Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Meet a man with $47,000 in student debt who's been trapped in a student-loan repayment 'bureaucracy nightmare' for nearly 3 decades without the debt cancellation he was promised

Meet a man with $47,000 in student debt who's been trapped in a student-loan repayment 'bureaucracy nightmare' for nearly 3 decades without the debt cancellation he was promised

Jason Harmon qualified for student-loan forgiveness 2 years ago — but his paperwork is missing, and he's stuck in repayment for at least 9 more years.
In 1995, Jason Harmon graduated from the University of Arkansas with $26,000 in student debt, and he enrolled in a 25-year income-driven repayment plan.

The plan, along with others that have collectively enrolled millions borrowers over the years, was designed to keep his loan payments manageable by pegging them to his earnings each year. After the quarter century passed, any lingering balance was to be forgiven.

Twenty-seven years later, Harmon now holds a $47,000 student-loan balance and still has an estimated nine more years of repayment, and that's thanks to accrued interest on top of yearslong servicer mismanagement of student-loan repayment plans based on income. On top of it all, his wife — who he married in 2004 — also holds a debt load of nearly $200,000.

"We are literally crushed by this debt," Harmon, 53, told Insider. "This loan's never going away. We could have no vehicles, we could have a rental instead of a mortgage, we could cut most things out of our life, and we still wouldn't touch the debt we have."

Harmon said he had every intention of paying off the debt that he borrowed, but at the time, the repayment plan established under President Bill Clinton — known as the income-contingent repayment plan — seemed like the best option for him because he was not making sufficient income as a journalist. Then, the 2008 recession hit and he lost his journalism job, and Harmon said he has been unable to maintain meaningful employment since then. He now works as a fishing guide in Arkansas and brings in only a small income.

Despite the employment hurdles, Harmon said he remained consistent on his monthly student-loan payments. But issues arose when his loans were transferred to a new student-loan company and progress that he made toward his payments were lost, pushing back his repayment timeline by nearly a decade.

He said he just wanted the loan forgiveness he signed up for so he and his wife — whose income they mainly rely on — wouldn't have monthly bills hanging over their heads for the foreseeable future.

"I don't think I'm ever going to pay this debt off in my whole life," Harmon said. "And it's crippling psychologically in the sense that it's a physical manifestation of your dreams not working out. And I don't think the government should earn interest off the dreams of its citizens."

'I was in this bureaucracy nightmare'

Harmon thought the terms of the income-contingent plan he agreed to under Clinton were simple. He would send in paperwork once a year verifying his income, and he would make the monthly payments the Education Department calculated for him for 25 years, with loan forgiveness at the end.

But he couldn't have foreseen the challenges that arose in 2013, when his loans were transferred to the student-loan company MOHELA. After he was notified of the transfer, Harmon said, he was instructed to select a new version of the income-driven repayment plan he had been on for 18 years, and when he later contacted the company to ask about loan forgiveness it said some of his paperwork was missing, pushing him off track.

"Suddenly, I was in this bureaucracy nightmare where any question I had didn't go anywhere — any time I needed help it was a never-ending phone tree where I'm just being transferred from one person to another," Harmon said.

An NPR investigation from April delivered proof of paperwork issues with the types of plans people like Harmon were on. NPR obtained internal documents indicating that three student-loan companies — PHEAA, CornerStone, and MOHELA — weren't tracking payments borrowers made over the past two decades for their income-driven repayment plans.

And a student-loan worker who helped enroll borrowers in a 2007 version of the repayment plan previously described the paperwork to Insider as "overly" complicated.

'The government is not fulfilling its obligation'

US lawmakers are aware of failures with income-driven repayment plans. After NPR's investigation came out, Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House education committee, said the findings were "worse than we expected," and the ranking member of the committee, Rep. Virginia Foxx, later said the program "turned out to be a complete disaster and taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for these mistakes."

A report from the Government Accountability Office in April expanded on the plans' failures. It found that the department had approved just 157 loans for full forgiveness under income-driven repayment plans, with 7,700 more loans "potentially eligible" for forgiveness.

Following revelations of the plans' failures, the Education Department in April announced temporary reforms meant to bring 3.6 million borrowers who were on income-driven plans closer to relief. Additionally, along with announcing up to $20,000 in broad student-loan forgiveness for federal borrowers at the end of August, the Education Department also released plans for a new income-driven repayment plan that would lower borrowes' monthly payments.

While Harmon agrees these reforms are warranted, he said that they were long overdue — and that failures to address them had changed the trajectory of his life.

"I never wanted a free ride and was always willing to repay my original loan balance, but the government is not fulfilling its obligation," he said. "This debt is a trap that prevented us from having children or enjoying life together as a married couple for decades."
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×