This is an open letter to my government representatives regarding the thoughtlessness and irresponsible handling of the Student Loan Crisis. My family has been directly affected and frankly, I’m pissed off.
U.S. House Congressman Chris Deluzio
U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.
U.S. Senator John Fetterman
Hello,
I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving last week. I found myself ugly crying in the bedroom in the afternoon before dinner after receiving an email that an auto payment for my student loans went through. Normally, this isn’t a bad thing, but please allow me to explain.
In 2009, I took out student loans for $31,000 while my mother took out parent plus loans for $20,264.10. My mother, being the person she is, asked me to take responsibility for both loans because they were for my education. So when I was 18 years old, I was already in debt for $51,264.10.
I graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Science in 2012, over a decade ago. I’ve been paying for all these loans, including the ones in my mother’s name, gradually as expected. I count myself among one of the lucky ones that got a job and was able to do that. There were ups and downs, the original 10-year repayment plan had been adjusted with various IBR payment plans and I’ve even considered refinancing privately a few times but never did.
When the country declared the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency, the autopayments stopped. Interest rates dropped to 0. This was it! I could see the end in sight! By this time, I’m in my 30’s with a daughter. If I didn’t have student loans, I could start a fund for her! If I didn’t have student loans, we could reinvest in our community, go on vacations, thrive in the country that told us that people like me could do anything if we just worked hard enough. So instead of pausing payments, we took advantage of the 0% interest rate and paid off every single loan.
As of August 2022, at the age of 31, I was finally debt free. I had paid a total of $75,945.05 to Sallie Mae, Navient, and now Aidvantage over the years; that’s $24,977.77 in interest on top of the principal balance.
But then there was talk of student debt relief. Turns out, under Biden’s Forgiveness plan, I was eligible to receive a refund for $20,000 because I was awarded 4 Pell Grants while in college (I grew up in poverty) and continued to pay during the pandemic. So I applied for forgiveness. Why not? The worst that could happen would be that they say no, right?
I received my first check for $10,000 on December 14, 2022, without any notice. Just a direct deposit with the memo “Corporate ACH Doep Treas.” After calls to Aidvantage and the IRS, we figured out why and that I was going to receive the second half, which I did on March 28, 2023.
Unsure with what the courts were doing, we put that $20k in savings. Imagine if I needed it though? Imagine if I used it to pay bills? Again, I’m one of the lucky ones.
With my loans completely paid off for over a year, imagine my surprise receiving an email on Thanksgiving notifying me that not only did I just pay $361.97 to Aidvantage toward my student loans (only $209.47 of that went toward principal, by the way), but that I suddenly owed $20k!!!
There was no communication from Aidvantage that my loans were reopened. There was no communication from the U.S. Department of Education that the Forgiveness plan was taking money back after giving it away.
According to Aidvantage, I should be all paid off again by October 2029. Fortunately for me, I still have that $20k sitting in my bank account, so I can skip paying the $3,530.59 in interest (aside from the autopayments that occurred in October and November) and be done with it.
But imagine, for a moment, I didn’t.
So while I cried on Thanksgiving because the government is taking money back after promising me relief and I was blaming myself for not being diligent enough in checking emails to avoid two auto-payments, I’m still thankful that I’m a lucky one and can be debt free after this.
Representatives, Congresspeople, I implore you to support Student Loan Forgiveness any way you can. What the Supreme Court did was take away money I was saving for my 5-year-old daughter. As I mentioned in the beginning, I already paid $24,977.77 in interest alone, so that $20k in relief wasn’t even money I borrowed—it was the cost of being allowed to borrow money. Please help. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tessa Watkins B.Sc. (they/them)
Student Loan Borrower
Supporting Documentation
“Explainer: How Biden's student loan forgiveness will impact U.S. consumers” (August 24, 2022) Reuters.
, “Supreme Court blocks Biden student loan forgiveness” (July 1, 2023) Reuters.
