Cardona stopped at Grand Rapids Community College to speak with educators who have benefitted from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 33,000 Michigan public servants have received loan forgiveness since 2011, but Cardona says more needs to be done.
“In Michigan, teachers start at about $40,000 a year, and I say this respectfully, but what are you going to do with $40,000 a year? You’re going to get another job, is what you’re going to do. We’ve got to stop normalizing teachers driving Uber, teachers bartending, teachers qualifying for state assistance.”
Jeremy Zeiler is a special education teacher at Byron Center High School whose student loan was eventually forgiven, but not before barely scratching the surface of the interest alone.
“You know, I owed under $90,000, and I paid for 12 years on this loan, and I still owed $76,000.”
Judy Warren, a retired school social worker, also had her loan forgiven, but spoke of the struggles she endured before that happened.
“I had to go through a period, because my husband became disabled, where we had to do a forbearance, and when I was able to start paying back, I was owing more than what my actual debt was.”
Cardona says the Department of Education will continue working to streamline the process of loan forgiveness so that more public servants can take advantage of the program.
