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Kate Wood

👤 Speaker
332 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

And so they have really strongly advocated for making sure that we're holding the education department accountable and that things are moving forward, that borrowers are getting what they were promised when they took out these loans.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So as part of that lawsuit, they were like,

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So we noticed that you guys are not processing forgiveness and you need to start doing this.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

That was the exact legalese that was used for that.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So they were able to get income-based repayments.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So IBR borrowers are starting to see forgiveness being processed.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

We started to see that like right actually, it was right around the shutdown.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So it was like October that we started to kind of see that happening.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

People who are on PAYE, Pay As You Earn plan,

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

people who are on ICR, income contingent repayment, we are still trying to get the wheels moving again so that forgiveness is processed for people on those plans.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

So there are currently...

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

a substantial population of people who have actually reached the forgiveness timeline, whether it's 10 years PSLF, 20 or 25 years, it's just the regular way on one of these other plans and who are waiting to have that forgiveness actually processed.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

On one hand, yeah, it's a good situation because this loan balance should be gone.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

On the other hand, because the loan balance is technically still active,

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

you need to do something about it so these folks are either stuck working with their servicer to get a deferment or forbearance so that they aren't having to make payments during this time or something else that the aft lawsuit forced the education department to codify and guarantee was that if you made extra payments during this time so if you just kept paying your loan because you kept having payments due that you would get that paid back to you once your loan balances were given it's a lot

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

Yeah, it should be.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

Of course.

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Impulse Spending Fixes and PSLF Choices When You’re in Grad School

Thank you for having me back.

NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-21-2026 10PM EST

A majority of homeowners say having a house is more expensive than they thought it would be.

NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-21-2026 10PM EST

Kate Wood is a home and mortgage expert at NerdWallet.