In Depth: Student Loan Crisis

 

In Depth: Student Loan Crisis

Alan Collinge, the founder of Student Loan Justice, joins Hal to talk about the growing problem of student loans in the U.S. Then, Lisa Ansell with the USC Casden Institute alks to Hal about the impact of student loans on California students. Finally, hear from Dr. Liz Maines, a psychotherapist who finds herself crippled by student loan debt. 

LOS ANGELES - Segment One: Alan Collinge, the founder of Student Loan Justice, joins Hal to talk about the growing problem of student loans in the U.S.

Collinge says one of the big problems is that student loans have been stripped of almost all consumer protections.  He says not only are student loans not eliminated by bankruptcy, but they also don’t have fair debt collection systems or coverage by truth in lending laws.  He calls student loans "uniquely predatory."

In the past, he said, the college received more federal subsidies.  He said the federal government currently earns more than $100 billion annually in interest on these loans alone.

   "To give these borrowers some leverage, the borrowers must restore their bankruptcy rights," he said.

   Part Two: Lisa Ansell of USC Casden Institute is also president of the California chapter on student debt relief.  I spoke to Hal about the impact of student loans on California students.  She said the classes encourage activism to encourage elected leaders to make student loans fairer.  Ansel spoke about his personal experience with student loans and how those loans were eventually canceled by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.  This program is available to those with 10 years of public service, but she said the rejection rate for applicants is high.

Segment Three: Dr. Liz Maines is a psychotherapist and she finds herself crippled by student loan debt.  She tells Hal that her cumulative student loan debt, for both graduate and undergraduate degrees, is likely to follow her into retirement.  She now owes more on the loan than the original amount of the loan, despite paying on it for decades.

Maines says that many professionals are believed to have high enough incomes to easily pay off their student loans, but that is not the case.  She says there is a lot of embarrassment over the level of student debt that professionals are carrying and that that debt is keeping people from moving on with their lives.

A federal judge in Florida, who approved an FBI arrest warrant to search former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, said he was inclined to partially release the affidavit that prosecutors used to secure it.

   In a court hearing Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to submit a redacted version of the testimony by next Thursday, asking prosecutors to be prepared to explain the reasoning behind those revisions.

   Several news organizations have asked Reinhart to release an affidavit detailing probable cause for the search warrant.