more than $30,000, it would be 2% of AGI and so on up the income scale.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Repayment tops out at 10% of AGI for borrowers earning $100,000 a year or more.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Current borrowers will also have access to this new RAP plan, as well as to some older plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAP is the latest in a long line of income-based repayment plans. How does it compare with previous plans?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Monthly payments for many middle-income borrowers on RAP will be \u003cem>lower \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>compared with earlier plans, \u003ca href=\"https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/House_Republicans_Proposed_IDR_Plan_for_Student_Loans.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to\u003c/a> multiple \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/an-analysis-of-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-effect-on-student-loans/#scrollSection7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">experts\u003c/a>. But RAP is not as generous as the Biden-era SAVE plan, which, again, is being phased out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAP will require even the lowest-income borrowers to make a minimum monthly payment of $10, ending the $0 option of previous plans and making it more expensive for these borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This new $10 minimum payment wouldn’t make a big difference to the government’s coffers, said Jason Delisle, who spoke to NPR \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5389644/trump-student-loan-program-forgiveness-overhaul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in May\u003c/a>, when he was studying student loan policy at the Urban Institute. Delisle has since been appointed to a position in the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delisle said the purpose of RAP’s new $10 minimum payment likely stems from “emerging research that requiring people to make some payment each month is good because it keeps them connected to the loan and makes it less likely that they’ll default\u003cem>.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some borrower advocates worry that this new minimum payment could have the opposite effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the lowest-income borrowers, asking for $120 a year is “significant,” EdTrust’s Garza told NPR in May. “I think having that be a required minimum payment will likely push more borrowers into default.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But RAP also comes with a few new perks that borrowers will likely appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>RAP will waive any interest that is left after a borrower makes their monthly payment. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If their monthly payment is $50 but they owe $75 a month in interest, the government will waive the remaining $25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result: Borrowers will no longer see their loans\u003cem> grow\u003c/em>, which was a common downside to previous income-driven repayment plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Borrowers on RAP will also see their balances go \u003cem>down \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/education/house-republicans-proposed-repayment-plan-fixes-vexing-student-loan-problem/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cstrong>every month\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The government will pitch in up to $50 to make sure lower-income borrowers see their principal balances shrink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, a borrower whose monthly payment makes only a $30 dent in their principal would see the government knocking off an extra $20 a month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers whose monthly payments already reduce their principal balance by at least $50 would get no extra help from the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a form of monthly loan forgiveness,” Delisle said. “It’s a drip, drip, drip of loan forgiveness, rather than waiting for the big payout at the end of 20 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The loan forgiveness math will change.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While previous plans offered forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, the RAP would extend that to 360 qualifying payments, or 30 years. That’s a big difference, said AEI’s Cooper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers with typical levels of debt “and typical incomes for their degree level are almost always gonna pay off well before they hit that 30-year mark,” Cooper said. “So if you’re going into RAP, I wouldn’t be thinking about forgiveness because you’re probably gonna pay it off before you hit 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, the days of what Delisle called “the big payout” are over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>But wait! Current borrowers have another loan forgiveness option (sort of).\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to RAP, an older plan known as Income-Based Repayment (IBR) will still be available to borrowers who take out their loans before July 1, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the reason IBR remains is that, unlike other income-driven repayment plans, IBR wasn’t created by the Education Department. It was created by Congress and is codified in statute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How does IBR work? For borrowers with loans older than July 2014, their payments are capped at 15% of discretionary income. Payments on younger loans are capped at 10%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Biden-era SAVE plan being wound down, Delisle said, most lower- and middle-income borrowers would likely have lower monthly payments on the new RAP compared with IBR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Delisle said, borrowers with older loans might still want to enroll in IBR if they’ve been in repayment for close to 20 or 25 years, so they can qualify for loan forgiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because, on IBR, pre-2014 loans qualify for forgiveness after 25 years. For newer loans, it’s just 20 years — both considerably shorter than RAP’s 30-year schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One big caveat to all this: The Education Department has temporarily stopped processing all loan forgiveness for borrowers on IBR because of the legal actions surrounding the SAVE plan, according to a statement from Education Department Deputy Press Secretary Ellen Keast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keast said the Biden-era rule explaining SAVE “provided the authority to count forbearances in IBR toward loan forgiveness” and, because that rule has been frozen by the courts, the department can’t accurately determine loan forgiveness under IBR. “Discharges will resume as soon as the Department is able to establish the correct payment count,” Keast said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department told NPR that any borrowers who make payments after they’re eligible for forgiveness will eventually get a refund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Nicole Cohen\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Americans Without a Degree Still Believe in the Value of College, a New Poll Finds",
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"content": "\u003cp>Just 18% of American adults without a college degree believe four-year colleges charge a “fair” price — but they still find value in getting a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are the findings of a \u003ca href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/657686/college-prices-seen-unfair-worth-investment.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new Lumina Foundation and Gallup poll\u003c/a> of nearly 14,000 people between the ages of 18 and 59, surveyed last October. Respondents included current students and people who started but never finished their degrees, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While overall perceptions of the value of college degrees have dropped roughly 5% over the last year, the majority of the respondents, across all ages, races and political affiliations, said at least one degree — associate or bachelor’s — is valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They know that a degree is gonna open doors for them. They know that a degree is the opportunity to a better job and a better life,” says Courtney Brown, a Lumina Foundation executive who oversees this annual report. “We’re dealing with this paradox of sorts where people want it, they value it, but it’s becoming harder to actually get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And according to survey respondents, not all degrees are created equal: While 70% of adults without a college degree said a bachelor’s degree is “extremely” or “very” valuable, only 55% said the same about an associate degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the case for 22-year-old respondent Sophia Ladios, who is studying forensic science and criminal justice at her local community college in Palatine, Ill. Ladios says after she finishes her associate degree, she’s planning to transfer to the University of Illinois Chicago to pursue a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just takes you to another level, and in my career path for criminal justice, it doesn’t limit me to a certain position,” she says. “What I could get if I had a four-year bachelor’s degree is I could test to become a sergeant, potentially a lieutenant or a commander for a certain sector of the police department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that dream of getting a bachelor’s degree, she says, comes from her family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Growing up, I’ve always been taught the value of pursuing a four-year degree, because both my parents never finished college,” she says. “I still value getting that bachelor’s degree more highly than just sticking with an associate’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A majority of participants believe college will pay off within five years\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When asked about the financial payoff of pursuing higher education, 58% of all respondents said college will pay off within five years post graduation and nearly 90% said it will pay off in 10 years or fewer. For respondents who spent time in college, that’s regardless of whether they took out student loans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People do believe they’re going to get a return on investment,” Brown says. “That to me is surprising in a good way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of this confidence seems to be coming from what’s happening inside college classrooms: 72% of respondents who were currently in bachelor’s programs said the quality of education was “excellent” or “very good,” and 65% of those in associate programs said the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just under half of respondents who were currently in college said they’re “very confident” that college would teach them job-related skills and help them get a job they love doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Associate degrees feel more accessible\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Americans without a college degree seem to feel much more comfortable with the cost of community colleges. Forty percent said two-year colleges charge a “fair price,” while 18% said the same about four-year colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two-year programs, on average, cost significantly less than four-year degrees, and community college campuses are often located near where students live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a really practical choice that people make” especially when aligned with the local job market, says Bridgett Strickler at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strickler works with adults who are looking to pursue college for the first time, or return to finish their degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think those programs are great, and people are making smart choices when they choose that two-year program,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That saves them time and money, and that’s really the name of the game.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The majority of Americans without degrees still believe in the value of higher education, according to the poll. But not all college degrees are created equal.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Just 18% of American adults without a college degree believe four-year colleges charge a “fair” price — but they still find value in getting a college degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are the findings of a \u003ca href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/657686/college-prices-seen-unfair-worth-investment.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new Lumina Foundation and Gallup poll\u003c/a> of nearly 14,000 people between the ages of 18 and 59, surveyed last October. Respondents included current students and people who started but never finished their degrees, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While overall perceptions of the value of college degrees have dropped roughly 5% over the last year, the majority of the respondents, across all ages, races and political affiliations, said at least one degree — associate or bachelor’s — is valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They know that a degree is gonna open doors for them. They know that a degree is the opportunity to a better job and a better life,” says Courtney Brown, a Lumina Foundation executive who oversees this annual report. “We’re dealing with this paradox of sorts where people want it, they value it, but it’s becoming harder to actually get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And according to survey respondents, not all degrees are created equal: While 70% of adults without a college degree said a bachelor’s degree is “extremely” or “very” valuable, only 55% said the same about an associate degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the case for 22-year-old respondent Sophia Ladios, who is studying forensic science and criminal justice at her local community college in Palatine, Ill. Ladios says after she finishes her associate degree, she’s planning to transfer to the University of Illinois Chicago to pursue a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just takes you to another level, and in my career path for criminal justice, it doesn’t limit me to a certain position,” she says. “What I could get if I had a four-year bachelor’s degree is I could test to become a sergeant, potentially a lieutenant or a commander for a certain sector of the police department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that dream of getting a bachelor’s degree, she says, comes from her family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Growing up, I’ve always been taught the value of pursuing a four-year degree, because both my parents never finished college,” she says. “I still value getting that bachelor’s degree more highly than just sticking with an associate’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A majority of participants believe college will pay off within five years\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When asked about the financial payoff of pursuing higher education, 58% of all respondents said college will pay off within five years post graduation and nearly 90% said it will pay off in 10 years or fewer. For respondents who spent time in college, that’s regardless of whether they took out student loans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People do believe they’re going to get a return on investment,” Brown says. “That to me is surprising in a good way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of this confidence seems to be coming from what’s happening inside college classrooms: 72% of respondents who were currently in bachelor’s programs said the quality of education was “excellent” or “very good,” and 65% of those in associate programs said the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And just under half of respondents who were currently in college said they’re “very confident” that college would teach them job-related skills and help them get a job they love doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Associate degrees feel more accessible\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Americans without a college degree seem to feel much more comfortable with the cost of community colleges. Forty percent said two-year colleges charge a “fair price,” while 18% said the same about four-year colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two-year programs, on average, cost significantly less than four-year degrees, and community college campuses are often located near where students live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a really practical choice that people make” especially when aligned with the local job market, says Bridgett Strickler at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Strickler works with adults who are looking to pursue college for the first time, or return to finish their degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think those programs are great, and people are making smart choices when they choose that two-year program,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That saves them time and money, and that’s really the name of the game.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The federal student loan system is a mess right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unprecedented uncertainty,” says Beth Akers, a higher education researcher at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Total disarray,” says Michele Zampini with the left-leaning Institute for College Access and Success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re talking about the fact that 8 million federal student loan borrowers are waiting for the courts to decide if their repayment plan is legal at the same time another 9 million are late on their payments and may be plunging toward default. All while the federal office that oversees student loans has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cut in half\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">may be moving\u003c/a> to a different federal agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR has spent the past few weeks catching up with student loan experts and asking the Trump administration for clarity on some of borrowers’ biggest questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are six takeaways from our effort to clear up some of their confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>1. About 9 million borrowers may be heading for default\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the U.S. Department of Education paused federal student loan payments at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it paused the threat of default too. And the era of leniency that followed lasted so long — nearly the entire Biden administration — that many borrowers are now being caught off-guard by the loan system’s slow return to business-as-usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 1, 2024, the system’s master clock resumed its telltale ticking toward default for millions of borrowers who fail to make their required payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a borrower goes more than 90 days without a payment, a \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/default\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cascade of consequences\u003c/a> kicks in, beginning with reporting that delinquency to the national credit bureaus. Weakened credit can make it harder to do all sorts of things, including buy a car or rent a place to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It gets worse. After 270 days without making a payment, a borrower is considered in default, which means wages and tax refunds can be seized by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Translation: Borrowers who don’t pay up front still end up paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to internal department data obtained by NPR, as of March 7, 4.2 million borrowers were more than 90 days late on their payments. And nearly 5 million borrowers were between one and 90 days late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s more than 1 in 5 of the country’s roughly 43 million borrowers potentially on their way to default.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’re absolutely going to see an explosion of delinquency and defaults,” says Wil Del Pilar of the left-leaning EdTrust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12033573 hero=’https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/GettyImages-2102856667-1020×680.jpg’]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan is the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents the companies that manage student loans for the federal government. He says many borrowers would have gone into default over the past four years but were saved by the pandemic safety net. Now, “that wave is hitting the shores all at once.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buchanan points out that the law requires servicers to warn borrowers — repeatedly — before they plunge into default. He has a simple message: Do not ignore these warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your phone rings and the Caller ID says it’s your loan servicer, Buchanan says, “We’re not trying to upsell you on anything. We have no product to offer. When you see us calling, it’s probably because there’s a problem. You need to answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might be on the verge of default and not even know it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR sent the department a list of more than 10 questions related to this article, including asking it to confirm its delinquency numbers. The department responded to one question — about why borrowers haven’t been able to enroll in income-driven repayment plans (see takeaway No. 3).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>2. The SAVE repayment plan is as good as dead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Former President Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was so generous\u003c/a> with its payment terms and promise of forgiveness that federal courts are currently debating whether it’s even legal. Before the courts put SAVE on hold, 8 million people had enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, these SAVE borrowers who are in legal limbo don’t have to make monthly payments. But if you’re a borrower hoping for someone to save SAVE, it’s time for your Plan B.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t going to be a SAVE plan,” says Jason Delisle, a nonpartisan higher education researcher with the Urban Institute. “It’s either going down under legislation or it’s going down by the judge’s ruling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delisle and other experts tell NPR that congressional Republicans would benefit from the courts \u003cem>not\u003c/em> killing SAVE because they want to kill it themselves, as part of their \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/02/25/g-s1-50474/reconciliation-trump-republicans-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">budget reconciliation bill\u003c/a>. If they can use that bill to end SAVE, AEI’s Akers says they can use the savings to help pay for an extension of the Trump tax cuts. If the courts end SAVE first, Republicans’ legislative savings evaporate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>3. Income-driven repayment plans are finally back open\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The judge’s order freezing the SAVE plan has raised legal questions about the department’s other income-driven repayment plans: Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online form to enroll in these plans was removed from the Education Department’s website more than a month ago, which means borrowers haven’t been able to enroll in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without access to any of the department’s income-driven plans, “essentially, the system has frozen in time,” says Zampini with the Institute for College Access and Success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a Wednesday statement, the department told NPR: “The Department is working to ensure these [IDR] programs conform with the 8th Circuit’s ruling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online form was restored soon after on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The monthlong lapse caused headaches for borrowers who were already in an income-driven plan and had been asked to recertify their income, which they couldn’t do while the enrollment form was down. This led to \u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2025/03/17/millennials-student-loan-payments-skyrocket-donald-trump-administration-changes-department-of-education/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">horror stories of rising monthly payments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One borrower in Austin, Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kut.org/education/2025-03-25/austin-tx-student-loans-borrower-department-of-education-federal-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told member station KUT\u003c/a> that she saw her monthly payments more than quadruple because she couldn’t recertify her income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan, with the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, says there’s nothing nefarious behind the Trump administration’s freeze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Biden took [the enrollment form] down [too]. And again, not because of some malintent on the policy. It’s just a practical issue.” The form needed to be changed because of the court ruling and that takes time, Buchanan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>4. Public Service Loan Forgiveness remains unchanged for now\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), which promises student loan forgiveness for any borrower who works 10 years in public service, was created by an act of Congress and only an act of Congress can shut it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-public-service-loan-forgiveness/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issued an executive action\u003c/a> calling for restrictions on who qualifies for PSLF. The plan is to exclude borrowers who work for organizations “that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose,” including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Violating federal immigration law; “supporting terrorism”; “the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary States for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents”; “engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination”; or violating state laws against “trespassing, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, vandalism, and obstruction of highways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Republicans argue that the Biden administration went too far in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1041872045/education-dept-plans-to-overhaul-the-troubled-public-service-loan-forgiveness-pr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">expanding who qualifies for PSLF\u003c/a> and that the Trump administration is justified in imposing limits. These changes cannot be implemented immediately, though, and will need to go through a rulemaking process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, the Federal Student Aid website \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">makes clear\u003c/a>, “There are no changes to PSLF currently, and borrowers do not need to take any action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers in the SAVE legal limbo should know that the months they’re spending in an administrative forbearance, not making payments, will not count toward PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>5. There’s likely more confusion ahead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The amount of complexity in the loan program right now, given the legal battles and change in administrations, has made the program even harder for borrowers to understand, says Urban Institute’s Delisle. \u003cem>“\u003c/em>I mean, it’s hard for \u003cem>me\u003c/em> to understand what’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And AEI’s Akers says \u003cem>“\u003c/em>there’s just this sort of overload of information that these changes are happening and maybe no specific sense of how it’s going to affect [borrowers].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, it may be even harder for borrowers to get their questions answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office of Federal Student Aid, or FSA, which oversees the entire federal student loan portfolio, has been cut in half by recent Trump administration efforts to shrink the government. The experts NPR spoke with generally agreed those cuts will eventually complicate borrowers’ lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to recent internal FSA data obtained by NPR — data that was also shared with select members of Congress — the five major loan servicers have been doing a pretty good job over the past year of answering their phones when borrowers have questions — with one exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOHELA took an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes to answer borrowers’ calls. The other four servicers all averaged answer times under 6 minutes. Not surprisingly, just over half of borrowers who called MOHELA with questions gave up before getting through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a MOHELA spokesperson explained that the servicer’s complex portfolio “has disproportionately more borrowers working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, more borrowers are on the SAVE repayment plan, as well as other income-driven repayment plans, and more borrowers are in repayment.” And that, MOHELA says, means more \u003cem>questions\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Further, [this data] represents a small snapshot in time, and MOHELA has a long track record of providing excellent customer service,” the statement says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buchanan, of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, points out that FSA was also flat-funded in the recent short-term funding bill and says Congress will need to send FSA more money if it doesn’t want service to get worse across the board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zampini, of the Institute for College Access and Success, is more direct: “The system cannot hold. The system will not function properly and borrowers will pay the price.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>6. With student loans potentially moving agencies, borrowers need to be their own advocates\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump recently made the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">surprise announcement\u003c/a> that the student loan program would move “immediately” to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) — one day after the White House press secretary assured reporters the loan program would stay at the Education Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SBA has also said it plans to cut its workforce \u003ca href=\"https://www.sba.gov/article/2025/03/21/small-business-administration-announces-agency-wide-reorganization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by more than 40%\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked for clarity, the SBA press office told NPR:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SBA is working closely with the White House, Department of Education, and Congress to finalize a plan for the strategic transfer of responsibilities related to the student loan program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “and Congress” there is key because the Education Department’s role in administering the student loan program is baked into law, and only Congress can unbake it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point here is, the office responsible for managing the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio on behalf of roughly 43 million borrowers has lost half its staff, been flat-funded and is being told they may need to pull up stakes and, at no additional cost, move the program to the SBA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our experts say every borrower needs to be their own expert and advocate. Get reacquainted with your loans. Spend time at \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/idr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FSA’s website\u003c/a> or elsewhere, researching your options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarity from the department and its servicers may soon be at a premium. But know this:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The age of leniency is over. The default clock is ticking.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The federal student loan system is a mess right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unprecedented uncertainty,” says Beth Akers, a higher education researcher at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Total disarray,” says Michele Zampini with the left-leaning Institute for College Access and Success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re talking about the fact that 8 million federal student loan borrowers are waiting for the courts to decide if their repayment plan is legal at the same time another 9 million are late on their payments and may be plunging toward default. All while the federal office that oversees student loans has been \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cut in half\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">may be moving\u003c/a> to a different federal agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR has spent the past few weeks catching up with student loan experts and asking the Trump administration for clarity on some of borrowers’ biggest questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are six takeaways from our effort to clear up some of their confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>1. About 9 million borrowers may be heading for default\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the U.S. Department of Education paused federal student loan payments at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it paused the threat of default too. And the era of leniency that followed lasted so long — nearly the entire Biden administration — that many borrowers are now being caught off-guard by the loan system’s slow return to business-as-usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 1, 2024, the system’s master clock resumed its telltale ticking toward default for millions of borrowers who fail to make their required payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a borrower goes more than 90 days without a payment, a \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/default\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cascade of consequences\u003c/a> kicks in, beginning with reporting that delinquency to the national credit bureaus. Weakened credit can make it harder to do all sorts of things, including buy a car or rent a place to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It gets worse. After 270 days without making a payment, a borrower is considered in default, which means wages and tax refunds can be seized by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Translation: Borrowers who don’t pay up front still end up paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to internal department data obtained by NPR, as of March 7, 4.2 million borrowers were more than 90 days late on their payments. And nearly 5 million borrowers were between one and 90 days late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s more than 1 in 5 of the country’s roughly 43 million borrowers potentially on their way to default.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’re absolutely going to see an explosion of delinquency and defaults,” says Wil Del Pilar of the left-leaning EdTrust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan is the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents the companies that manage student loans for the federal government. He says many borrowers would have gone into default over the past four years but were saved by the pandemic safety net. Now, “that wave is hitting the shores all at once.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buchanan points out that the law requires servicers to warn borrowers — repeatedly — before they plunge into default. He has a simple message: Do not ignore these warnings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If your phone rings and the Caller ID says it’s your loan servicer, Buchanan says, “We’re not trying to upsell you on anything. We have no product to offer. When you see us calling, it’s probably because there’s a problem. You need to answer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might be on the verge of default and not even know it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR sent the department a list of more than 10 questions related to this article, including asking it to confirm its delinquency numbers. The department responded to one question — about why borrowers haven’t been able to enroll in income-driven repayment plans (see takeaway No. 3).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>2. The SAVE repayment plan is as good as dead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Former President Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187545921/student-loan-forgiveness-save-repayment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was so generous\u003c/a> with its payment terms and promise of forgiveness that federal courts are currently debating whether it’s even legal. Before the courts put SAVE on hold, 8 million people had enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, these SAVE borrowers who are in legal limbo don’t have to make monthly payments. But if you’re a borrower hoping for someone to save SAVE, it’s time for your Plan B.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t going to be a SAVE plan,” says Jason Delisle, a nonpartisan higher education researcher with the Urban Institute. “It’s either going down under legislation or it’s going down by the judge’s ruling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delisle and other experts tell NPR that congressional Republicans would benefit from the courts \u003cem>not\u003c/em> killing SAVE because they want to kill it themselves, as part of their \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/02/25/g-s1-50474/reconciliation-trump-republicans-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">budget reconciliation bill\u003c/a>. If they can use that bill to end SAVE, AEI’s Akers says they can use the savings to help pay for an extension of the Trump tax cuts. If the courts end SAVE first, Republicans’ legislative savings evaporate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>3. Income-driven repayment plans are finally back open\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The judge’s order freezing the SAVE plan has raised legal questions about the department’s other income-driven repayment plans: Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online form to enroll in these plans was removed from the Education Department’s website more than a month ago, which means borrowers haven’t been able to enroll in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without access to any of the department’s income-driven plans, “essentially, the system has frozen in time,” says Zampini with the Institute for College Access and Success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a Wednesday statement, the department told NPR: “The Department is working to ensure these [IDR] programs conform with the 8th Circuit’s ruling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online form was restored soon after on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The monthlong lapse caused headaches for borrowers who were already in an income-driven plan and had been asked to recertify their income, which they couldn’t do while the enrollment form was down. This led to \u003ca href=\"https://fortune.com/2025/03/17/millennials-student-loan-payments-skyrocket-donald-trump-administration-changes-department-of-education/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">horror stories of rising monthly payments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One borrower in Austin, Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kut.org/education/2025-03-25/austin-tx-student-loans-borrower-department-of-education-federal-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told member station KUT\u003c/a> that she saw her monthly payments more than quadruple because she couldn’t recertify her income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Buchanan, with the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, says there’s nothing nefarious behind the Trump administration’s freeze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Biden took [the enrollment form] down [too]. And again, not because of some malintent on the policy. It’s just a practical issue.” The form needed to be changed because of the court ruling and that takes time, Buchanan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>4. Public Service Loan Forgiveness remains unchanged for now\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), which promises student loan forgiveness for any borrower who works 10 years in public service, was created by an act of Congress and only an act of Congress can shut it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-public-service-loan-forgiveness/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issued an executive action\u003c/a> calling for restrictions on who qualifies for PSLF. The plan is to exclude borrowers who work for organizations “that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose,” including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Violating federal immigration law; “supporting terrorism”; “the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary States for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents”; “engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination”; or violating state laws against “trespassing, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, vandalism, and obstruction of highways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Republicans argue that the Biden administration went too far in \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1041872045/education-dept-plans-to-overhaul-the-troubled-public-service-loan-forgiveness-pr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">expanding who qualifies for PSLF\u003c/a> and that the Trump administration is justified in imposing limits. These changes cannot be implemented immediately, though, and will need to go through a rulemaking process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, the Federal Student Aid website \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">makes clear\u003c/a>, “There are no changes to PSLF currently, and borrowers do not need to take any action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borrowers in the SAVE legal limbo should know that the months they’re spending in an administrative forbearance, not making payments, will not count toward PSLF.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>5. There’s likely more confusion ahead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The amount of complexity in the loan program right now, given the legal battles and change in administrations, has made the program even harder for borrowers to understand, says Urban Institute’s Delisle. \u003cem>“\u003c/em>I mean, it’s hard for \u003cem>me\u003c/em> to understand what’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And AEI’s Akers says \u003cem>“\u003c/em>there’s just this sort of overload of information that these changes are happening and maybe no specific sense of how it’s going to affect [borrowers].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, it may be even harder for borrowers to get their questions answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office of Federal Student Aid, or FSA, which oversees the entire federal student loan portfolio, has been cut in half by recent Trump administration efforts to shrink the government. The experts NPR spoke with generally agreed those cuts will eventually complicate borrowers’ lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to recent internal FSA data obtained by NPR — data that was also shared with select members of Congress — the five major loan servicers have been doing a pretty good job over the past year of answering their phones when borrowers have questions — with one exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MOHELA took an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes to answer borrowers’ calls. The other four servicers all averaged answer times under 6 minutes. Not surprisingly, just over half of borrowers who called MOHELA with questions gave up before getting through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a MOHELA spokesperson explained that the servicer’s complex portfolio “has disproportionately more borrowers working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, more borrowers are on the SAVE repayment plan, as well as other income-driven repayment plans, and more borrowers are in repayment.” And that, MOHELA says, means more \u003cem>questions\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Further, [this data] represents a small snapshot in time, and MOHELA has a long track record of providing excellent customer service,” the statement says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buchanan, of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, points out that FSA was also flat-funded in the recent short-term funding bill and says Congress will need to send FSA more money if it doesn’t want service to get worse across the board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zampini, of the Institute for College Access and Success, is more direct: “The system cannot hold. The system will not function properly and borrowers will pay the price.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>6. With student loans potentially moving agencies, borrowers need to be their own advocates\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump recently made the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">surprise announcement\u003c/a> that the student loan program would move “immediately” to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) — one day after the White House press secretary assured reporters the loan program would stay at the Education Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SBA has also said it plans to cut its workforce \u003ca href=\"https://www.sba.gov/article/2025/03/21/small-business-administration-announces-agency-wide-reorganization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by more than 40%\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked for clarity, the SBA press office told NPR:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SBA is working closely with the White House, Department of Education, and Congress to finalize a plan for the strategic transfer of responsibilities related to the student loan program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “and Congress” there is key because the Education Department’s role in administering the student loan program is baked into law, and only Congress can unbake it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point here is, the office responsible for managing the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio on behalf of roughly 43 million borrowers has lost half its staff, been flat-funded and is being told they may need to pull up stakes and, at no additional cost, move the program to the SBA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our experts say every borrower needs to be their own expert and advocate. Get reacquainted with your loans. Spend time at \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.gov/idr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FSA’s website\u003c/a> or elsewhere, researching your options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarity from the department and its servicers may soon be at a premium. But know this:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The age of leniency is over. The default clock is ticking.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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