Matter of Life and Debt

Who is really to blame for the American student loan crisis and how is it perpetuated? Filmmaker Michael Camoin’s new documentary series Scared to Debt explores and reveals the depths of the American student loan crisis and the seriously flawed lending system that currently keeps borrowers in $1.8 trillion of debt. Nikki received a sneak peek at the first episode of the series. As the founder of V...

After leaving school with no degree and six figures of student debt, Alisha had a long road to her current career as a designer. Read More Transcript 

This week’s guest, writer Ashley Strahm, shares her family’s experience paying for college with Parent PLUS Loans. Read More

This week’s guest, Kate Spaulding, received complete forgiveness of her federal student loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Read More

This week’s guest, Bridget Haile, talks about her work at Summer, which partners with large employers, financial institutions, and unions to help their populations navigate and reduce student loan debt. Read more

This week’s guest, Shanna Bennett, talks about her own experience with student debt as the child of an immigrant and the idea inspired by Paul Newman’s pasta sauce. Read more

This week’s guest, NYU professor Andrew Ross, talks about the history of the student debt crisis and the current movement of the Debt Collective to organize and advocate for debt abolition. Read More

This week’s guest, comedian Drew Beekler, talks about his own comedy of errors with student loan debt and scam education. Read more

This week’s guest, law enforcement professional Alicia Davis, talks about her multi-year journey to discharge her fraudulent for-profit student loans through the Borrower’s Defense to repayment. Read More

Our guest this week, government lawyer and poet Hil Kaman, talks about his journey to getting cancelation through the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Read more

In this week’s mini-episode, returning guest Umme Hoque, Organizing Director of The Debt Collective, talks about the recent student debt cancellation week of action. Umme discusses how the movement to cancel student debt is building pressure on President Biden to take action, and it's working. She also gives us an update on the memo Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona is writing to President Bid...

Umme Hoque, Organizing Director of The Debt Collective, talks to Nikki about how, after taking on student debt she became disillusioned with the American Dream. She now works for complete student debt cancelation as well as a radical overhaul of the American education system. Read More

This week’s guest, Melissa Byrne, is back on the podcast  to tell us more about her advocacy work towards student debt cancellation, and the latest news from Washington on the federal student loan and crisis. Read More

After struggling with her own student loan debt, this week’s guest, Briana B. Franklin, started a nonprofit called The Prosp(A)rity Project that wants to alleviate student loan debt for all black women. Read More

In this episode of Matter of Life and Debt, our guest, EDI Professional Emma Klauber explains why she started her publication shame[less] to destigmatize student loan debt. Read More

This week’s podcast guest Melissa Byrne is a senior political and community organizer focusing on canceling student debt and making education free for all. Read More

This week’s guest, Winter, an organizer for the Debt Collective, talks about the six-figures of student debt and the emotional breakdown that led him eventually to a life devoted to student debt activism. Read More

In this episode of Matter of Life and Debt, student loan activist Eli Campbell tells Nikki what he has learned about SLABS, why he is a good candidate for debt striking and what he thinks is the future of student loans in the United States. Read More

After 15 years of making the minimum payments on her student loans, Ro Fainstein now finds herself with the same amount of debt as she started with: $40,000. In protest she has stopped paying her loans. Read More

After life threw them a series of curveballs, this week’s guest got a job that allowed them to pay off their student debt from undergrad, as well as graduate school in cash. Read More

This week on the podcast we talk to Tameka Vasquez, strategist, educator and futurist. She explains how the financial concerns around paying off her loans dictated the course of her career from Journalism to Business major. Read More

On this week’s episode, artist Forrest Gerke tells host Nikki Nolan how he was able to leave school without any debt. Read More

After taking out six figures in loans to attend law school, an anonymous government lawyer explains that her more than a quarter of a million dollars in loans may not qualify for public service forgiveness, she is hoping it will. Read More

After accumulating six figures worth of student loan debt from art school, artist and writer Sarah Thibault shares the financial fall out that still affects her decades later, as well as how she stays optimistic despite it. Read More

Chef Ronny Miranda shares his experiences leaving college with more student debt than he bargained for, participating in two class-action lawsuits against Sallie Mae, and his skepticism about higher education in the United States. Read More