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The Politics of Student Loans

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy deVos at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland in 2017.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy deVos at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland in 2017.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was forced to cancel nearly $11 million in student loans after a national chain of for-profit colleges experienced accreditation problems and eventually closed several campuses. Host Frank Stasio talks with the Washington Post Higher Education Reporter Danielle Douglas-Gabriel about politics and student loans.

The colleges in question are the Art Institute of Colorado and the Illinois Institute of Art. But the turmoil is also felt in North Carolina, with the closing of Arts Institute campuses in Durham and Charlotte. Washington Post Higher Education Reporter Danielle Douglas-Gabriel has been following the ongoing battle between the education department and student borrowers. She joins host Frank Stasio with an update on the legal problems faced by the Education Department since the start of the Trump Administration.

Stasio also analyzes new research about student loan borrowers with Sarah Sattelmeyer, manager of Pew’s Student Borrower Success Project. They studied more than 400,000 borrowers in Texas over a five year period to better understand why student borrowers default on their loans and what the Department of Education and Congress can do to help.

 

Copyright 2019 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Dana is an award-winning producer who began as a personality at Rock 92. Once she started creating content for morning shows, she developed a love for producing. Dana has written and produced for local and syndicated commercial radio for over a decade. WUNC is her debut into public radio and she’s excited to tell deeper, richer stories.