The Biden Administration claims credit for having fought to reduce the burden of student loans by forgiving billions of dollars’ worth of debt. The administration also has made changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows certain borrowers forgiveness on the balance of their loan, provided they meet certain conditions, like working for a non-profit or the government.

TRANSCRIPT

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, who is here in Atlanta to talk about loan forgiveness, among other things. Welcome to the program.

Peter Biello: So I understand you're here to announce a milestone for the public service loan program. Can you tell us about that? 

Miguel Cardona: Sure. Public Service Loan Forgiveness was passed in 2007 in bipartisan fashion. So it says basically ten years, [if] you work in public service, you pay your loans for ten years, you get loan forgiveness. The goal was to increase the number of young people going into public service because we saw there was a decline. So ten years out, 2017, it was supposed to kick in. It was riddled with issues. I think there was an attempt to not have as many loans forgiven. Only 7,000 people got it in four years. And we recognized when we came in, President Biden and Vice President Harris were really serious about like, look, this was done in bipartisan fashion, good faith. We're dealing with an educator shortage. We're dealing with a nurse shortage. Fix this. So we did. There were so many different little nuances that could have been corrected. They were a lot of things that were obstacles. So we started removing those obstacles, making it more borrower-friendly, communicating better. And we're up to a million borrowers in this country in the last three and a half years that have gotten debt relief in public service, loan forgiveness, and we're proud of that. That's a major accomplishment and it's something that's going to keep going because those obstacles that were there? We removed them. So this is something that future generations could also benefit from.

Peter Biello: And in July, the Biden administration announced that it had eliminated $1.2 billion worth of debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. How are you measuring the impact of that?

Miguel Cardona: What we're doing is making sure we're communicating the message. Part of part of our strategy is really talking to mayors, talking to superintendents, talking to our leaders, governors, and saying: "There are people that are working in your offices right now that are eligible for debt relief that don't even know it." So we're getting out there. We're hearing stories we're able to track. Actually, we're releasing today 50 state breakdown of how many people have gotten debt relief and what the total is. I know in Georgia there's close to $4 billion in public service loan forgiveness, 41,000 people in Georgia alone. So we know that those dollars are going back into the economy.

Peter Biello: How do you know that? How do you know they're going back to the economy?

Miguel Cardona: When we're talking to folks where they're buying homes for the first time, they're helping their children go to college. They're starting up small businesses. These dollars are going—I mean, it's let's say $500-$600 a month that these people no longer have to pay. So they're using those dollars to buy a home. There was one person that was talking about [how] she got married 12 years ago, never went on a honeymoon. These are people who are getting their lives back.

Peter Biello: You mentioned some problems with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. One of them was servicing. Right? One of the servicers was having issues with sending correct bills or crediting borrowers with repayments that they made on time. The Biden Administration made some changes with the servicing in the past few months. Can you talk a little bit about those changes and whether or not they're working to improve the system?

Miguel Cardona: We tackled a lot of the underlying issues, the way things were being done, the way they were being processed, the way things were communicated. Issues with servicers that didn't have the right amount of accountability. We've increased that. You've seen over the last several years we fined several servicers for providing poor services to borrowers. We're holding them accountable. We're limiting contracting with them, if they don't do what they say they're going to do.

Peter Biello: Essentially withholding payment? If they're not doing what they should be doing?

Miguel Cardona: Correct. And let me be very clear with you, this is not easy work, but it's important work to make it more user-friendly. The user experience is something that has to be done well. We did similarly through the FSA. There was an overhaul in FSA because they weren't meeting our standards with FAFSA. So we made some major changes and we're seeing the fruit of that this year. We're doing the hard work that needs to get done, rolling up our sleeves, fixing systems that are broken, like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Peter Biello: You're also here in Georgia to talk about the Biden Administration's efforts to invest in mental health of students and believe I have the number correct—you're investing $10 million in Gwinnett schools today and $50 million through the state of Georgia overall. Are those the numbers?

Miguel Cardona: Yeah. In Georgia, the total amount over five years is $51 million.  And across the country for this year alone, $70 million. Look, I'm going to talk to you now as a parent, as a father and as a lifelong educator. I was a fourth-grade teacher, school principal. We are not scratching the surface in providing the supports that our students need. If we go back to the model we had before the pandemic, our students are in greater need. We're in a youth mental health crisis. We're competing with the impacts of social media, [and] a lot of division in our country, let's be honest. So we need to make sure that we're providing the supports for our students so they could be academically at their best. President Biden, Vice President Harris, have committed not just in talk, but in dollars, providing more support for our students.

Peter Biello: It's difficult in normal circumstances for people outside the school system to sometimes find an appointment with a mental health care provider. So how realistic is it that you'll be able to find the people you need to actually fill the jobs you're saying you'll create?

Miguel Cardona: So what are we doing? We're investing in programs that help high school students see their future as a potential school counselor or a school social worker and go up a pathway. We're providing dollars for those pathway programs to expand.

Peter Biello: Social emotional learning is an important part of what the Biden administration and your Department of Education is is encouraging in schools. This is a polarizing issue. Some conservatives have said it's "indoctrination." They say it's too far from the reading, writing, 'rithmetic, traditional education that schools they think should provide. Why do you think that's an important part to include in today's schools?

Miguel Cardona: I would welcome anyone who thinks it's indoctrination to spend a week in a school. I really would. And, you know, that's, to me, more a symptom of politicization in schools. I have a background in education. I understand that if a student is unsure where they're sleeping at night, unsure where one of their parents are or is worried about the health and wellness of somebody in their family, they're not going to achieve reading, writing and arithmetic as well as they can if they're okay. You know, for those who want to call indoctrination, they really haven't spent a lot of time talking to educators who work with children. My focus is making sure all kids can read on grade level, high level math. I'm not content with where we are internationally, but let's follow the model of other countries that are successful. They make sure that the needs of the students are being met. Again, as a father and as an educator, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Peter Biello: You're here in your official capacity as Department of Education Secretary. So the Hatch Act prohibits election questions. So not necessarily an election question, but a goals question, because a lot of the goals you've been talking about today are going to take years to accomplish. How confident are you that these goals are going to be met?

Miguel Cardona: I appreciate your disclaimer there and recognizing the Hatch Act, but the work that we're doing is what we know our schools need. We didn't come to Washington, D.C. to come up with a silver bullet on how to fix education and change it. And then when I leave, those changes go away. Now we're focusing on literacy and numeracy. We're focusing on mental health supports for students. We're focusing on increasing the highly-qualified teachers in the classroom. When we give Georgia $50 million to provide mental health supports, those dollars are going to be there long after I'm gone. And there's consensus in the education sector. We need to support our students’ mental health better. And we're doing that.

Tags: Georgia  Education  department of education  biden administration