I don’t know the right metaphor to make you understand how this much debt physically feels. What it actually feels like is a pressure on my chest and shoulders, but maybe that’s not evocative enough. What if I describe it as an anchor trailing behind me? Or being covered in molasses, trapping my energy and restricting my movement? Perhaps as a ghost, haunting me continuously since I took out my first student loan in 1995.
Many people working in U.S. libraries are impacted by student debt. Many of those working in academic libraries are working towards paying off their student debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which allows people working in government and non-profit institutions (like most colleges and universities) to have the remainder of their balance forgiven after making ten years of payments (that is, 120 monthly payments). I’m sharing my experience as an example of what’s happening now to someone who has a good paying job and has been lucky and privileged in many ways.
PSLF Problems
Over the past year, the repayment plan I’m on, SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) plan, was blocked by a U.S. appeals court, which ruled that Biden did not have the authority to implement the plan. That has meant that I have been unable to make progress on paying off my student loans—more precisely, if I made payments, they would not count towards my goal of 120 payments for student loan forgiveness.
This week I attended a webinar hosted by Public Service Promise, an organization founded in 2019 that helps eligible public servants achieve student loan forgiveness. If you’re working through the PSLF program, I encourage you to check out their resources and their free webinars providing updates about recent developments. During the webinar, I learned that some of the backlog in processing requests to move to a different payment plan has been reduced, so it might be a good time to resubmit my request to move to a different payment plan, before interest begins reaccumulating on August 1st. I submitted a request and learned that my new student loan monthly payment will be $1,242.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t actually have an extra $1,242 lying around, so that’s going to be a real struggle to come up with every month—that’s nearly as much as I pay in rent for my 300-square-foot studio apartment. Under the SAVE plan, I was paying around $450 each month.
I currently have 95 PSLF-eligible payments toward the 120 necessary for forgiveness of my $93,605 balance. I expected to be further along in this process; the 12 months I’ve been stuck in limbo because of the Republican-led lawsuits against the SAVE plan have set me back. It’s possible that I’ll be allowed to use the PSLF Buyback program, which, once I have 120 months of qualifying employment, will allow me the opportunity to make a lump sum payment of around $14,000 to retroactively make those 12 months PSLF eligible. If I can come up with $14,000 all at once (I’m lucky enough to have family members I can borrow from), I might reach that 120 payment mark and apply to have my loans forgiven in September 2026.
Potential Political Interference with PSLF Eligibility
A potential snag is that the One Big Bullshit Bill allows for the possibility of institutions to be cut off from PSLF eligibility if their activities have “substantial illegal purpose,” as defined by the Trump administration (read more about this “negotiated rulemaking” provision). The Department of Education (or what’s left of it) is now working on a set of rules to be implemented by July 1, 2026 that may declare universities to be no longer PSLF eligible if they, for example, provide gender-affirming health care to transgender youth, or provide services to undocumented immigrants. My employer is one of many that have been targeted by this administration’s attacks on higher education. So it’s possible my student loan payments will no longer be deemed PSLF eligible just before I reach the magic number of 120 payments. And, in a nightmare scenario I’m refusing to let myself consider, the Department of Education may decide that all my former payments from my employer are no longer PSLF eligible.
Since PSLF was created by an act of Congress, and statutes define PSLF-eligible organizations as every federally-defined nonprofit organization, it would seem as though the Department of Education doesn’t actually have the legal authority to exclude organizations that are doing things the presidential administration doesn’t like. So there will be legal challenges to these rules, if they are implemented. But as we’ve seen, the judicial branch has struggled to keep up with the actions of this administration.
Student Loan Restrictions for New Students
If this is the scenario for people who already have loans, what’s the situation for new students? As you might imagine, the Republicans’ spending and tax bill isn’t good news for folks who are coming into school after July 2026, with tighter borrowing limits and dramatically reduced repayment options. Graduate students will be capped to borrowing $20,500 a year. I went to grad school twelve years ago, and even then, working several part-time jobs at a time while attending school, I couldn’t have paid both tuition and rent on that amount of money. LIS students who don’t come from a solidly upper- or upper-middle-class background will either need to take out expensive private loans or will just not be able to attend grad school.
So what now? I don’t know. I know that some library workers have banded together to create scholarships to help defray the cost of attending library school (“Texas Exes iSchool Alumni Scholarship for BIPOC Students”). There are also organizations that are looking to create mass movements to push politicians to cancel student debt, such as the Debt Collective.
As for me and the student debt that’s been haunting me for thirty years, I’ll be fine—as I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. I share my story with worry for our colleagues, present and future, who are not so lucky.
Thank you for writing this and sharing your story, Violet. My 50k in loans from graduate school were forgiven last summer and I feel so fortunate. I’m inspired by the work of the Debt Collective and think mutual aid and mass action is the way forward.
I spent about 3 hours on the phone this morning with Mohela debating my options for my $90,000, so it’s a relief to hear that I’m not the only one with exorbitant student loan debt. I’m also close to PLSF forgiveness for about half of my loans (80 something payments). Besides staying on the SAVE forbearance (and accruing interest) and consolidating my loans (which would reset my PSLF), my other option is to apply for the IBR plan (for the cheapest monthly payment), where payments will also be too much for me to afford. However, my real plan is to apply for IBR, then use a 12 month administrative forbearance, and continue to pay whatever I want monthly. The person I spoke with on the phone this morning told me that these payments WILL COUNT towards PSLF. This will get me closer to forgiveness for a few loans. After I run out of forbearance…I’ll figure something else out (or perhaps a cheaper plan will be back). I wanted to drop this comment just in case this would help at all, given that you are closer to forgiveness than I am.
This blog post has been on my mind a lot lately.
Because I am working in Canada, I don’t even think I qualify for the PSLF. I also think that, given how weak the Canadian dollar is to the US dollar most days, my debt is probably well over $100k already if converted.
I do want to get myself out of this hole, but the system seems ill-equipped for such a thing in my lifetime, esp. given the move back north. I love being an archivist, but wish I hadn’t taken on such debt to do so.
I’m freaking out about this too. I never applied for PSLF, even though my job is eligible-I just never got myself together to do it, which I currently wish I had. But even if I had, I’d be in the same position, since I haven’t worked for 10 years yet. I’m at this point not looking for a new plan even though I’m on SAVE, because I’m imagining that applying fo PSLF at this point is a no go, and it sounds like they haven’t been putting through applications for loan forgiveness since the new administration started–not even the ones that are supposed to happen after 20-25 years. I have a fear that I’ll end up paying the much higher payment under IBR (my payments would go from a little over $200 to $700) for the rest of my life, if they decide to end loan forgiveness altogether. If that’s the case, it seems better to have as many months without payments as I possibly can, even if interest is accruing, so I can save some money. Once I’m in repayment, that may be impossible to do. I’m lucky in that I’ve been able to save until now, and lucky that I still have a job. But I feel the same thing about the loans….they’re a big weight on my chest. I’m also thinking about people whose professions are essentially being eliminated by the current administration–limits on grad school loans mean that they’re going to have a hard time getting retrained in anything. Going to medical school is also going to be out of reach for a lot of people from now on, unless their parents are well-off.