How these 10 student loan borrowers are feeling about repayment in the Trump era

Christian Alvarez made what he believes to be his 120th and final qualifying payment toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) on March 5. Then Alvarez, already worried about President Trump’s executive order targeting PSLF, read a news article online about the Department of Education halving its staff.

Now he’s on the edge of his seat, hoping his remaining federal student loan balance — over $143,000 — is still eligible to be wiped away. 

“Can’t make this bad timing up,” Alvarez, an optometrist for the Indian Health Service, tells Bankrate.

Alvarez’s story echoes across the country at a time when the Trump Administration’s rhetoric on repayment has left many of the approximately 43 million federal loan borrowers waiting, wondering what’s next. It fired the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman, and its Education Department temporarily blocked access to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that are relied on for affordable monthly dues.

Bankrate interviewed 10 borrowers — with various balances, repayment strategies and concerns — to better understand their sentiment.

Borrowers concerned about receiving long-planned PSLF relief

Like Alvarez, Scott Miller, a teacher in Prescott, Ariz., is among borrowers hoping that PSLF remains intact. Miller would qualify for forgiveness (of about $90,000 according to his math) as soon as 2029, not long after the country’s next presidential election. At the moment, his monthly dues and outstanding balance — $129,611.28 — are frozen by his enrollment in the SAVE repayment plan.

“In the ‘now’ sense, it’s good that we can save that money, set it aside and focus on other expenditures,” says Miller, who’s also socking away future loan payments into a high-yield savings account. “But the idea that I won’t get forgiveness… it’s wow, I guess I should have just gotten a job at an investment bank.”

Some feel the heavy burden of their education debt

Studies and surveys consistently show that burdensome student loan debt can take a mental and emotional toll on borrowers.

Harlan Vaughn, a Tennessee-based senior editor at Bankrate, says his payment exhaustion comes from the penalties of capitalizing interest. Since graduating from college in May 2010 with $45,970.98 in loans, Vaughn has forked over $20,414.02 — and yet his current balance has increased to $49.691.88.

“At one point in 2017, I made a $7,000 payment, thinking that I was paying off my student loans,” Vaughn says. “And the next month, I looked at the balance and realized that only about a hundred dollars of it had gone toward the principal… And I did some quick math and realized that it wasn’t worth it for me to try to pay off my student loans because I’m on an income-driven plan that forgive[s the balance] after 25 years.”

The issue with Vaughn’s strategy: Besides not getting credit toward IDR forgiveness while his loans are in SAVE limbo, he says he feels “anxiety.”

“It doesn’t currently impact my financial status, but it does affect my psychological health,” says Vaughn, who anticipates having a balance well into his 50s. “And there’s so much uncertainty about the future of them, that even though my payment is low, I still have this sense that there are consequences I’ll have to deal with.”

Miller, the teacher who’s six years into pursuing PSLF, says he too feels “apprehension and frustration” every time he reads headlines or jumps into a Reddit forum.

“There’s a sense of dissatisfaction, especially as you… hear about all the people in the Department of Education taking early retirement, severance pay,” says Miller. “It takes them so long to process these forms as it is and, with less staff, it’ll take even longer.”

Not everyone is feeling ‘down in the dumps’

Half of the borrowers we interviewed said their confidence level hasn’t shifted since President Trump replaced former President Biden in the White House. One borrower said they voted for Trump but weren’t influenced by his seeming lack of borrower-friendly policy proposals. Others said they didn’t trust either major political party to handle the quagmire of Americans’ collective $1.6 trillion education debt.

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, it’s hard to argue about whether the Trump Administration’s messaging has cost student loan borrowers sleep. But some are making it through the night OK, either because they don’t follow student loans news at all or are fresh out of school.

Consider Allison Fitzwilliam, a North Carolina-based Bankrate marketing manager. As a 2023 graduate, Fitzwilliam never benefited from the federal government’s COVID-19-caused pause on repayment and instead started repaying her federal loan debt — presently $24,289.82 — following her six-month grace period.

“I’m really fortunate that I have the amount of student loans that I do,” says Fitzwilliam, who has set up automatic payments on her nine Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans. “I thought that when I graduated I would be surprised at how daunting it was, but… I’m also fortunate that I got a job that I wanted out of college.”

What borrowers want to see from the federal government

Peter Vu is a pharmacist currently investigating his student loan repayment and forgiveness options. His wife, Alicia ($156,042.10), has worked for nonprofits and is progressing toward PSLF relief. The Vus tell Bankrate they’d love to see clearer communication out of the newly-diminished Education Department.

“I think they need to not be so sneaky about taking forms offline and be more transparent about the process,” says Peter Vu, referring to the StudentAid.gov website removing IDR and forgiveness applications. “When you have [Education Secretary] Linda McMahon, who has no experience leading this, [it] gives me no confidence at all. It would help to have a formal announcement about what’s going to happen with PSLF and repayment.”

Vaughn, the 2010 graduate whose present balance eclipses his original borrowing amount, craves more meaningful change, even if the days of mass student loan forgiveness proposals are long gone.

“I guess the alternate argument is that, ‘You took the loan, you should pay it back,” says Vaughn. “And I’m completely willing to pay back the money that I borrowed… It truly is the structure of the interest that contributes to the [helpless] feeling.

“And then 25 years for [IDR] loan forgiveness seems like a long time, especially to a young person. And even now that I’m not a young person anymore, it still seems like a long time.”

5 actionable steps to take if you too feel disillusioned by your education debt