ATLANTA — Latosha Robinson is a network engineer, a career she owes in part to the loan she got to get through college. She graduated 12 years ago.
"It wasn’t as big back then. It was about $40,000 then. But it’s grown at least two to three times that much," Robinson said.
Robinson said interest on the loan has increased her debt to more than $100,000.
She had hoped President Biden’s plan for student loan forgiveness would erase at least part of that.
"It keeps you from like owning a house and a car and everything, but once it gets that big it seems unreasonable to expect it to be paid off before it's gone," Robinson said.
Critics of Biden’s loan program argued that taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for debt Robinson and other students took on. The Supreme Court said Biden lacked the authority to do it without the blessing of Congress.
"Still, I have kids as well and everything else that I want to do in life, it just – seems unfair that student loans would be the one thing that kind of holds you back," she said.
Robinson said she’s been making minimal payments on her loan and expects to keep having to make those payments indefinitely.
"I've had $20,000-$30,000 in debt stack up for me," said Tyler Seabolt, a recent college grad now planning a wedding and trying to move on to adult responsibilities.
"Like, 'How long are we going to live in an apartment before we have a family?' Thinking about a housing loan, and a car loan, and then I've got to get this student loan out of the way before I can do any of that," Seabolt said.
Seabolt said he took out a student loan fully expecting to pay it back – heeding advice he’d gotten since childhood that a college education can help him become a successful adult. Yet, when the Biden administration announced an executive order – forgiving portions of student loans, he was among those who had hoped it would succeed.
"I am pretty disappointed to hear that they shot that down because I was looking forward to that help. But I think there are a lot of people who need help more than I do," he said.
Georgia NAACP student and youth president Jayden Williams said he's accumulating his own student loan debt at Clark Atlanta University.
"It hurts our community, specifically the minority community when it comes down to the poor, lower income tax bracket," Williams said. "It's very unfair. It's sad."