When Faith, a 33-year-old in Burlington, North Carolina, went back to get her master’s 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 more demanding than she realized so she feels like the program stalled her progress.
“I wasn’t aware of the detriment it would have on my future,” she said. “You really don’t know the full scope of what you’re getting into [when taking out student loan debt] … I got my master’s specifically to progress in my career, but what I make now versus what I owe on the degree, it’s almost like it doesn’t make sense.”
She added: “I always regret that decision.”
Faith’s situation has been made worse by the Trump administration’s move to 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 – a 2023 income-driven repayment plan for student debt – many of whose loans have been in forbearance since last year.
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’t make any progress toward student loan forgiveness.
“To me that just looks like you’re 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,” Faith said.
Faith is one of scores of people who got in touch with the Guardian to share how they will 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 “very overwhelming” and has put everything else on hold.
“Luckily I don’t have any dependents … but all the people in their 30s around me, it feels like we’re all going backwards,” Faith said. “I’m 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’re just going to be in debt?”
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.
“I don’t understand why it’s so high,” she said – but she has to leave the Save plan in order to make progress towards loan forgiveness for public school teachers.
Jennifer wants to have children in the next couple of years, but said she was “scared for my family plans” 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.
“The [Trump] administration claims to be pro-family, but is screwing a lot of people over – including ones with families, including ones who want to build a family,” she said.
After changes to the 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.
“I’m really lucky to be in the position” to ask for help, she said, but added that “there’s so many Americans who don’t have access to generational wealth in that way, and so many teachers who don’t – and we wonder why the teaching field is so white, so unrepresentative. It’s so expensive to be a teacher.”
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 “much more afraid of defaulting on private debt”, which is currently $22,413 in loans co-signed with her mother, she said.
Despite Sedona earning a good wage as an associate lawyer, she and her partner still “live paycheck to paycheck” 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.
“In my therapy sessions, we talk a lot about how so much of my anxiety and issues are tied to financial concerns,” she said. “It’s kind of like always sitting there, as this heavy weight.”
Sedona feels that the Trump administration’s decision to in effect 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.
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. “It feels like, when do I get to start living my life?” she said. “We’re a generation of people who feel jilted.”
In Aurora, Colorado, 46-year-old Chris is also remaining in the Save plan. He said he had about $50,000 in outstanding student loan debts – down from $65,000 – that he accrued while studying a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management. He’s keeping his federal student loans in forbearance and paying the interest for as long he can, in order to prioritize paying other debts.
“It’s not that I don’t intend to pay my students debts, I understood it was a loan like any other to be repaid,” he said, but the “repayment costs need to be able to fit in a budget that allows for personal and professional growth”.
It feels to Chris as if the Trump administration wants to “keep those with [student] debt in it for as long as possible”.
“My hope is that midterm elections will bring about government leaders that will undo this mess, that is where my vote will go,” he said.
