Paying for Graduate School Is Going To Get Harder

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Going to graduate school has never been cheap. But sweeping new changes to the federal loan system – which will now have caps on how much you can borrow – may make it even harder. What do these changes mean for aspiring nurses, teachers, doctors and lawyers — and could they reshape who gets to pursue advanced degrees in America? We’ll talk about student loans, and look at the broader landscape, from income-driven repayment overhauls to the future of public service forgiveness. Guests: Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director, Protect Borrowers, an advocacy group focused on policy solutions for debt issues facing consumers Jordan Matsudaira, professor at the School of Public Affairs, American University; Matsudaira served as Deputy Undersecretary and Chief Economist at the Department of Education during the Biden Administration Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions, University of San Francisco Jessica Blake, policy reporter, Inside Higher Ed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:55.6	From KQED.
0:59.2	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:02.2	Look, higher education has gotten too expensive. I think just about everyone agrees on that.
1:06.4	And there are many fields where it's highly unlikely that an expensive graduate education will
1:12.0	make easy economic sense like in say social work or journalism the patchwork over
1:19.2	this difficult situation has been an array of federal loan programs which have now
1:23.7	been scrambled and overhauled by the Trump administration today we're going to talk about these reforms and other prospective changes.
1:30.4	To the student loan landscape, we're joined by Jordan Matsudaira, who's a professor and director of the post-secondary education and economics research center at the School of Public Affairs at American University, a former deputy undersecretary and chief
1:45.8	economist at the Department of Education during the Biden administration. Welcome, Jordan.
1:51.3	Hi, Alexis. Thanks for having me. Yeah, great to have you. We also have Aisa Contola Banjas,
1:56.1	whose policy director at Protect Borrowers, that's an advocacy group focused on issues of debt. Welcome.
2:03.3	Thank you so much. And we've got Jessica Blake, a policy reporter with Inside Higher Ed. Welcome, Jessica.
2:10.6	Thanks for having me. Yeah. Jessica, let's start with you. I mean, there's these changes to the federal
	...

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