In San Francisco, the regional branch of the department Office for Civil Rights — already backlogged with investigations into school-related discrimination — is expected to be closed, one of the broad effects of the layoffs that advocates say are sending tremors through school systems, including Los Angeles Unified.

“These reckless layoffs will sow chaos and confusion throughout our nation’s public school system,” said Guillermo Mayer, president and CEO of Public Advocates, a California-based law firm and advocacy group. “Instead of bolstering learning outcomes, the immediate effect of these actions is quite cruel. It forces millions of parents, especially parents of students with disabilities, to worry about whether their children will receive the services they need.”

“It strikes fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of low-income students who are now wondering, ‘What will happen to my financial aid? Will I be able to afford college?’” Mayer said.

L.A. school board member Kelly Gonez on Tuesday sponsored a resolution against cuts to federal education funding and addressed the federal layoffs Wednesday.

“We serve one of the most diverse populations in the country,” Gonez said. “We’re proud of serving immigrant families, many students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. So it’s a direct attack on the students and families that make up the majority of our students and that’s why the risk for potential harm is so great. While we’re still assessing, these are very concerning steps that we’re seeing.”

L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said he’s concerned not only about the future levels of federal funding, but about potential policy changes to how it can be distributed, including “possibly a dilution” of the district’s $460 million in annual Title I money for academic support to offset the effects of poverty. California receives $2 billion in Title I funds, which is distributed to school districts.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sought to dispel concerns, saying the administration would abide by congressional funding mandates.

She said the layoffs reflect the department’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents and teachers.”

When Trump took office, the Education Department’s workforce stood at 4,133, according to the administration. After the layoffs take effect, the number would be 2,183 workers, including those who previously resigned, agreed to buyouts or were fired because they were probationary employees.

“We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward facing programs — the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress — all of that are being met and none of that’s going to fall through the cracks,” McMahon said in a Tuesday night interview on the Fox network.

The accelerated unwinding of the agency had been expected to be triggered by one of President Trump’s executive orders. But McMahon clearly was empowered to act without delay.

It has also become evident that the Trump administration’s effect on education has not been contingent on the existence of the Department of Education, which he pledged to shut down during his campaign, calling it “a big con job” infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists” that misused taxpayer dollars.

The administration has taken swift action to withhold funding to schools and colleges on ideological grounds. A recent policy guide directed institutions to end “discriminatory” diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing federal money. Another order ended the status of transgender students as a group protected from discrimination.

Among the latest: the Trump administration’s cancellation last week of $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University because of what the government describes as the school’s failure to stop campus antisemitism. The cancellation came even though Columbia had set up a new disciplinary committee and ramped up investigations of students critical of Israel and its war in Gaza, alarming free speech advocates.

On Sunday Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate who holds a green card, was arrested by federal immigration authorities, touching off a legal fight over his detention. The Trump administration seeks to deport him over his leadership role in pro-Palestinian protests at the university, prompting campus rallies at UCLA, UC Berkeley and other campuses in support of Khalil.

Trump has vowed to deport foreign students he described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” Students say the administration is illegally attacking immigrants and free speech rights.

The University of California and USC are also under federal investigation of allegations that they have not properly addressed campus antisemitism.

Democrat-led states and groups outside government have sued to stop some orders they say are illegal and motivated by Trump’s hostility to what he characterizes as “woke” indoctrination in education.

On March 6, California joined seven other states suing the Trump administration over cancellation of grants worth $250 million to them — $600 million nationwide — for teacher training programs funded through the Education Department. The administration said the programs promote inappropriate and “divisive ideologies” linked to diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI. A federal judge on Monday ordered the programs reinstated while he reviewed the case.

The ‘Final Mission’

Even before she was confirmed by the Senate last week, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was under orders from Trump to “put herself out of job” by dismantling the department.

Immediately following her confirmation, McMahon issued a staff memo, which was vague on details, talking of “Our Department’s Final Mission” — shutting itself down. The department had a pre-Trump budget this year of about $80 billion. Salary and benefits for the department were set at about $917 million.

Before McMahon assumed control, officials working with the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a federal agency but a White House advisory team headed by billionaire Elon Musk, already had gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress, and fired or suspended scores of employees.

Sara Schapiro, executive director of the Alliance for Learning Innovation, is especially concerned about those cuts: “States don’t typically have the capacity to do that kind of research and to store data. They really do rely on the federal government to publish and share gold-standard research that they can then use.”

In earlier statements both McMahon and Trump have spoken of returning authority over education to the states.

However, states already fund the vast majority of education spending and policies are largely made at the state and local school district level. Still, local officials consider the federal funding contribution — about 7% to 20% of budgets — to be vital.

While it is possible for the federal government to step back, it’s a seemingly contradictory position for Trump: He has a concurrent goal of withholding funding if a school system or university does not abide by his directives on what to teach, how to interpret civil rights, especially in regards to transgender students and promoting diversity among employees.

Alex Hertel-Fernandez, associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, said there is “a logical inconsistency between these positions, but that chaos, in some ways, is the point: to throw the sector into chaos, and to force these institutions and schools into spending a lot of time and effort to anticipate what to do to avoid further legal backlash and cuts in funding.”

Eliminating the department entirely is likely to be a heavy lift because of opposition among Democrats — who appear to have enough votes to block such a move in the Senate. It’s also not clear that all congressional Republicans would go along.

Debate over dismantling the department

The environment for schools and colleges is risky and uncertain, said John B. King Jr., chancellor of the State University of New York and a U.S. secretary of Education under President Obama.

“We’re facing both threats — the threat of loss of funding for critical programs, and the threat of weaponization,” King said. “That weaponization is about bringing control — of what students do day-to-day in the classroom — to Washington.”

Mari Barke, a member of the Orange County Board of Education, said critics are being unnecessarily alarmist as it relates to school districts that serve students through high school.

“Sometimes I think less government is better,” Barke said. “If we could somehow eliminate some of the inefficiencies and waste, that might be a good thing.”

Trump has taken the position that he has full authority over the executive branch — including over funds appropriated by Congress. Using that legal premise, his Department of Education — in concert with Musk’s cost-cutting strike force — had already claimed more than $1 billion in savings from canceled education-related contracts and grants. Trump and Musk say they are targeting waste, fraud and abuse as well as seeking to eradicate left-wing ideology.

Denise Forte, president and chief executive of the Washington-based advocacy group EdTrust, said she has seen no evidence that waste and fraud have been uncovered.

Rather, she said, the new administration is hunting for key words or phrases such as “DEI” in program descriptions and websites and cutting programs that are flagged in that way without meaningful scrutiny.

“That’s not waste, fraud and abuse — that is about undermining our students,” Forte said.

Student loans, civil rights

Trump and his team have spoken of transferring major programs to other agencies rather than eliminating them.

The student loan programs for higher education could transfer to the Small Business Administration, the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Commerce. This move could disrupt services to 43 million students and borrowers who owe the government more than $1.5 trillion. About half of Cal State University students, for example, receive student loans, a portfolio of more than $1 billion.

Trump has already taken action on one sector of the student loans, signing an executive order changing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program by disqualifying workers of nonprofit groups deemed to have engaged in “improper” activities, appearing to include organizations that support undocumented immigrants, or DEI programs.

The Pell Grant program, which awards more than $120 billion to 13 million students each year to help pay for higher education, could also be transferred. About $1.5 billion per year is set aside in Pell Grants for California students.

The Office for Civil Rights — charged with investigating and taking action to stop school-related discrimination — could shift to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Biden and Obama administrations’ Office for Civil Rights, said she confirmed with staffers that regional offices in San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York and Philadelphia are closing. Offices in Seattle, Denver, Kansas City and Washington would remain open, she said.

The San Francisco office employed about 50 people who worked on California cases.

“The people in these offices are experts, some with decades of experience,” Lhamon said. “They evaluated complaints and jurisdiction, requested documents, reviewed documents, went to campuses, talked to students, talked to staff, interviewed witnesses about alleged facts, reviewed the law and determined whether a violation had occurred.”

She said the department already was understaffed, with about 12,000 pending cases when Trump took office.

Ken Marcus, who led the department’s civil rights office under President George W. Bush and during Trump’s first term, said that, with the staff reductions, “it will be important to see whether there will be increased hiring at the Justice Department’s civil rights division or other parts of the federal government.”

The impact on California

California receives an estimated $16.3 billion annually in federal funding, or about $2,750 per student. The Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation’s second-largest school system — puts its annual federal support at $1.26 billion.

Not all of these dollars funnel through the Department of Education. Significant federal funding for early childhood education comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the gigantic student meal program is housed in the Department of Agriculture. L.A. Unified alone estimates that it receives about $363 million to feed students from low-income families.

About 80% of L.A. Unified students qualify for Title I-funded services, which include tutoring, smaller classes, after-school programs, teacher training, counseling and family engagement. Another major funding area is for students with disabilities.

Billions in research funding flow each year to California universities from federal departments and agencies. A sizable portion comes from the National Institutes of Health — $2.6 billion alone for the University of California last academic year. Federal district judges have halted an attempt by the Trump administration to slash critical NIH grants while cases, including one filed by California, proceed.

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California’s Secretary of State is poised to certify that the California Personal Finance Act is eligible for the November ballot, which would add financial literacy to the list of high school graduation requirements beginning with the class of 2030.

Students would learn about paying for college, online banking, taxes, budgeting, credit, retirement accounts, loans, how the stock market works and other topics. The issue is critical, organizers said, as students face a shifting economy and difficult decisions about college, careers and their futures.

“No one comes out of the womb knowing how to manage their credit score. It has to be taught,” said Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of a personal finance education nonprofit and a chief backer of the initiative. “And right now there’s a dramatic gap between what students know and what they need to know. We have to change that.”

Voters seem to agree with him. A 2022 survey of adults nationwide showed that nearly 90% support a financial literacy requirement in high school, and nearly as many wished they had taken such a course when they were students. 

That’s not surprising, considering the financial woes many people incur. The average credit card debt in California is $8,366, the sixth-highest rate in the country, and 1 in 6 borrowers nationwide are in default on their student loans. 

Financial literacy already in classrooms

But some education experts have pushed back, not because they’re opposed to financial literacy for students but because they question whether voters are best equipped to dictate what’s taught in classrooms.

Currently, the state’s History-Social Studies framework includes a one-semester course in economics, required for graduation, that covers much of the same material proposed by the financial literacy ballot initiative proponents. Financial literacy is also included in first, second and ninth grade curriculum. First graders, for example, learn that money can be exchanged for goods and services, and people make decisions about how to spend their money.

But Ranzetta said the curriculum, which was last updated in 2017, doesn’t focus enough on financial literacy. Personal finance is covered for only a few weeks in the economics course; the rest covers more abstract economic concepts like international trade, resource allocation and the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism. Individual teachers can choose how much they want to focus on certain topics.

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond wouldn’t answer questions about the ballot initiative, although he endorsed it. Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education, also wouldn’t answer questions. 

Leaving curriculum decisions to voters is ‘a bad idea’

The proposed ballot initiative so far has almost zero opposition, but some are questioning the idea of letting voters — and not education experts — decide what students learn in the classroom. Ordinarily, curriculum in California is developed by a group of teachers and subject-matter professionals who serve on the Instructional Quality Commission, which meets publicly six times a year. New curriculum is subject to multiple reviews, edits and public vetting, ultimately going before the State Board of Education for adoption. Local school boards can adjust curriculum according to the needs of their students.  

“Most voters don’t know much about education policy, and having them decide what can be taught in schools is a bad idea,” said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California. “We already have a process in place for adopting curriculum, and if people are unhappy with it there are plenty of avenues to have their voices heard — they can go to meetings, they can vote people out of office, they can talk to their representatives.”

Polikoff worries that adopting curriculum through ballot initiatives could set a dangerous precedent. Religious or anti-LGBTQ curriculum, for example, could be approved by voters, setting up costly and lengthy legal showdowns with the state Department of Education. 

Curriculum can be complicated, as well. When writing new curricula, the Instructional Quality Commission looks at the broader context, making sure students get new material every year that builds on what they learned previously, subjects don’t overlap and topics are flexible enough for teachers to adapt lessons to the individual needs of their students. Textbooks and tests are also taken into consideration. 

Legislature weighs in

Most curriculum updates and changes originate with the commission, but sometimes the Legislature weighs in. The state’s new ethnic studies and media literacy requirements, for example, stemmed from Assembly bills. Another bill, AB 2097, would add computer science as a graduation requirement.

AB 2927, a financial literacy bill proposed by Democrat Kevin McCarty of Sacramento, would actually do almost the same thing as the ballot initiative. The bill would require financial literacy as a graduation requirement, although it would go into effect until 2031, a year later than the ballot measure.

Bruce Fuller, education professor at UC Berkeley, said he worries about the increasing politicization of curriculum — either from the Legislature or those pushing for ballot initiatives.

“We have these political interests unabashedly trying to control what’s taught in the classroom, instead of leaving it up to teachers and locally elected school boards,” Fuller said. “We should trust those folks to devise thoughtful curriculum that’s appropriate for their students.”

He also questioned the ever-growing list of graduation requirements. High schools only offer six or seven class periods a day, and with more required classes there’s less room for art and other electives. Some districts have started adding an extra period so students can fit in all the classes they need to take to graduate, finish a career pathway and qualify for California’s public universities. 

“I’m not sure how adding more required classes is going to motivate restless teenagers,” Fuller said. “With more requirements, we’re giving them almost no chance to study things they’re actually interested in.” 

McCarty’s bill  is not the Legislature’s first attempt to wade into financial literacy. A dozen bills requiring financial literacy have died or been vetoed in recent years, in most cases because financial literacy curriculum already exists and the state already has a system for adopting curriculum.

As Gov. Jerry Brown wrote in 2018 when he vetoed a bill that would have made financial literacy materials available to teachers: “This bill is unnecessary. The History-Social Science Framework already contains financial literacy content for pupils in kindergarten through grade 12, as well as a financial literacy elective.”

Ranzetta said the Legislature’s inability to pass a financial literacy curriculum is what spurred him to take the matter directly to voters.

“I recognize the value of the process, but it’s slow and so far it hasn’t worked in California,” he said. “The issue is too urgent and too popular to wait any longer.”     

Ranzetta grew up in New Jersey, where his father was a banker and his mother was a community volunteer who raised six children. He learned financial literacy from his parents, and assumed other young people did, too. It wasn’t until he started volunteering at an East Palo Alto high school that he realized many students are clueless about money, and that ignorance can hamper them throughout their lives. But they were eager to learn, he said, and share the information with their parents.

That experience inspired him to start NextGen Personal Finance, which offers free financial literacy curriculum and training for teachers. At least 7,000 teachers in California and more than 100,000 nationwide have participated, he said.

A class that demystfies money

At Berkeley High, Crystal Rigley Janis teaches two economics classes and three personal finance classes, covering topics she wishes she knew as a young person: how to negotiate a salary, not relying on gut instinct when investing, and avoiding individual stocks in favor of index funds.

“It took me 15 years to understand those things, and it probably cost me millions of dollars,” said Rigley, who worked for several years at a wealth management firm before going into teaching. “I don’t want other people to make the mistakes I did.”

Eliza Maier, a senior, was so inspired by Rigley’s class that she opened a Roth IRA when she turned 18 and transferred money from her low-interest savings account. The class, she said, helped demystify money and the role it can play in major life choices.

“We learned that money isn’t good or bad – it’s a tool,” Maier said. “It can help you realize your goals. It can help you be prepared for whatever happens in your life. I didn’t know anything about money when I started taking this class, but I think it’s so important, especially for high school students.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden outlined a new round of federal student loan forgiveness on Wednesday to address the “unsustainable debt” that borrowers accumulate to complete their college education.

The announcement comes as borrowers brace for payments to restart after a three-year pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and Biden tries to fulfill his campaign promises on debt relief as he runs for reelection.

The Democratic president’s latest step will help 125,000 borrowers by erasing $9 billion in debt through existing programs. In total, 3.6 million borrowers will have had $127 billion in debt wiped out since Biden took office.

“We’re not done yet,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.

He pledged to help alleviate the burden of student debt while running for president, and he’s been under pressure to follow through even though his original plan was overturned by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Biden said the decision was responsible for “snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars of student debt relief that was about to change their lives.”

He has been relying on a patchwork of different programs to chip away at debt, such as the SAVE Plan announced last year, which lowers payments by tying them to borrowers’ income.

“My administration is doing everything we can to deliver student debt relief to as many as we can, as fast as we can,” Biden said.

“While a college degree is still the ticket toward a better life, that ticket has become excessively expensive. Americans who are saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree has become the norm,” he said.

Some of Biden’s efforts have involved bolstering existing programs, like public service loan forgiveness.

“For years, millions of eligible borrowers were unable to access the student debt relief they qualified for, but that’s all changed thanks to President Biden and this administration’s relentless efforts to fix the broken student loan system,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

Additional debt forgiveness could help alleviate the impact of the long-scheduled resumption of loan payments this month, which will put a dent in tens of millions of family budgets. But it is unlikely to undermine the economy’s strength in the long term even though analysts at BNP Paribas estimated it could take $100 billion out of consumers’ pockets and slow overall growth during the final three months of this year.

Republicans have fought Biden’s plans on student debt, but Wednesday’s announcement comes as they’re consumed by infighting on Capitol Hill. Hard-right Republicans forced a vote that ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker, leaving the chamber in chaos.

In addition, the NAACP is pushing Biden to expand debt forgiveness by allowing Parent PLUS loans, which parents use for their children’s college education, to be eligible for the SAVE Plan.

“Historically, education has been viewed as an entry point for marginalized communities to achieve upward mobility and begin building generational wealth,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement that emphasized the disproportionate impact of debt on Black families. “It is unconscionable that, in their quest to provide their children with a brighter future, Black parents have fallen victim to a system that preys on their inherent disadvantage.”

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Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July, just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan pushed by President Joe Biden.

It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal and stop the Education Department from carrying it out while the case is decided. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute.

The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”

“We are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families,” the department said in a statement.

It’s part of a wave of legal challenges Republicans have leveled at the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce or eliminate student debt for millions of Americans. Biden has said he will pursue a different cancellation plan after the Supreme Court decision, and his administration is separately unrolling a more generous repayment plan that opponents call a “backdoor attempt” at cancellation.

The Biden administration announced July 14 that it would soon forgive loans for 804,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans. The plans have long offered cancellation after borrowers make 20 or 25 years of payments, but “past administrative failures” resulted in inaccurate payments counts that set borrowers back on their progress toward forgiveness, the department said.

The new action was announced as a “one-time adjustment” that would count certain periods of past nonpayment as if borrowers had been making payments during that time. It moved 804,000 borrowers across the 20- or 25-year mark needed for cancellation, and it moved millions of others closer to that threshold.

It’s meant to address a practice known as forbearance steering, in which student loan servicers hired by the government wrongly pushed borrowers to go into forbearance — a temporary pause on payments because of hardship — even if they would have been better served by enrolling in one of the income-driven repayment plans.

Under the one-time fix, past periods in forbearance were also counted as progress toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that offers cancellation after 10 years of payments while working in a government or nonprofit job.

Biden’s action was illegal, the lawsuit says, because it wasn’t authorized by Congress and didn’t go through a federal rulemaking process that invites public feedback.

“No authority allows the Department to count non-payments as payments,” the lawsuit says. It adds that the action came in “a press release that neither identified the policy’s legal authority nor considered its exorbitant price tag.”

The conservative groups say Biden’s plan undercuts Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The Mackinac Center and Cato Institute say they employ borrowers who are working toward student loan cancellation through the program. They say Biden’s action illegally accelerates progress toward relief, diminishing the benefit for nonprofit employers.

“This unlawful reduction in the PSLF service requirement injures public service employers that rely on PSLF to recruit and retain college-educated employees,” the suit alleges.

The Cato Institute previously sued the administration over the cancellation plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Mackinac Center is separately challenging Biden’s pause on student loan payments, which is scheduled to end this fall with payments resuming Oct. 1.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Niara Thompson couldn’t shake her frustration as the Supreme Court debated President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation. As she listened from the audience Tuesday, it all felt academic. There was a long discussion on the nuances of certain words. Justices asked lawyers to explore hypothetical scenarios.

For Thompson, none of it is hypothetical. A student at the University of Georgia, she grew up watching her parents struggle with student loans and will graduate with about $50,000 of her own student debt.

“It felt like people who could never understand why we would want something like this,” she said. “I wanted to be like, ‘Y’all don’t understand. Y’all are focusing on this, but there’s people out here who are struggling to find food for their families.’”

Much of the discussion in Tuesday’s hearing centered on whether states had the legal right to sue over Biden’s student loans plan. But the justices also were scrutinizing whether Biden had the authority to waive hundreds of billions of dollars in debt without the explicit approval of Congress, which decides how taxpayer money is spent.

It’s not unusual for Supreme Court cases to hang on legal technicalities, even in cases of great public interest. Yet to borrowers following Tuesday’s arguments, it felt isolating to hear such a personal subject reduced to cold legal language.

Opponents of the plan to wipe away debt held by millions of Americans have denounced it as an insult to those who have repaid their debt and to those who didn’t attend college.

Thompson was among a few dozen borrowers who camped out in drizzle overnight to get seats at the court for Tuesday’s hearing. Some of the court’s liberal justices sought several times to turn the arguments back to the people who would benefit from the program, pointing out their need for relief. In response, conservatives asked if those who passed up college should pay for those who borrowed money to attend.

For Thompson’s family, years of payments hang in the balance. Student loan payments have been on hold since the start of the pandemic, but they are set to restart 60 days after the court cases resolve — regardless of the outcome.

Thompson and her father are each eligible for $10,000 in relief, she said. It would move her a step closer to financial stability, Thompson said, and it would eliminate the rest of her dad’s loans.

“It just hurt my feelings a bit,” she said of Tuesday’s arguments. “I just want better for us, you know?”

The mood inside the court — quiet and ceremonious — was a contrast to the atmosphere outside as dozens of activists rallied in support of cancellation. Crowds chanted and listened to speeches from members of Congress, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Advocates took to the podium to share stories about family sacrifices and life milestones deferred because of heavy student debt.

Ella Azoulay, a 26-year-old who lives in Washington, visited the rally to join the push for debt relief, which she calls a “family issue.” A 2018 graduate of New York University, Azoulay has $40,000 in student debt, while her dad has more than $400,000 taken out on behalf of her and her two siblings.

“I can’t really think about my future without thinking about this huge debt,” she said. “My dad has no plans to retire. He’s in his 60s and he has said for my whole life that he will never be able to retire. And that’s really upsetting to hear.”

During the hearing, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would be a mistake for her fellow justices to take for themselves, instead of leaving it to education experts, “the right to decide how much aid to give” people who will struggle if the program is struck down.

Others justices also have shown a grasp of borrowers’ plight. Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s staunchest conservative, has written about the “crushing weight” of his own student loans, which he paid off after reaching the nation’s highest court.

Kayla Smith, 22, joined Thompson at the overnight campout for a seat inside the court. A recent graduate of the University of Georgia, she also felt the discussion missed the bigger picture.

Smith’s mother borrowed more than $20,000 in federal Parent Plus loans to help her pay for college. Smith sees it as the result of a broken system that forces people into debt for a shot at social mobility.

“They were focused on small, minuscule details,” Smith, of Atlanta, said of the justices. “I even saw some of them laughing during the hearing, which was odd to me because people’s lives are being affected. It’s not a laughing matter to us, at least.” ___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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NEW YORK (AP) — When Melissa Martinez applied to have her student loan debt forgiven more than a decade ago, the U.S. Department of Education told her she was ineligible.

Martinez, a professor, tried again this past year and managed to erase the last $6,000 she owed for her doctorate. She wasn’t alone — according to new federal figures, more than 145,000 borrowers have had the remainder of their federal student loan debt canceled through a program for people who work for schools, governments or nonprofits.

Hundreds of thousands more have completed the paperwork for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and officials say many more likely qualify. An Oct. 31 deadline to apply under the less stringent rules is fast approaching.

There’s a broader conversation underway in America about how to handle student loan debt. An estimated 43 million Americans carry student loans worth $1.6 trillion, according to federal figures. Federal student loan payments were paused during the coronavirus pandemic and will remain so until at least Aug. 31. President Joe Biden is expected to make some sort of announcement about student loan relief before then.

Nearly all of the cancellations through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program have come since last October, when the government temporarily relaxed the complex requirements. Before that, the program had rejected more than 90% of applicants, the Department of Education said in 2019.

A spokesperson for the Education Department said Wednesday that most borrowers who were denied then were deemed ineligible because they didn’t meet employer eligibility requirements, their employment dates didn’t align with the dates of their student loans, or they didn’t have the required direct loans.

“I thought maybe it would work now,” said Martinez, who graduated from the University of Texas, Austin in 2010 with a doctorate in educational administration.

Martinez said the money will go towards lowering credit card debt and building savings to have on hand for emergencies and unexpected expenses.

“Knowing that it’s forgiven lifts some of the worry or stress off my shoulders,” she said.

Even though the deadline is in October, Martinez advises people who may qualify for the loan forgiveness to apply as soon as possible. She found the process difficult to navigate, even with the relaxed rules. It took her five months to complete the paperwork and another three months to hear back from the program.

“I remember calling and staying on the line for an hour waiting,” she said. Martinez also initially had her proof of employment denied, though it was approved when she re-sent the documents.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, launched in 2007 to steer more graduates to public service, cancels federal student loan debt after 10 years of public interest work, or 120 payments. Teachers, librarians, nurses, public interest lawyers, military members and other public workers all qualify, along with people who work for non-profits.

So far, the forgiveness totals almost $8.1 billion in federal loans, but that amount is just a fraction of the debt that could qualify. The average amount of debt forgiven through the program is $64,968.

“The program seems really simple — people commit ten years to serving their country and communities and the government promises to end their student debt,” said Kat Welbeck, Civil Rights Counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center. “We’ve seen, throughout the 14 years, so many people set back by administrative hurdles and burdens, not knowing they had access to this program or being told they couldn’t get access even though they worked in qualified employment.”

Under the reformed rules, loan servicers count payments that had previously been deemed unacceptable, such as when borrowers mistakenly or unwittingly signed up for non-qualifying plans.

“I think it’s a great incentive, especially for teachers. So many are overworked and underpaid, and they’ve got those loans that they’re still working on,” Martinez said.

The waiver period has been life-changing for loan holders who’ve been able to receive credit toward forgiveness for years they’ve worked in public service after previously being rejected, Welbeck said, describing joyful tears as loan balances drop to zero.

“There are so many more people to reach,” Welbeck added. “And it’s only a year, so we’re operating with a sense of urgency.”

Martinez encourages others to apply during the waiver period, despite the frustration. She says it was worth the time and effort to get the balance of her student loan forgiven.

Borrowers who are currently jobless or not working in public service may still qualify for forgiveness, according to the Department of Education. And the months during the pandemic since March 2020 in which payments on federal loans have been paused count as credits towards the total number of payments required for the program.

The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed new rules for the program that are expected to take effect by July 2023. They would give borrowers more leeway if they’re late on payments or don’t pay in full.

Under the original rules, borrowers must make payments in full within 15 days of the due date to get credit toward their 120 monthly payments. The proposal would relax that, allowing borrowers to make progress even if they’re late or make the payment in multiple installments.

The waiver that expires Oct. 31 was mostly meant to make up for widespread confusion about which types of loans and payment plans are eligible under the program. Some borrowers had made years of payments only to find out they weren’t in an eligible plan or loan program.

The new proposed rules won’t change which loans are eligible, but they aim to provide more flexibility so borrowers don’t lose progress toward forgiveness because of late payments or paperwork problems.

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