Original subtitles

-[theme music playing] -[crowd chanting]

[siren wailing]

-[cheering] -Hello! Oh, my God. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you!

Thank you so much!

Welcome to Patriot Act. I'm Hasan Minhaj. Thank you.

Tonight, we are talking about something a lot of you guys have been asking us

to cover on the show.

Student loan debt. It affects pretty much everyone I know,

and if you're one of the ten people it doesn't affect...

congratulations on being a Kennedy.

Student loans�are crippling millions of people,

many of them fresh out of college.

Imagine starting a race

and then the guy with the starter pistol uses the gun to shoot you in the leg.

The student debt crisis is so big, there's even a game show

to help people with their loans.

Welcome to Paid Off.

This is a game show dedicated to helping you pay off your student loans.

For each correct answer,

we'll will pay you�a percentage of your debt.

If you get eight correct, we'll pay the whole amount.

This is a real show.

They turned a national crisis into a game show.

I can't wait to see how Howie Mandel solves the opioid epidemic.

The best part of Paid Off is the tagline.

I know it's not everything, but I hope that helps

-take off the pressure for a little bit. -Yes.

I know it's not everything, but I hope

it takes the pressure off for a little bit.

That's not a tagline.

That's what a plastic surgeon says to someone after a chimp attack.

"I know it's not everything,

but I hope it helps take off the pressure for a little bit.

Now get out there and start dating, Scarface."

In 2006, total student debt was under $500 billion.

Now, it's over $1.5 trillion, eclipsing both credit card debt

and auto loan debt.

Yeah, over 44 million Americans have student loans,

with a mean balance of over 30 grand and a median balance over 17 grand.

And if you don't know the difference between median and mean,

your student loans were truly a waste of money.

Look, we asked her audience members to fill out a survey

before coming to the show tonight,

and there is over $6 million of student debt in this room alone.

Look, don't worry, I'm not going to collect on it.�[laughing]

What if I did, though?

We also asked you guys

a bunch of other questions, and I learned a lot about all of you.

This is all true, okay? 76% of you are single.

So, shoot your shot, okay?

17% of you have been to a Drake concert.

I can tell by the all the lineups. Yeah, I see it.

Now, this part is shocking.

21% of you have completed�a spin class in the last 30 days.

And 23% of you�are in favor of the death penalty.

That's a lot of overlap, okay?

I'm sorry, it's definitely the same people.

You guys know SoulCycle's motto. "Execute on the bike and in the chair."

It's dark. It's really dark, but you'll get the body of your dreams.

Now, look. We all know that student debt is a national crisis,

and college tuition is out of control, but I want to focus

on what happens when you're actually trying to pay back your loans.

Because student debt collection has become

a multi-billion-dollar predatory industry that ruins lives.

Unless, of course, you're this couple.

So this is what happens�when you pay off $103,000 of student loan debt!

Whoo!

["Happy" by Pharrell Williams playing]

It might seem crazy What I'm about to say

I bet Pharrell saw this and was like,

"I kind of wish they were still in debt."

Come on, you just paid off�a hundred grand in student loans,

and that is how you dance?

You guys got to give me that Price Is Right energy, baby.

-[man] Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! -[crowd cheering]

Oh, my God!

Yeah!

Now keep in mind,

Ryan just won the chance to play Plinko.

The chance.

Just the possibility and he went ham. I love this clip so much,

we actually tracked down Ryan.

And guess what Ryan wanted to do with his Plinko money.

My plan after winning the�$31,500

was to put it towards my student loan debt.

I went to Penn State University,

and now I am nearly $130,000 deep in student loans.

Did you personally pay the Sandusky settlement with $130,000?

One would think with that amount, but, no.

Real talk. Did you like it?

-Did I like my time at Penn State? -Penn State, yes.

Absolutely loved it. Would not change it for thing.

-Really? -We are Penn State!

I'll say "we are," you say "Penn State."

-We are! -Penn State.

-We got it. -That's not a slogan, Ryan.

It's our cheer.

You could do any school that way.

We are�University of Phoenix Online!

Okay then.

One of the scariest things

about student loans is you can't make any mistakes.

Otherwise, you might face�some of the most aggressive

debt collection practices.

Florida suspending the licenses of nearly a thousand health care workers

just because they're behind on paying their student loans.

What's the worst that could happen to you

if you don't pay your old federal student loan?

How about being arrested by the US Marshals office?

I'm standing before the court with no rights read to me

and no legal representation, and I've been told that I owe $1,500.

I just couldn't believe it.

If someone in a federal marshal's jacket

handcuffed me and told me I owed him $1,500,

I'd be like, "Oh, I get it.

You're a stripper."

Look, if someone owes $1,500,

you don't send in Seal Team 6.

Look, a big reason why paying back student debt�is so hard

has to do with how student loans are managed.

For a long time, the government partnered with banks

to make low-interest loans to students.

So if the student defaulted,

the government was on the hook, not the banks,

but that all changed in 2010.

For almost two decades,

we've been trying to fix a sweetheart deal in federal law

that essentially gave�billions of dollars to banks

to act as unnecessary middlemen,

but I didn't stand with the banks and financial Industries in this fight.

-Remember that guy, 2010 Obama? -[audience cheers]

Obama cut out the banks and students began borrowing directly from the government

and eventually the Department of Education became the largest bank in America

-in terms of loans, which is shocking. -[audience silent]

Yes, that is the right response.

It's like finding out Jo-Ann Fabrics is America's largest weapons manufacturer.

Real talk. I wouldn't be surprised. Those stores are fucking huge.

Like, you go in, you're like, "Hey, I'm looking for glitter."

They're like, "Yeah, it's next to the Tomahawk Missiles, aisle 42."

Now, obviously, the Department of Education

wasn't designed to be a massive bank, so they outsourced loan management

to companies called loan servicers. Loan servicers collect your money,

make sure you're paying on time and explain all of your repayment options,

or at least, that's what they're supposed to do.

Poor loan servicing is at the core of the problem

for so many of these students�who find themselves delinquent or in default.

[man] The I-Team found more than 500 complaints

against the national loan servicing company,

including a borrower in New Hampshire who described the repayment structure

as financial terrorism.

Okay, calm down.

You can't call loan servicers "financial terrorists."

Terrorists take responsibility for their actions.

Even Bin Laden's ghost is like, "Hey, man. Own your shit, all right?

Say you did it."

To understand why loan servicers are so bad,

we have to look at one of the worst.

One particular private loan servicer has had more complaints than others.

Navient.

When I look and see a client coming from Navient,

frankly, I cringe.

Navient is huge.

It handles over $300 billion in student loans

and one in four of all student borrowers.

When it comes to screwing over borrowers, Navient is legendary,

and it's not just because their logo

looks like a corporation that harvests emotions in a young adult novel.

If you can think of an evil thing,

Navient has probably been accused of doing it.

Fucking over military members?

They settled a lawsuit after being sued for overcharging troops.

Ripping off disabled people?

They were accused of damaging�the credit of disabled borrowers.

In some cases,

they've actually double charged them.

[woman] Michael's now paying off his $54,000 parent loan,

but noticed an issue on his June bank statement.

They took $2,251�out of my checking account,

and then they took it out of my savings account.

[woman] So he contacted the company managing the loan, Navient.

They told me, "Okay, we realized the mistake."

[woman] When the money wasn't returned to his account, he called again.

I'm not rich,�I'm disabled.�I can't work.

He eventually got his money back.

But Navient is so shitty,

I wouldn't be surprised if we found out they invented nail teeth.

No, this is a real thing, and it is fucking horrifying.

Your fingernails shouldn't have gingivitis, okay?

Navient has taken�bad customer service to the next level.

Almost as a joke, I said,

"I can either

have you guys lower my payment so I can make rent

and then pay you, or I can live in my truck

and make the full payments to you every month."

And the woman on the phone, dead serious, told me,

"I don't want to tell you that you have to live in your truck,

but you might have to live in your truck."

Navient's professional advice�was, "You might have to live in a truck."

Look at him, he can't live in his truck.

He's already selling kombucha out of it in Williamsburg.

There's not enough space.

That call wasn't some isolated incident.

Terrible customer service is at the core of companies like Navient.

Listen to a former Navient employee describe her job.

What did you think was wrong with what you were expected to do there?

What I was expected to do was to provide inadequate service.

Performing well meant keeping calls to seven minutes or under.

Navient rushes through calls because they maximize profits

by getting off the phone fast.

At one point, Navient actually had a March Madness-style bracket

for who could handle the most customers.

What kind of sick people use a basketball tournament

to financially fuck over college kids?

Oh, right. The NCAA, my bad.

Now, focusing on speed

meant that Navient often misled borrowers.

If I had a borrower call in and say,

"I have a question about the income-based repayment plans."

You know, those were long conversations. You're looking at tax returns.

You're looking at family size.

It might be easier for me as a representative to say,

"Well, why don't I just put you in, you know, a forbearance instead."

Those borrowers were asking about an income-based repayment plan.

It lets people with lower incomes have smaller monthly payments.

Think of it like Hinge.

It takes more time to fill out, but it's reliable.

It's much simpler for Navient to put borrowers on loan forbearance.

That's when you stop making payments temporarily.

But you pay more interest later. Forbearance is like Tinder.

It's quick and easy, but over time, you end up regretting it.

And they're too many people from Arizona State on it.

Racing through calls and putting borrowers in forbearance

has added nearly $4 billion of interest to student loan debt.

Four billion!

Just in interest. And while Navient disputes that figure,

the $4 billion claim was made in a lawsuit

filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB.

The CFPB is a government agency that protects people

from predatory companies.

In 2017, they sued Navient for quote,

"Failing borrowers at every stage of repayment."

For a government agency, that is savage.

It'd be like if on Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi said,

"Pack your knives and go fuck yourself, you worthless piece of shit.

Enjoy cooking at Little Caesars for the rest of your life."

At the time of the lawsuit,

Seth Frotman was in charge of overseeing student loans at the CFPB.

So I sat down with Seth to find out all the crazy shit

happening to student borrowers.

What we found through consumer complaints, through horror stories

we we're hearing throughout the country is that borrowers were being lied to

by their student loan companies, by their student loan servicers

because it was in their financial interest to do so.

Well, can I just switch a loan servicer? Can I go, "I don't like Navient anymore.

Give me the other guy."

You have no ability to pick�and choose who your student loan servicer is.

The Department of Education,

one of the nation's largest creditors, picks and chooses for you.

So it's like if you went to Kayak and the only available airline is Spirit?

I would argue it's worse than Spirit is.

-That's impossible. -No, it's not impossible.

We're having millions of borrowers being driven into default.

I think that's worse than an extra baggage fee.

No, he's clearly never flown Spirit, okay?

Their in-flight beverage is just somebody's flu breath

in a cup.

Spirit Airlines doesn't even have seat belts.

You're just supposed to reach around and hold the person in front of you.

You just strap in and pray.

Navient loves making it sound like they're just looking out for students.

This is their CEO Jack Remondi. Now, the thing about Jack

is that he looks like a businessman created by an algorithm.

And here he is

simulating human emotion in front of members of Congress.

Our experience with 12 million customers shows that borrowers who stay connected

with the servicer are more likely to stay out of delinquency and default.

Contact works, let's encourage it.

[mocking] "Contact works, let's encourage it."

That sounds like an HR manual written by Dustin Hoffman.

As much as Jack Remondi wants us to think that Navient loves helping its customers,

Seth Frotman would beg to differ.

We shouldn't�sugarcoat this.

This is a company that ruined millions of people's lives.

From people who are trying to pay back their debt

to literally disabled veterans.

This is on the Navient website.

"We are here to help you successfully navigate your loans."

So what's remarkable is that Navient, in federal court,

argued they actually have no responsibility to help

student loan borrowers.

But on their website, they say, "We want to help you."

They've also argued in federal court that none of us should believe,

like, what their website says or what they help borrowers

because that's all puffery.

"That's all puffery" is also the meanest thing

anyone has ever said on The Great British Bake Off.

So what I'm wondering is this,

how did it get so bad?

Student loans were never supposed to be�this predatory.

Student loans were supposed to help�fuck with the Russians.

I'm serious.

Look, I know everyone is like, "Wait, why are we in space?

Is Netflix pivoting to field trips?" Not yet.

The first student loan program was developed

because America was losing the space race.

In 1957, the Soviets�successfully launched Sputnik.

It was the first man-made satellite and was a really big deal.

[man] CBS Television presents a special report on Sputnik 1.

The vital question that everybody is thinking about,

why and how did the Russians beat us to the draw?

[man] Right now it's north of Auckland, New Zealand,

and moving southeast.

It will be, in ten minutes, about 1,500 miles north of Little America.

Of course we freaked out. The Russians had Sputnik,

and we couldn't get a crayon to work.

America needed scientists and functioning crayons.

So in 1958,

Congress passed a bill called the National Defense Education Act

to fund higher education.

It was a huge success.

In 1959, there were 3.6 million students in college.

Within a decade, that number doubled, and in 1969,

we finally had enough film students to fake the moon landing.

Student loan programs�were intended to help people,

not screw them over for life,

but loan servicers�are only part of the problem.

The root of the problem is the Department of Education.

They keep hiring shitty loan servicers. They're not protecting borrowers,

and they also mismanage loan forgiveness programs.

In some cases,

the Department of Education has been so negligent,

they are practically criminal.

Take the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

Congress passed it in 2007 to encourage people

to go into public service, which sounds good in theory.

[woman] Here's how it works.

You must have a Federal Direct or Family Education Loan,

commonly known as a FFEL loan.

Then you have to work for ten years at any nonprofit organization

or for the federal, state or local government

and make 120 monthly loan payments.

If you met those requirements,

the government would forgive the rest of your loans, clean slate.

In 2017, almost 30,000 people

submitted applications to have their loans forgiven,

but because of massive incompetence by the Department of Education

only 96 were approved.

Ninety-six! That's 0.3%.

Elizabeth Warren is more Cherokee, okay?

Now remember,

these are people who spent ten years of their lives in public service,

based on the promise that their country would return the favor.

Congress tried to clean up this mess, but tens of thousands of people

are still waiting for their loans to be forgiven.

[woman] Bill was six years into his student loan payments

when he called Navient, then Sallie Mae

about the loan forgiveness program.

Bill made�120 payments,

about $130,000 worth, on time.

Moves that should have freed him from the remainder of his balance.

I was told, well,�I had the wrong loan.

So I was denied.

I'm going to have to re-consolidate my loans and pay on them

for another ten years until I'm 70.

That is horrible.

Bill, like so many applicants chose to work in public service

and still ended up with crushing debt. It's not just that program.

The Department of Education has been a mess for a long time,

but it got straight-up malicious under Trump

after he appointed Betsy DeVos as secretary of education.

Now, if you don't know, obviously some of you guys know,

Betsy DeVos is a conservative activist with a $40 million yacht.

In other words, exactly who you'd expect Trump to put in charge of schools.

In two years, she has slashed protections for borrowers

and blocked states from regulating loan servicers.

At every turn, she has betrayed borrowers.

She's supposed to be�a lifeguard for students,

not push their heads under water.

And it's not just me giving the department a bad performance review.

The US Department of Education is being blasted

in a new report from its Inspector General.

The scathing report finds the education department's

student loan unit�failed to adequately supervise

the companies managing those loans.

The Department has not kept up with the level of attention

it needs to pay to what is admittedly not a particularly�a catchy topic.

Not catchy? Yeah, I know.

Try squeezing 20 minutes of comedy�out of student loan debt.

This report was huge because it basically confirmed

that the Department of Education has known for a long time that loan servicers,

like Navient, were screwing over students,

and the Department of Education�did next to nothing to stop them.

Not only did it not penalize them, it actually gave them more business

and has insisted that Navient specifically

was not misleading borrowers.

There's only one explanation for this.

I thought about this.

Betsy DeVos is half human, half loan. She feeds on interest

because it makes her stronger, and no one was there to stop her

because not long after Trump appointed Betsy DeVos,

he put his budget director Mick Mulvaney

in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

By the way, Mulvaney is now the acting White House Chief of Staff.

He has played so many roles in the White House,

he is the Tyler Perry of the Trump Administration.

That is terrifying. When he took over the CFPB, two things happened.

he became Seth Frotman's boss, and he stopped the Bureau

from going after predatory companies.

Things got so bad, Mr. Puffery quit in protest.

You wrote a resignation letter to quit.

I did.

In your resignation letter, this is what you wrote.

"You have used the bureau to serve the wishes

of the most powerful financial companies in America,

the damage you have done to the Bureau betrays these families

and sacrifices the financial futures of millions of Americans

in communities across the country. Goddamn, Seth.

I would love to see you write a Yelp review.

Everyone thinks I'm crazy.

Oh, you're a fucking maniac.

I used to work at OfficeMax,

and when I quit, I just drop-kicked a printer.

I did. It was a Canon Inkjet 3620, and I kicked the shit out of it.

Frotman went off on Mick Mulvaney, but Trump's task rabbit clapped back.

Yeah, I saw that letter, I saw that letter for the first time.

I think it was in USA Today. I was on an airplane.

I think he was more interested in getting his name in the paper.

First of all, who's trying to get into USA Today?

It's the kids menu of news.

Was Frotman like, "I know how I'm going to get big,

I'm gonna be in every La Quinta Inn across the country."

Look, from Mick Mulvaney to Betsy DeVos to this computer-generated stepfather,

it is clear the deck is stacked against students.

Most don't even have the proper information

to navigate the system.

After Seth Frotman quit,

he started a nonprofit called the Student Borrower Protection Center

to help crack down on predatory student loan companies.

So I went back to Frotman to figure out what future borrowers need to know.

I think we need to paint a picture

of how student loans impact incoming freshmen to schools.

So say I'm an incoming freshman at UC Santa Cruz, right?

I get to Santa Cruz,�I'm a Banana slug

Freshman year's about to be turnt.

What do I need to know?

So, you should know that you're getting screwed.

I think you need to be making sure that the companies

that are supposedly handling your loans aren't screwing you over.

I think you need to make sure that when you're talking to

your elected officials, you're telling them that they need

to be going after companies like Navient.

[coughs]

-I gotta talk to my elected officials? -You do.

-Fuck. -You need to realize that

once you leave school,

you need to be on top of some pretty horrific companies.

Even though I've accrued this crippling debt,

I look cool, though, right?

Most borrowers�want nothing more�than to pay back their loans.

There are people who would kill�just to be flat broke.

-Whoo! -[Hasan Minhaj] Yeah.

I understand, but the good news is this.

Six state attorneys general are now suing loan servicers.

So if you think you're being taken advantage of by your loan servicer,

contact your state AG.

The federal government won't do anything, but they might.

Student loans were supposed to be a way to invest in our citizens,

reward public service and flex on the Russians,

but now they've become a minefield of misinformation

where debt can follow you for life.

So if we're gonna have game shows about student loans,

they should actually�reflect�how difficult it can be to repay your loans.

A game show about the student loan system should feel more like this.

[man] It's time for Debt Fucked,

the game show where one mistake can cost you everything.

Here's your host...

Hey, everybody. It's me again.

Who's ready to Debt Fucked?

That's right. Let's go talk to our contestants.

Alvin, says here you're $60,000 deep in student debt.

-How's that feel? -I live in my Camry.

Very little human dignity at all then. Kathleen, you're 190K in debt,

and you're a veterinarian. That must be fun

-working with all those animals. -I mostly put them to sleep.

They gotta go sometime. It's a kindness, really.

Folks, our next guest Jeffrey actually died last week.

So please welcome his parents, Mark and Shannon.

-Hi, guys. -Hello.

So it says here you have a funny story you want to tell me about parkour.

Oh, my mistake. That's how Jeffrey died. Oops.

-It's been a hard time. -Yeah.

And you got a private loan with no death discharge.

So you now on your son's debt.

Are you ready to play the game? Let's go.

Number one if you're a boilermaker, what university do you attend?

[bell dings]

-Yes, Alvin. -Purdue.

That's absolutely right! $10,000 off your debt!

-Oh, God! -Don't get excited. It's a small start.

Next question, for $15,000 this time.

In the long term, is it better to be in an income-based repayment plan

or forbearance?

-[bell dings] -Mark and Shannon.

We'd like to use our lifeline.

Of course. Everyone gets a lifeline to call their loan servicer.

Let's give him a ring.

Hello, this is Jack at EdLoan.

How can I help you successfully navigate your student loan.

Is it better for me to pay off my debt with a forbearance plan

-or what was the other one? -Income-based repayment.

-Income-based repayment. -Forbearance.

That's the best option, I would go with that.

-All right, guys, what do you think? -We're going to go with her�forbearance.

[buzzer]

I don't want to be�the forebearer of bad news,

but forbearance actually increases your interest over time.

An income-based repayment plan would be more fiscally responsible.

All of which is a very fancy way of saying, "You're gonna�Debt Fucked!"

Sorry about your dead son.

Next question, $20,000.

Name four Ivy League universities.

-[bell dings] -Okay, Kathleen.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown.

-Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you? -[buzzer]

But in fact, none of those colleges are actually the names

of the band members of Kiss.

-That wasn't the question. -Yes, well,

looks like we changed the terms of your question without telling you.

[siren wails]

-Oh! Oh, no! -What?

Kathleen, you've gone over $200,000 in debt.

Let's get Terry, our federal marshal, in here.

-Terry! -[audience chanting] Terry! Terry...

Come on, Terry. Arrest that woman.

-Get her out of here. -Don't touch me.

[John Hodgman] Oh, boy.

Alvin, you're the only one left. You know what that means?

-You're the winner! That's right! -[shouts]

We're paying off your entire debt.

How does it feel, Alvin?

-Oh, God! -Okay, time for me to talk.

Thanks, everyone, for being here tonight.

Oh, excuse me. I'm getting some information from our processing center.

Oh, Alvin.

Apparently, we filed your paperwork wrong.

You were never supposed to be here. We're taking the money back.

That's right, sir.

You are about to Debt Fucked.

[audience chanting] Debt Fucked! Debt Fucked...

Go on,�debt the fuck out of here!

That's our show.�Good night!

Thank you guys so much.

Thank you.

[theme music playing]

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