Why student loan debt is trapping more Americans than ever

In August of 2018, Lisa, a 54-year-old single mother of two, met with a lawyer to discuss her student loans. 

As a working psychologist, she’d not just been to undergraduate college — Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey — but also to Widener University in Pennsylvania, to earn her Ph.D. in psychology. In total, Lisa took out 16 different federal loans to pay for her education, for a grand total of $95,000.  But by the time she graduated in 2001, the interest charges had already bumped that number up to $120,604. By 2018, Lisa, who runs her own psychology practice in Chester, Pa., had written hundreds of checks, eventually paying off just over $135,000 — but she still owed $96,820, and was growing desperate.