Grad programs have been a cash cow; now universities are starting to fret over graduate enrollment

Friends:

Check out this recent Hechinger Report on graduate degrees and programs in the U.S. Despite a brief enrollment rebound in 2023, we are witnessing that domestic student numbers are declining, with international students now driving most growth. This is some extent an artificat, I believe, of the growing economic divide that is playing out currently within all communities regardless of race or ethnicity. College is simply very expensive and student debt is crushing for the working and lower middle classes.  High tuition, rising debt, and uncertain returns on investment have made prospective students circumspect about getting a master's or doctoral degree. 

So unfortunate since it's such a gift and privilege to be able to pursue one's intellectual passions in and with one's life.

Experts warn that continued enrollment declines could create workforce shortages in fields requiring advanced degrees. Yet, the issue has received less attention compared to falling undergraduate numbers. Universities are now racing to adapt, balancing financial sustainability with evolving student demands.

They're also having to manage the recklessness of a Trump-Musk administration that is disfiguring American higher education, as we speak (see earlier post, "NIH Budget Cuts Are the ‘Apocalypse of American Science,’ Experts Say, Time Magazine.") Aside from the courts, the only thing that will save us are the midterm elections taking place in approximately 17 months.

-Angela Valenzuela

Grad programs have been a cash cow; now universities are starting to fret over graduate enrollment

by Jon Marcus, June 10, 2024 | Hechinger Report



Emily Sharkey, executive director of MBA admissions and recruiting, and Peter Severa, assistant dean for MBA student engagement, at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business. Adding a designation in science, technology, engineering and math “seemed like a natural fit, and we were seeing some of our competitors doing it,” Severa says. Credit: Terrell Clark for The Hechinger Report

ATLANTA — Two construction cranes hover over a giant worksite just outside the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology.



What they’re building is both a show of optimism in and a way to attract more students to something universities badly need but are beginning to worry about: graduate education.

The $200 million project will house Scheller’s graduate and executive business programs in one tower, connected to Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering in another. Linking graduate business programs with other disciplines has proven to increase demand; Scheller has already added a science, technology, engineering and math designation to its master’s program in business administration, with a resulting bump in applications, the school says.

At a university focused on technology, doing this “seemed like a natural fit, and we were seeing some of our competitors doing it,” said Peter Severa, Scheller’s assistant dean for MBA student engagement, in a conference room overlooking the construction site.

It’s also a kind of enticement that’s become essential in response to signs that, after years of increase, the graduate enrollment on which universities heavily rely for revenue may be softening as prospective students question the cost of grad school and as shorter, cheaper and more flexible alternatives pop up.

“What we’re seeing now is a combination of a leveling off and a big question mark as to where this long-term trend will go,” said Brian McKenzie, director of research at the Council of Graduate Schools.

Unlike undergraduate enrollment, which has been on a steady decline, graduate enrollment has gone up over the last decade. Undergraduate numbers fell by 15 percent between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, while graduate enrollment grew by 9 percent. That was fueled in part by a change in 2007 that let graduate students borrow up to the full cost of their educations, unlike undergraduates, who can borrow only a limited amount.

Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter

This growth made graduate programs a lucrative source of revenue for universities. To cash in, private, nonprofit, bachelor’s degree-granting universities and colleges in particular vastly expanded their graduate offerings, listing more than three times as many by 2021 as they had in 2005, according to research conducted at the University of Tennessee.

It seemed a good bet. Not even the pandemic slowed the increase in graduate enrollment. It reached its highest level ever in 2021, as workers who had been laid off or furloughed opted to get graduate degrees. Then, in 2022, it fell.

A new building for Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business under construction beside the existing school. The complex will also house the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Linking graduate business schools to other programs has proven to increase demand. Credit: Terrell Clark for The Hechinger Report

There was a slight rebound in the fall of 2023. But that was largely driven by an increase in master’s degree enrollment at public as opposed to private, nonprofit universities and in the number of international students, who have quietly come to constitute much of the growth at graduate schools. Among domestic students, graduate enrollment was starting to decline.

Sheer population trends helped drive graduate enrollment during the last decade, with an increase in the number of Americans who are candidates for it — ages 25 to 44, with bachelor’s degrees.

But even as there are more of those 25- to 44-year-old candidates for graduate education, the proportion of them who actually go has started to erode. It’s down from 8.4 percent to 6.5 percent over the last 10 years, the higher education research and advisory firm Eduventures found.

“If that continues, and you see a slowing in the underlying population growth, then we’re starting to talk about some challenges,” said Clint Raine, senior analyst at Eduventures.

That’s because of a looming decline in the number of 18-year-olds beginning next year, which is projected to take another big toll on undergraduate enrollment. Basic math suggests that it will eventually hit graduate programs, too.

Continue reading here.

This story about graduate enrollment was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

Redefining Value in Higher Education: Prioritizing Equitable Access and Economic Mobility Over Selectivity, by Inside Higher Education

Friends,

This promises to be a very important conversation about the image folks have about higher education and whether they should pursue one in light of return on investment, student debt, attacks on diversity, test-optional admissions and the like. I'm pleased to say that my colleague at UT Austin, Dr. Denisa Gándara will be one of the presenters. If you plan on attending, I encourage you to download the Bill and Melinda Gates downloadable manuscript together with the article they recommend we all read posted below. 

You can register here: https://bit.ly/3AeZNni 

Angela Valenzuela

Discover innovative ways key stakeholders are working to ensure postsecondary education remains a powerful driver of both economic and non-economic value.

Inside Higher Ed is pleased to release today, “Redefining Value in Higher Education: Prioritizing Equitable Access and Economic Mobility Over Selectivity,” our latest booklet. Download and explore the free booklet by clicking on the “Download” button above. 

Also, sign up for the free, companion webcast that further examines the booklet’s themes, to be held Wednesday, August 7, 2024, at 2 p.m. E.T.

Doubts About Value Are Deterring College Enrollment

Survey data suggests that prospective learners are being dissuaded from college by skepticism about whether degrees are worth the time and money.

By  Jessica Blake

Higher education experts have been concerned about an “exodus” from higher education since long before pandemic-exacerbated enrollment declines.

ferrantraite/Getty Images

Enrollment has been declining in higher education for more than a decade, and the most common explanations in recent years have been lingering effects of the pandemic and a looming demographic cliff expected to shrink the number of traditional-aged college students. But new research suggests that public doubts about the value of a college degree are a key contributor.

The study—conducted by Edge Research, a marketing research firm, and HCM Strategists, a public policy and advocacy consulting firm with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—uses focus groups and parallel national surveys of current high school students and of adults who decided to leave college or who didn’t go at all to link the value proposition of a college degree and Americans’ behaviors after high school.

“At the end of the day, higher education has a lot of work to do to convince these audiences of its value,” said Terrell Dunn, an HCM consultant.

But college leaders shouldn’t be without hope, she added: While Americans are skeptical, they’re persuadable.

“[Potential students] are pretty rational in weighing their opportunity costs,” Dunn said. “They’re saying, ‘I can pursue shorter and cheaper options, and still get a good job.’ So higher ed has to figure out how to explain why what they’re offering is better.”

Benefits Remain, Confidence Declines

The new report, based on data collected in 2023, builds on the findings of a similar report released the year before. The most significant addition to the latest study was a survey of about 1,700 high school juniors and seniors, which provided first-time insights into the thoughts of traditional-aged college students. The survey also included more than 3,100 nonenrolled adults ages 18 to 30.

The majority of respondents from both age groups still see the benefits of gaining a two- or four-year college degree. At least two-thirds of respondents characterized the ability to make more money, get a better job, train for a specific career or have increased job security as “somewhat or very important” reasons to get a degree.

But when compared to results from last year, the rates of perceived importance went down across the board—some by as much as six percentage points. Nonenrolled adults were generally about 10 percentage points less likely to have confidence in the benefits of a college degree than high schoolers were.

A Flourish chart

Just as confidence in the value of two- and four-year degrees dipped, the perceived value of on-the-job training as well as shorter-term licensure or certificate programs rose. While 58 percent of high schoolers and 51 percent of nonenrolled adults in 2023 believed you must have a college degree to earn a “good job,” 69 percent and 65 percent, respectively, believed a certification was enough. 

Public belief in the power of a certification outweighed that of a college degree in 2022 as well, but the gap between the two grew from 9 percentage points in 2022 to 14 percentage points in the new survey.

A Flourish chart

Consistent Concerns

The biggest concerns that seem to be holding potential students back include the fear of taking on debt, a general lack of interest in schooling, insufficient return on investment, overall stress levels and an uncertainty about the future.

Adam Burns, a principal at Edge Research, said that although the core concerns remain the same regardless of age, they play out differently for high schoolers than for adult nonenrollees.

High schoolers feel most prepared in the “precollege phase,” when they first start to explore the possibility of college and submit applications. He attributes much of this to the cultural norm that college is the next step after high school for many—and the support they have from school counselors. But when it comes to actually paying for and attending college, that’s when students tend to lose confidence and fall off track.

“They are right in the middle of that orbit of college information,” Burns said. “But they're very uncertain that they’re going to be making the right choice … They really are having a difficult time understanding the finances behind that college decision.”

Nonenrollees, on the other hand, don’t have college counselors (or helicopter parents) sharing information with them about their college options and have to weigh their college-going uncertainties alongside other factors.

“They have the greater opportunity cost of taking this step, especially if they currently have a job or other family obligations, making that choice is a bit more perilous.”

Solutions Lie in Changing the Narrative

Patrick Methvin, director of postsecondary success at the Gates Foundation, noted that higher education experts may know empirically that college degrees often contribute to socioeconomic mobility. “But unfortunately, students aren’t getting their information from the same economists we’re listening to,” Methvin said.

High school students’ top two sources of information about college were school counselors and parents, and therefore the things they heard about college are mainly positive. Adults listed Google searches and social media as their top guides, leading to a widely negative perception.

“What they are hearing is things like the Supreme Court decision on race conscious admissions and DEI attacks, deliberation on test optional and legacy admissions, and … crippling student loan debt,” he added. “Those things add up to questions, candidly, from Americans about their faith in higher education.”

The survey data showed that the narrative prospective students hear can greatly influence their likelihood to pursue a college degree, so the researchers suggest it’s time for colleges to step up and give students access to quality advising, rather than social media threads, to base their decisions on.

Four of the report’s top six suggestions for colleges moving forward involved giving prospective and current students expert advising in academic, financial and postgraduate career success. The other two included eliminating the accrual of student debt for anyone attending community college programs and providing more dual-enrollment opportunities to help students save time and money.

The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create A Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”

Friends:

Check out this excellent piece on this history of student tuition and student debt. Readers may be surprised to read that 

"Student debt...played a minor role in American life through the 1960s, increased during the Reagan administration and then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems." 

This piece takes us back to a historical moment during the Nixon Administration where charging college tuition, though disguised as cost-saving, was ideologically about college's not creating a dangerous "educated proletariat." Today, this rhetoric would get cast as "anti-Wokism," illustrating how the very same elitist politics reinvent themselves as weapons against not just the working, but also the aspiring, middle class.

Today, some act as if student tuition were ordained by God when the historical record shows it as an artifact of ultra-conservative politicians' views of the late 1960s and early 1970s where they felt threatened by the existence of a well-educated populace.

We need a total re-think of higher education today where higher education is a right, as opposed to a privilege, not unlike K-12 schooling. Moreover, it should be viewed positively, as the constructive force that it has largely been—both for individuals and society, as a whole. For this, we must all vote for candidates amenable to such proposals as canceling student debt and College for All. Here is one such proposal: H.R.2861 - America’s College Promise Act of 2021 Also check out this piece in Newsweek by Dr. Denisa Gándara.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court recently striking down Biden's student debt plan (Stratfor, Gerstein, & Frazier, 2023), we need to support Biden's decision to use the Higher Education Act as a vehicle for canceling this debt (Bazail Eimil, 2023). A helpful resource in the struggle is The Debt Collective https://debtcollective.org/, an organization that is calling for debt abolition and relief, and holding the U.S. Department of Education accountable for the student debt crisis.

Thanks to Dr. Kevin Kumashiro for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela 

#CollegeForAll #CancelStudentDebt 

References

Bazail Eimil, E. (2023, June 30). White House pushes forward on student loan forgiveness in wake of SCOTUS ruling, Politico.

Gándara, D. Now Let's Make College Free | Opinion, Newsweek

H.R.2861 - America’s College Promise Act of 2021

Stratford, M. Gerstein, J. & Frazier, K. (2023, June 30) Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student debt relief plan

Gov. Ronald Reagan explains his requested shutdown of California’s higher education system in Sacramento, Calif. on May 6, 1970. Photo: Bettmann Archive

THE ORIGIN OF STUDENT DEBT: REAGAN ADVISER WARNED FREE COLLEGE WOULD CREATE A 

DANGEROUS “EDUCATED PROLETARIAT”

In 1970, Roger Freeman, who also worked for Nixon, revealed the right’s motivation for coming decades of attacks on higher education.

by John Schwartz | Aug. 25, 2022 | The Intercept

WITH THE vociferous debate over President Joe Biden’s announcement that the federal government will cancel a portion of outstanding student debt, it’s important to understand how Americans came to owe the current cumulative total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education.

In 1970, Ronald Reagan was running for reelection as governor of California. He had first won in 1966 with confrontational rhetoric toward the University of California public college system and executed confrontational policies when in office. In May 1970, Reagan had shut down all 28 UC and Cal State campuses in the midst of student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. On October 29, less than a week before the election, his education adviser Roger A. Freeman spoke at a press conference to defend him.

Freeman’s remarks were reported the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Professor Sees Peril in Education.” According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].”

“If not,” Freeman continued, “we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.” Freeman also said — taking a highly idiosyncratic perspective on the cause of fascism —“that’s what happened in Germany. I saw it happen.”

Freeman was born in 1904 in Vienna, Austria, and emigrated to the United States after the rise of Hitler. An economist who became a longtime fixture in conservative politics, he served on the White House staff during both the Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon administrations. In 1970 he was seconded from the Nixon administration to work on Reagan’s campaign. He was also a senior fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution. In one of his books, he asked “can Western Civilization survive” what he believed to be excessive government spending on education, Social Security, etc.

A core theme of Reagan’s first gubernatorial campaign in 1966 was resentment toward California’s public colleges, in particular UC Berkeley, with Reagan repeatedly vowing “to clean up the mess” there. Berkeley, then nearly free to attend for California residents, had become a national center of organizing against the Vietnam War. Deep anxiety about this reached the highest levels of the U.S. government. John McCone, the head of the CIA, requested a meeting with J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, to discuss “communist influence” at Berkeley, a situation that “definitely required some corrective action.”

During the 1966 campaign, Reagan regularly communicated with the FBI about its concerns about Clark Kerr, the president of the entire University of California system. Despite requests from Hoover, Kerr had not cracked down on Berkeley protesters. Within weeks of Reagan taking office, Kerr was fired. A subsequent FBI memo stated that Reagan was “dedicated to the destruction of disruptive elements on California campuses.”

Reagan pushed to cut state funding for California’s public colleges but did not reveal his ideological motivation. Rather, he said, the state simply needed to save money. To cover the funding shortfall, Reagan suggested that California public colleges could charge residents tuition for the first time. This, he complained, “resulted in the almost hysterical charge that this would deny educational opportunities to those of the most moderate means. This is obviously untrue. … We made it plain that tuition must be accompanied by adequate loans to be paid back after graduation.”

The success of Reagan’s attacks on California public colleges inspired conservative politicians across the U.S. Nixon decried “campus revolt.” Spiro Agnew, his vice president, proclaimed that thanks to open admissions policies, “unqualified students are being swept into college on the wave of the new socialism.”

Prominent conservative intellectuals also took up the charge. Privately one worried that free education “may be producing a positively dangerous class situation” by raising the expectations of working-class students. Another referred to college students as “a parasite feeding on the rest of society” who exhibited a “failure to understand and to appreciate the crucial role played [by] the reward-punishment structure of the market.” The answer was “to close off the parasitic option.”

In practice, this meant to the National Review, a “system of full tuition charges supplemented by loans which students must pay out of their future income.”

In retrospect, this period was the clear turning point in America’s policies toward higher education. For decades, there had been enthusiastic bipartisan agreement that states should fund high-quality public colleges so that their youth could receive higher education for free or nearly so. That has now vanished. In 1968, California residents paid a $300 yearly fee to attend Berkeley, the equivalent of about $2,000 now. Now tuition at Berkeley is $15,000, with total yearly student costs reaching almost $40,000.

Student debt, which had played a minor role in American life through the 1960s, increased during the Reagan administration and then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.

That brings us to today. Biden’s actions, while positive, are merely a Band-Aid on a crisis 50 years in the making. In 1822, founding father James Madison wrote to a friend that “the liberal appropriations made by the Legislature of Kentucky for a general system of Education cannot be too much applauded. … Enlightened patriotism … is now providing for the State a Plan of Education embracing every class of Citizens.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance,” Madison explained, “and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Freeman and Reagan and their compatriots agreed with Madison’s perspective but wanted to prevent Americans from gaining this power. If we want to take another path, the U.S. will have to recover a vision of a well-educated populace not as a terrible threat, but as a positive force that makes the nation better for everyone — and so should largely be paid for by all of us.

Super helpful information here on loan forgiveness, a plan, that despite some Republicans' efforts, will go forward. Applying should take no more than a half hour. It takes 4-6 weeks to process. This is such great timely opportunity for folks buried in student debts, especially considering the difficult economy we're experiencing.

-Angela Valenzuela

Everything to know to apply for student loan forgiveness

The application process is now open. Some Republican-led states have filed lawsuits to try to stop the cancellation, but the Biden administration says they’re confident the challenges won’t succeed.

President Joe Biden speaks about the student debt relief portal beta test in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Monday, Oct. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)(Susan Walsh / ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By The Associated Press

3:09 PM on Oct 19, 2022 — Updated at 3:47 PM on Oct 19, 2022

NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. announced in August, will cancel up to $20,000 in debt per borrower. The application process is now open, and the administration says the forms should take five minutes to complete.

Borrowers who apply before mid-November should see forgiveness before Jan. 1, when payments on loans are scheduled to restart after a pause during the pandemic. Some Republican-led states have filed lawsuits to try to stop the cancellation, but the Biden administration says they’re confident the challenges won’t succeed.

Here’s how to apply, and everything else you need to know:

Who qualifies for student loan forgiveness?

You qualify to have up to $10,000 forgiven if your loan is held by the Department of Education and you make less than $125,000 individually or $250,000 for a family. If you received Pell grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, you can have up to $20,000 forgiven. If you are a current borrower and a dependent student, you will be eligible for relief based on your parents’ income, rather than your own.

One major lingering question is what will happen to students with commercially held FFEL loans who didn’t refinance before Sept. 29. At the moment those loans are not eligible (even though they were initially going to be eligible). The administration has said it’s looking for “additional legally-available options to provide relief” to those borrowers, but nothing has been announced yet.

How do I apply for loan forgiveness?

Go to studentaid.gov and in the section on student loan debt relief, click “Apply Now.”

Be ready to type in some basic personal information. The form asks for: name, Social Security Number, date of birth, phone number and email address. It does not require documentation about your income or your student loans.

Next, review the eligibility rules and confirm that you’re a match. For most people, that means attesting that they make less than $125,000 a year or that their household makes less than $250,000 a year. If you meet the eligibility rules, click the box confirming that everything you provided is true.

Click “Submit.”

How long will it take to receive forgiveness?

After the form is submitted, the Biden administration says it should take four to six weeks to process. The Education Department will use its existing records to make sure your loans are eligible and to look for applicants who might exceed the income limits. Some will be asked to provide additional documentation to prove their incomes. The Education Department estimates that the verification application will take about half an hour, including time to review and upload tax documents.

Most borrowers who apply before mid-November should expect to get their debt canceled before Jan. 1, when payments on federal student loans are scheduled to restart after a pause during the pandemic.

Will student loan forgiveness definitely happen?

Things could get more complicated, depending on the outcomes of several legal challenges. The Biden administration faces a growing number of lawsuits attempting to block the program, including one filed by six Republican-led states.

A federal judge in St. Louis is currently weighing the states’ request for an injunction to halt the plan. Biden on Monday said he’s confident that the suit will not upend the plan. “Our legal judgment is that it won’t,” he said, “but they’re trying to stop it.”

A group of Wisconsin taxpayers asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to block the program from taking effect, Bloomberg Law reported.

The emergency filing from the Brown County Taxpayers Association seeks to keep the plan on hold while the group’s legal challenge goes forward. Bloomberg News reported the Supreme Court has ruled in the past people generally don’t have the right to take the federal government to court over how tax dollars are spent.

Has the student loan payment freeze been extended?

The payment freeze has been extended one last time, until Dec. 31. The freeze started in 2020 as a way to help people struggling financially during the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s been extended several times since. It was set to expire Aug. 31.

Interest rates will remain at 0% until repayments start. Under an earlier extension announced in April, people who were behind on payments before the pandemic automatically will be put in good standing.

Does graduate student debt qualify?

Yes, federal student loans taken out to cover graduate degrees qualify for forgiveness.

What if my student loan balance includes a lot of interest?

The interest itself is considered part of the balance for purposes of this program. Forgiveness will remove $10,000 from the total balance you owe.

Will I have to pay taxes on the amount I’m forgiven?

At least a few states have said they plan to tax the forgiveness, including Indiana and Mississippi, and it’s unclear whether some others will change their tax rules to exclude forgiven student debt. Previously, Congress eliminated taxes on loan forgiveness through 2025.

Do parent plus loans qualify?

Parent Plus loans are included in the forgiveness plan, subject to the same $250,000 income cap for families that applies to the rest of cancellation.

Parent Plus loans differ from other federal education loans in that they can go towards covering expenses other than tuition, such as books, and room and board for college students. As of March 2022, parents of 3.6 million students owe more than $107 billion in Parent Plus loans, according to the Department of Education. That represents about 6% of the total amount of federal student debt held by Americans.

If a parent received a Parent Plus loan on behalf of a student and the same student received a direct loan, both would receive relief, as the cancellation is on a per-borrower, not a per-student basis. That means that each person who has Education Department-held federal student loans and meets the income requirements qualifies for cancellation.

What’s a Pell grant and how do I know if I have one?

Roughly 27 million borrowers who qualified for Pell grants will be eligible to receive up to $20,000 in forgiveness under the Biden plan.

Pell grants are special government scholarships for lower-income Americans, who currently can receive up to $6,895 annually for roughly six years.

Nearly every Pell Grant recipient came from a family that made less than $60,000 a year, according to the Department of Education, which said Pell grant recipients typically experience more challenges repaying their debt than other borrowers.

Pell grants themselves don’t generally have to be paid back, but recipients typically take out additional student loans.

“This additional relief for Pell borrowers is also an important piece of racial equity in cancellation,” said Kat Welbeck, Civil Rights Counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center. “Because student debt exacerbates existing inequities, the racial wealth gap means that students of color, especially those that are Black and Latino, are more likely to come from low-wealth households, have student debt, and borrow in higher quantities.”

To find out if you have a Pell grant, check any emails you’ve received that describe your FAFSA award.

How many people will this help?

About 43 million Americans have federal student debt, with an average balance of $37,667, according to federal data. A third of those owe less than $10,000. Half owe less than $20,000. The total amount of federal student debt is more than $1.6 trillion.

What if I’ve already paid off my student loans — will I see relief?

If you’ve voluntarily made payments since March 2020, when payments were paused, you can request a refund for those payments, according to the Federal Office of Student Aid. Contact your loan servicer to request a refund.

What repayment plan is the Department of Education proposing?

The Department of Education has proposed a repayment plan that would cap monthly payments at no more than 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income, down from 10% now. Borrowers will need to apply for the repayment plan if it’s approved, which could take a year or more.

For example, under the proposal, a single borrower making $38,000 a year would pay $31 a month, according a government press release.

The amount considered non-discretionary income will also be increased, through the department has not said how much.

Discretionary income usually refers to what you have left after covering necessities like food and rent, but for student loan repayment purposes it’s calculated using a formula that takes into account the difference between a borrower’s annual income and the federal poverty line, along with family size and geographic location.

“What’s tough about income-driven repayment is that it does not take into account your other liabilities, such as your rent payment,” said Kristen Ahlenius, a financial counselor at Your Money Line, which provides financial literacy training. “If someone’s living paycheck to paycheck and their rent is taking up half of their paycheck and then their car payment takes the other, they have to choose. Unfortunately, income-driven repayment doesn’t take that into consideration, but it is an option.”

Student Debt Relief offers a calculator to help determine your discretionary income.

What if I can’t afford to pay even with loan forgiveness?

Once payments resume, borrowers who can’t pay risk delinquency and eventually default. That can hurt your credit rating and mean you’re not eligible for additional aid.

If you’re struggling to pay, check if you qualify for an income-driven repayment plan. You can find out more here.

The Biden plan also includes a proposal that would allow people with undergraduate loans to cap repayment at 5% of their monthly income. Proposals like this one can take a year or more to be implemented, and it’s not clear what the fine print will be.

If you have worked for a government agency or a non-profit organization, you could also be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which you can read more about here.

The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.

By CORA LEWIS and ADRIANA MORGA Associated Press. Collin Binkley contributed to this report from Washington.