\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Faith, a 33-year-old in Burlington, North Carolina, went back to get her master\u2019s degree in higher education administration in 2020-21, she hoped it would accelerate her career growth and maybe even help her get on the housing ladder.<\/p>\n Now, Faith has federal student loan debts of $38,113, and a repayment schedule that is much more demanding than she realized so she feels like the program stalled her progress.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t aware of the detriment it would have on my future,\u201d she said. \u201cYou really don\u2019t know the full scope of what you\u2019re getting into [when taking out student loan debt] \u2026 I got my master\u2019s specifically to progress in my career, but what I make now versus what I owe on the degree, it\u2019s almost like it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cI always regret that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Faith\u2019s situation has been made worse by the Trump administration\u2019s moveto resume charging loan interest for borrowers under the Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan as of 1 August. Under the Biden administration, about 8 million people enrolled in the Save plan \u2013 a 2023 income-driven repayment plan for student debt \u2013 many of whose loans have been in forbearance since last year.<\/p>\n Under Donald Trump, the Department of Education has effectively killed the Save plan, recommending people switch to another repayment plan for their federal student loans. Borrowers can still choose to forgo payments, but will see interest accruing on their loans and won\u2019t make any progress toward student loan forgiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me that just looks like you\u2019re digging me deeper into debt, so I felt like I had no other choice but to go ahead and change from the Save plan and start making those payments,\u201d Faith said.<\/p>\n It feels like we\u2019re all going backwards<\/p>\n Faith is one of scores of people who got in touch with the Guardian to share how they\u2019ll be affected by changes to the Save plan. Her new repayment plan means she must find an extra $300 a month, on top of her rent of $1,200 (before bills and living costs), a financial challenge that feels \u201cvery overwhelming\u201d and has put everything else on hold.<\/p>\n \u201cLuckily I don\u2019t have any dependents \u2026 but all the people in their 30s around me, it feels like we\u2019re all going backwards,\u201d Faith said. \u201cI\u2019m scared for what the future looks like, especially as we get older. Does that mean, unlike our grandparents whose homes were paid off and who were free of debt, that we\u2019re just going to be in debt?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m scared for my family plans<\/p>\n Public school teacher Jennifer, a 34-year-old based in Portland, Oregon, with $63,419 in federal student loan debt, is also leaving the Save plan, but said her monthly payments almost doubled in her new repayment scheme from about $250 to $480.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s so high,\u201d she said \u2013 but she has to leave the Save plan in order to make progress towards loan forgiveness for public school teachers.<\/p>\n Jennifer wants to have children in the next couple of years, but said she\u2019s \u201cscared for my family plans\u201d under such difficult financial pressures. Alongside teaching in public school, she babysits and runs a weekly bar trivia night in order to earn extra cash to make a living.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [Trump] administration claims to be pro-family, but is screwing a lot of people over \u2013 including ones with families, including ones who want to build a family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n After changes to Save plan were announced, Jennifer was forced to ask her parents for financial support to help pay off her car loan, which felt difficult as a 34-year-old woman, the age her mother already had two children.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really lucky to be in the position\u201d to ask for help, she said, but added that \u201cthere\u2019s so many Americans who don\u2019t have access to generational wealth in that way, and so many teachers who don\u2019t \u2013 and we wonder why the teaching field is so white, so unrepresentative. It\u2019s so expensive to be a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n Financial concerns are always sitting there, as this heavy weight<\/p>\n Sedona, a 30-year-old lawyer in Seattle, Washington, who has federal student loans worth $170,848, will be staying in the Save plan, despite the loan interest resuming. She is \u201cmuch more afraid of defaulting on private debt\u201d, which is currently $22,413 in loans co-signed with her mother, she said.<\/p>\n Despite Sedona earning a good wage as an associate lawyer, she and her partner still \u201clive paycheck to paycheck\u201d and already keep a hawkish eye on their finances. As a household they have cancelled most of their subscriptions, very rarely go on trips like to the movies or for nights out, and Sedona picks up sporadic gig work such as copy editing to supplement their income.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my therapy sessions, we talk a lot about how so much of my anxiety and issues are tied to financial concerns,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like always sitting there, as this heavy weight.\u201d<\/p>\n Sedona feels that the Trump administration\u2019s decision to effectively kill the Save plan aggressively punishes those already in often severe levels of debt, while it simultaneously gives lavish tax giveaways to wealthy individuals and corporations.<\/p>\n One day Sedona and her partner would like to adopt or foster children but they currently cannot see a future in which it would be financially responsible to do so. \u201cIt feels like, when do I get to start living my life?\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re a generation of people who feel jilted.\u201d<\/p>\n In Aurora, Colorado, 46-year-old Chris is also remaining in the Save plan. He said he has about $50,000 in outstanding student loan debts \u2013 down from $65,000 \u2013 that he accrued while studying a bachelor\u2019s degree in hospitality management. He\u2019s keeping his federal student loans in forbearance and paying the interest for as long he can, in order to prioritize paying other debts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t intend to pay my students debts, I understood it was a loan like any other to be repaid,\u201d he said, but the \u201crepayment costs need to be able to fit in a budget that allows for personal and professional growth\u201d.<\/p>\n It feels to Chris as if the Trump administration wants to \u201ckeep those with [student] debt in it for as long as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMy hope is that midterm elections will bring about government leaders that will undo this mess, that is where my vote will go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Faith, a 33-year-old in Burlington, North Carolina, went back to get her master\u2019s degree in higher education administration in 2020-21, she hoped it would accelerate her career growth and maybe even help her get on the housing ladder. Now, Faith has federal student loan debts of $38,113, and a repayment schedule that is much<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[794,9937,7959,1436,9938,81,9936],"class_list":{"0":"post-16620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-biden","10":"tag-dismay","11":"tag-plan","12":"tag-studentdebt","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-undoes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}