In 2009, Congress expanded a program that lets lower-income students tie payments to their incomes. It's a sliding scale, based on their debt, salaries and family obligations. Married borrowers with two children, $30,000 in income and $30,000 in student loans wouldn't have to make any payments, according to a government loan calculator. If circumstances don't improve, the loans can be canceled after 25 years.
In October, Obama proposed, as soon as this year, making payments even lower and forgiving loans after only 20 years for some borrowers.
Disabled Mom
Kimberly Noland could have used that kind of help.
Noland, 44, lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with her husband, a laid-off factory worker now employed at a Wal-Mart store, and their seven-year-old daughter.
Noland injured her leg while working in a day-care center. She started collecting $828 a month in Social Security disability payments in 2010.
Shortly after she qualified, Collection Technology Inc., an Education Department debt collector, called about Noland's roughly $30,000 in defaulted student loans from attending the University of Arkansas.
A collector told her she had to pay $325 a month, almost as much as her rent, Noland said in a phone interview. She couldn't afford it on her family's $20,000 annual income, she said.
"I have a child," Noland remembered telling the collector. "I can't give you every bit of money in my house."
'Final Number'
"This is our final number," the collector replied, saying her boss wanted even more, according to Noland. The phone conversation lasted more than an hour, she said. She was given three days to decide, or Collection Technology would seize part of her disability check "forever," and she would never have another chance to rehabilitate her loan, Noland said.