South, southwest suburban borrowers prepare to repay student loans following pandemic pause

Nicole Williams, 34, a 2007 graduate of Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, said resuming student loan payments means it will take her longer to pay off her mortgage.

Venessa Johnson, 61, who graduated from Prairie State College in Chicago Heights in 2022, said she, like many others, was initially scared to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse at the thought of having to pay back student loans.

“You try not to think about it, but it’s always at the forefront of your mind,” Johnson said.

Student loan payments resumed this month after a nearly three and a half year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interest on the loans started accruing in September and payments resumed Oct. 1.

Williams said she graduated from Wittenberg University in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and a minor in marine science. Then, in 2014, she received her master’s degree in marine science from Hawai’i Pacific University.

Williams said she had about $30,000 in student loans. At the time of the pause, she said she still owed about $15,000.

During the pandemic, Williams had a full-time job working for a global nonprofit that focuses on making science open, inclusive and accessible, and she decided to make a few payments toward her loans. But Williams said she was laid off in March and her next position didn’t come until June, when she worked for a few months as a consultant for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

When her consultant position ended so did unemployment checks, Williams said. In the mean time, Williams said she accepted a part-time job with Black Girl Environmentalist that started this month

Williams said she owes about $11,000 in student loans and her monthly payments are scheduled at $277 a month.

“Which is not bad, but me and my husband, we have a mortgage, we have utility payments. There’s just lots of things being due. Adding another $277 a month, it’s just too much. If we could not have to pay that, that would be great,” she said.

Williams said she filed a request, and her loan payments were deferred to December but interest will still accrue. Come December, she said she’s feeling mostly confident about making the payments given her new job.

Johnson said she graduated from Prairie State College with more than $20,000 in student loan debt, and she’s attending Indiana University Northwest to get her bachelor of science in nursing. It will cost Johnson about $30,000 a year to get her bachelor’s degree, she said, so she’ll finish her studies with about $150,000 in student loan debt.

After graduation, Johnson said she hopes to work as a nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Johnson said she’s now on disability.

“I’m on a fixed income. Paying $400 a month isn’t feasible for me,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she was looking forward to the Biden administration’s announcement that $10,000 in student loans would be forgiven. He said he was disappointed when the U.S. Supreme Court shut that down.

The U.S. should offer tuition-free education through a bachelor’s degree, Johnson said, and any degree higher than that could require student loans. That would give more people the opportunity to pursue higher education and get higher paying jobs, she said.

“They want to keep you where you are. If you try to climb up, you’re going to pay for that climb,” Johnson said.

The burden of student loan debt disproportionately affects students of color and their families because of the racial wealth gap, Williams said. People of color have fewer social economic resources, less parental and generational wealth, lower home equity and smaller savings, which means people of color have to take out student loan payments to pursue higher education, she said.

“We’re forced to take on more debt and we’re just not able to come up for air. We’re always paying these loans and it seems like its just unending. We take on more debt, which means we cannot build wealth,” Williams said.

Kyle Bak, 31, graduated from Northern Illinois University in 2014 with $38,000 in student loan debt. Bak has said while making monthly payments of about $250, by 2018 his loan increased to $44,000 because of interest.

Last year, he paid down his student loan debt to $16,000, Bak said. On Wednesday, Bak said his student loan increased to $43,000 after he decided to take back $20,000 he paid during the pandemic.

Bak, a 2010 Lockport Township High School graduate, said he decided to use that $20,000 to pay off his family’s two cars. The car payments had higher interest rates than his student loan payments, he said.

His first payment since the pandemic will be due Oct. 31, Bak said, because he adjusted his payment date to the end of the month. Bak said he plans to pay $200 a month and make higher payments as his savings allows.

“It’s really just going to be another monthly payment,” he said.

Marissa Bessler, 31, finished her studies with a master’s degree in speech language pathology from Midwestern University in 2016. She also graduated with more than $100,000 in student loan debt.

Bessler, a preschool speech language pathologist at Minooka Primary Center, said her first student loan payment since the pause was set at $71, on an income-based plan.

But Bessler said she recently received an email from her loan provider that her November payment will increase to around $800 based on her husband’s income. She plans to call her loan provider to tell them she is paying her own loans.

“To assume I could afford $800 toward my student loans is a lot,” Bessler said. “To see that number is overwhelming.”

Bessler said she’s seeking public service loan forgiveness that could eliminate her debt after 10 years of work at a public school along with consecutive payments.

Bessler said she often worries about politicians voting to end the public service loan forgiveness program. She said she strategically planned her career and payment model with that program in mind.

“If that gets taken away that’s going to be a huge burden,” Bessler said.