Policies of the Trump administration are having a separate effect on higher ed, namely student loans and debt.

Next month, the Department of Education will resume collections of defaulted student loans,

ending a five-year pause that began during the pandemic.

As part of the process, the government will withhold tax-free funds or Social Security

and garnish wages to recover the debt.

Right now, more than 5 million borrowers are already in default with millions more at risk.

Danielle Douglas Gabriel covers higher education for the Washington Post and joins us now.

It's great to have you here.

So help us understand why the administration is making this change and why now?

So honestly, this was always the plan. When the Biden administration, before leaving office,

they had ended a number of programs that had really kind of softened the return to repayment.

Now, if you recall, student loans resumed back in 2023, then the Biden administration gave

borrowers an additional 12-month grace period whereby if you were to miss a payment or be late

on a payment, it wouldn't count against you. That was over in September 24. And I think now we're

starting to see the consequences of the end of that race period.

A lot of borrowers I've spoken with in the last couple of months have said that they weren't even

aware that student loans had fully gone back into repayment.

And so many of them accidentally missed payments for several months.

At least that's what they're saying to me.

And now we're

starting to see the consequences of that. I think around February, you were starting to hear

about people whose credit scores started to drop because the department had to, and student loan

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