I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, March 24th.

There's good news and some bad news if you have student loans. It depends on who you are.

Yesterday, President Biden reversed a Trump Education Department policy that will allow up to a billion dollars in student loans to now

be written off for students who had been defrauded by for-profit schools. And COVID relief bills

have included suspending interest accrual and payment requirements

for many federal student loans. That's now extended through September. But while those actions

are helping many of the borrowers who are struggling to pay off the sometimes crippling debt

in the sometimes financially crippling pandemic, they don't cover everyone, including at least one of our own here at WNYC.

Maybe you saw the New York Times op-ed last week by Molly Webster, senior correspondent at Radio Lab, the title,

I've spent $60,000 to pay back student loans and owe more than before I began.

She shared her particular story, but it's bigger than one person, and she joins us now to

talk about her story and that of the millions like her ineligible for federal relief.

Hi, Molly.

Hi, Brian.

How are you?

Good.

And you called your student loan debt,

your secret shame. So you want to start at the beginning with what you borrowed and when?

Yes, let's bring the shame to light. Yeah, so basically, I went through undergrad where I got a

degree in biology, and then I went through grad school, where I got a degree in

science journalism, and I came out of those two institutions with $78,000 in loans.

And basically, you get into repayment.

...