(Editor’s note: This story was updated with comment from Kaplan University.)
When Trisha Volosin enrolled in a college as a single mom, she hoped to become the first in her biological family to earn a bachelor’s degree. Little did she expect that experience to saddle her with thousands of dollars in student-loan debt 20 years later.
At the age of 24, with a newborn in hand and as the sole breadwinner for her family, Volosin enrolled in a for-profit online college, Kaplan University, with the goal of earning her accounting degree and securing a full-time role as an accountant at her current firm.
Kaplan University is one of many educational institutions previously owned by Kaplan Higher Education. Kaplan Higher Education was the parent company of Kaplan Career Institute, and Kaplan College, and also formerly Kaplan University. Kaplan University was sold to Purdue University.
The two-decade journey through university has left Trish Volosin owing $83,721.71.
Trish Volosin
A spokesperson for Kaplan University told MarketWatch that Kaplan University has continued under Purdue University’s ownership and control.
Volosin’s chance to upgrade her life soon became a nightmare: Personal tragedy struck, forcing her to take a step back, and the college’s confusing directions on the credits and classes she needed to take to graduate delayed her graduation and added additional costs to the degree.
Money from tax refunds, money from her foster family, and extra paychecks from her accounting job, all went towards paying off her degree, which she started in 2002 and finished in 2014.
The two-decade journey through higher education has left Volosin owing $83,721.71 in outstanding loans.
“‘We’re really scared about when things kick back in, because everything’s been really tight as it is.’”
Prior to the pandemic payment pause on federal student loans that former President Donald Trump enacted in March 2020, she had been paying over $300 a month in debt she owed to the Department of Education.
But with inflation pushing the cost of everything — from gas to child care — higher, Volosin said she’s worried about what will happen when the payment pause expires.
“We’re really scared about when things kick back in, because everything’s been really tight as it is,” Volosin, a native of Medford, Ore., told MarketWatch. “And if those kick back in, it’ll really kill us.”
Volosin’s situation is much like the millions of other student borrowers who face a resumption of monthly loan payments come September.
Some 40 million borrowers hold $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt. The payment pause is set to expire on Aug. 31. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is reportedly considering canceling at least $10,000 in student debt per borrower by late summer, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Should the pause expire, without any debt cancellation, Volosin estimated that she would owe $400 a month on her student debt — about 10% of her household income.
“We went from paying $150 in gas a month for my husband to get to and from work to now paying over $400 per month,” she added. “Our groceries have doubled in price, and we aren’t getting as much as we did a year ago at this time. It would mean not getting to do anything fun for and with our little ones.”
Volosin’s path to college was a complicated one
Going through a “horrible childhood” where physical abuse was common, Volosin reported her father to the authorities at the age of 12, and she and her three siblings entered the foster-care system.
It was then that she decided to go to college. “No one graduated high school. No one went on to college,” she said.
After going through various homes, she ended up with a family that took her in as their own. She graduated high school six months early. She had even been accepted into the University of Colorado Boulder.
But she couldn’t afford it at the time. She had left her foster family’s home after falling out with them and was living in a shelter home.
By the age of 24, Volosin was a mother. It was then when she “really felt the pull to go back to college,” she recalled. “I really needed to give my daughter something to look up to, because none of my family was good. I wanted her to see that I was capable of doing it.”
She was also not getting the role she wanted because she didn’t have a college degree. So cradling her newborn, Volosin looked up online college options that she could handle while working full-time.
“I was the sole provider of our family,” Volosin said. “We were low-income, and so I couldn’t give up my job.”
She tried out the University of Phoenix. It didn’t work. Then she tried Kaplan University. It accepted her, and she began her college journey.
Volosin experienced a few personal losses that quickly derailed her plans: Her sister, her mother, and her stepmother passed away; and she went through a divorce.
“It was all so hard and all at once, but I ended up not even focusing on school,” she recalled. She ended up withdrawing temporarily.
After pulling herself together, overcoming the tragedies, she re-enrolled, after paying a balance.
“‘It was all so hard and all at once, but I ended up not even focusing on school.’”
But she kept hitting speed bumps. She first had to pay a balance to get back into the school, which she did.
Volosin said she had taken the maximum amount of financial aid allowable. That added $993 to her monthly expenses, she said.
“$900 a month cash — as a single mom. I was barely making it,” Volosin said. “I think I was making $11.85 an hour then.”
A spokesperson for Kaplan said federal education laws prevent Kaplan from fully addressing Volosin’s claims in detail, but said Kaplan did not overcharge Volosin for her program and nor did it required her to take unnecessary additional credits. “Further, Ms. Volosin’s student debt seems to come from her enrollment in multiple universities,” the spokesperson added.
The parent company has had a challenging past. Case in point: Kaplan College, which was owned by Kaplan Higher Education, paid a fine of more than $1.3 million to the Department of Justice for its Texas campuses allegedly hiring unqualified instructors for a critical program; the company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability.
A spokesperson for the company told MarketWatch this was unrelated to Kaplan University: “Kaplan University was never sued by any governmental or oversight entity. In fact, under Kaplan’s ownership, it was repeatedly praised by its accreditor for its ethics and for the quality of its programs.”
Volosin, for her part, decided to leave Kaplan University and went to a local university in Oregon.
She found out that she could not enroll there, because she had no financial aid left to draw on. Undeterred, she found a way to speak with the academic advisers at Southern Oregon University.
Finally, she caught a break. The school said she could take some of her credits to qualify for an accounting degree. She re-enrolled, once again.
She used tax refunds. She had reunited with her foster family, who helped out as well. She used extra paychecks she got from her accounting gig.
In 2014, she finally became a proud first-generation college graduate.
Volosin’s debt is owed to the Department of Education, which disburses financial aid to thousands of accredited colleges across the country.
PHOTO: Getty Images
But Volosin’s battle through the for-profit college is not an uncommon one, Kyra Taylor, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told MarketWatch.
“We frequently see students who attended multiple institutions, and often attended multiple types of institutions — for-profit, non-profit, online, in-person, etcetera — in their pursuit to get an education that will open up more job opportunities,” said Taylor, but the credits do not transfer neatly.
“So when a student tries to pick up where they left off, they are told to go back to the beginning and start their program at the new school without any credit for what they’ve learned in the past,” she said.
This leaves many “who try to finish their degree after periods away from school … often saddled with significantly more debt,” Taylor stressed.
“‘We frequently see students who attended multiple institutions, and often attended multiple types of institutions — for-profit, non-profit, online, in-person, etcetera.”
The attorney advised borrowers who were in Volosin’s shoes to assess whether they can apply for debt relief from the Education Department, particularly if they had been misled by the school.
These borrowers “should consider applying for borrower defense to repayment, a government program which cancels the debts of borrowers who were harmed by a school’s misrepresentations or omissions when they were enrolling,” Taylor explained.
“The reality is that borrowers often do not know what relief is available and don’t know that all that stands between them and complete federal loan cancellation is an application to the Department of Education.”
For Volosin, the debt has hung over her like a shadow. It has followed her through another marriage, and now with three kids now in tow, it continues to be a substantial part of the financial burden she’s facing.
With the payment pause, at least there was a reprieve. “With the student-loan pause we have been able to cover all of our bills and thankfully we had a little wiggle room for the cost of inflation,” Volosin said.
But should an emergency arise with their home, or their car, that would be something their family wouldn’t be able to afford, she added.
And as the president mulls canceling debt, Volosin said any help from the government was welcome.
“Canceling $10,000 of our student loan would not help in our situation since we owe so much, and payments are based on income,” Volosin said. “We wouldn’t say no, but it won’t change anything for our family.”
Write to: aarthi@marketwatch.com