“I’m being forgiven on my mother’s loans,” read the email that landed in my inbox ten months ago. “So if you need a track record by May 2023 when I turn 28, please feel free to contact us.”
In the many years that I’ve reported on the sorry state of the federal government lending program, I’ve heard from many student loan borrowers in their 20s who couldn’t navigate the thicket of complex rules and bureaucracy. There are also reports of desperate parents who have often taken on part-time jobs for their children as soldiers, public defenders or teachers who work 60 to 80 hours a week to find their way around the system.
But this email from Arianna Miskin was a first: She was trying to help her mother, Susan Miskin, a retired New York public school teacher, cancel her $92,000 credit. This debt was older than her daughter.
What had given her hope was a temporary waiver from the Biden administration that changed a number of rules that had handicapped her mother.
I admired Arianna’s audacity. Your search moved me. And I wasn’t at all sure that she would make it.
So here’s what happened.
Susan Miskin began borrowing to attend community college and courses at two colleges in the City University of New York system in the late 1980s to earn her bachelor’s degree. To further increase her earning potential, she received her master’s degree from Adelphi, a private university that enabled her to attend school for nine hours every Saturday when she was not working.
Arianna came in the middle of it all, and when she was born, Susan and Arianna’s father had split up. Student loan debt — just over $30,000 in initial loans — paid for a Saturday babysitter in addition to tuition.
For a while, the mother-daughter couple followed this routine: get up at 5 a.m. in Staten Island, out the door at 6 a.m., drop off at 7 a.m. for Arianna in Brooklyn. (“Thank you, Mrs. LaCerra, for letting us. ‘She comes in early and sits in the main office and reads a book before breakfast,'” Susan said. Then, at eight, Susan arrived at the school, where she was a Speech therapist worked.
After that, Susan went to her second job, working with autistic toddlers while her daughter was looked after after school. Pickup was at 7am, sometimes earlier, and then traffic came over the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge back to her home, a modest Huguenot townhouse that Susan had bought in 2004.
The debt repayment process had begun while she was raising Arianna, as had the confusion that so many borrowers have faced over the years. There are different types of loans and each has different interest rates. There are a number of ways to pay them back, different ways to consolidate them, and multiple ways to have the loans called. Different eligibility requirements apply to the cancellation programs and it is not always clear if you meet them. Due to the complexity, incorrect or incomplete information was often provided by the credit brokers’ telephone services.
In the midst of all this, Susan made some decisions that haunted her over and over again. An employee at one of the four companies that serviced her loans suggested consolidating her debt so she could make just one payment each month. Depending on the circumstances, this can be good advice for many people. But after the birth and lack of sleep, she said yes without asking enough questions. As a result, your interest rate went up.
Then, during Arianna’s first 12 years—when expenses were high and Susan’s income had not yet climbed into a more comfortable range—she would often forego her loans when expenses overwhelmed her. During those 86 months, interest rose and the balance grew, even after she started paying again. In the last year, the amount had risen to over $90,000, despite making more than $30,000 in payments.
“I was the stereotypical single mom,” Susan said. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
It’s so easy to question other people’s decisions when you haven’t faced a similar series of suboptimal circumstances yourself. But in case you’re wondering, Susan has taken on mortgage and tax payments to stabilize her housing costs and stay away from unpredictable rents and New York landlords.
She stayed in New York City—after moving to the more affordable outskirts—because that was where her family was, because that was where she received her retirement benefits, and because Arianna eventually got access to a competitive public high school for outstanding students.
child support? She said that early in her career she nearly got fired for spending too many days in court to get more than the tiny amount she collected – and that she paid a fair amount in legal fees for her efforts.
Debtors, in most cases, should repay the debt they willingly accept. But it was voters who brought President George W. Bush into office in 2007 to sign the bill that launched the PSLF program. Similar loan termination programs also exist at the state level, red, blue or purple. Encouraging people to go to class or engage in other work that serves those in need or the nation is common common sense public policy.
However, Susan was not eligible. Among other things, she had the wrong type of loan and the wrong repayment schedule. PSLF has very special rules.
Then Arianna rushed in. Susan told me she was the type of child who could walk and talk by 10 months, use the potty on their own, and hug the bullies when they started crying.
The waivers that the Biden administration introduced last year seemed able to eliminate any confusing issue Susan had. They could give people credit if they paid late and were on the wrong type of credit. And what was particularly helpful to Susan was that they could count the forbearance time against the 120 payments required for the loan cancellation.
Arianna went to work. She spent hours on hold with the four clerks who had managed Susan’s loans. They often sent Arianna back and forth in dizzying circles as she tried to track down deposit records from 10 years or more ago. Gatekeepers wanted her to use fax numbers to send a credential. The fax numbers didn’t work.
Finally, Arianna handed everything over to a final service worker and waited. Months later, while on the phone with her boss in Los Angeles, where she now lives, she received a text message from her mother. It was a photo of the payout letter. The plan Arianna put into action had worked.
Arianna burst into tears. Susan, who had grabbed the mail on the way to the door, held up the letter and cheered with joy in the restaurant’s parking lot, where she was stuck with a flat tire. People stared. She didn’t care.
“I’m just so proud that she didn’t let me give up,” Susan said.
Arianna, who has a master’s degree in public health, has over $100,000 in student loan debt, though Susan juggled loans from two different retirement plans of her own while trying to help Arianna with her tuition. “They say you can’t get a good job if you don’t go to school,” Susan said. “But you can’t get a degree because you can’t afford it. So it’s a vicious circle.”
However, because Arianna works at a nonprofit healthcare organization, she has had nearly a quarter of her own loans canceled through PSLF. Now that Arianna is effectively a certified professional, she’s reasonably comfortable with the debt.
But her mother’s, after a life of sacrifice and a career helping people with harder times than herself, had never worked out well. “I will never repay her for anything she has done for me,” Arianna said. “She always tells me that’s not the point of parenting, but I’ve always wanted to make it somehow.”
Now she has it. It makes a great gift – for herself on her birthday and for Susan on Mother’s Day. Arianna also received a gift in return. Her mother had loaned her $6,000 to cover the cost of moving abroad and the deposit on a rental apartment.
“I told her to keep it,” Susan said. “You saved me $92,000 so this goes to Mom.”