Student Union
- By Eunjung Cho
Americans Strive to Get Masks to Pandemic’s Front Lines
Tricia Rae Pendergrast, a first-year student at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is joining the fight against the coronavirus by sourcing personal protective equipment, or PPE, to the front lines.
“This is not only your fight. I’m in this with you,” said Pendergrast, in an interview with VOA, adding she hopes the doctors in the emergency rooms feel less alone.
It’s been two weeks since Pendergrast and 140 other medical students in the Chicago area started a citywide donation drive to protect the medical workers. They have already distributed hundreds of masks and face shields, thousands of gowns and 38 liters of hand sanitizer to local hospitals. With donations through crowdsourcing platform GoFundMe amounting to $90,000, they’re looking to buy 30,000 N95 masks, which filter out 95% of airborne particles.
Pendergrast said the distribution of protective gear will be based on need, COVID patient numbers and each hospital’s funding situation. She voiced concerns about the strain on medical facilities that serve underprivileged people.
“This [coronavirus] crisis has really put the inequities that define our city on display, which is really sad,” she said.
Dr. Lena Alia, an OB/GYN resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago, said the facility faces a greater need than others.
“We’re known as the largest safety net in the state of Illinois for Medicaid and Medicare patients. That does make it a little bit more difficult as our funding is usually already on a limited basis because we have lower-income patients,” Alia said. To help her colleagues, she raised funds online and delivered 1,000 KN95 masks. KN95 is a Chinese standard for respirators that’s almost identical to N95.
Crowdfunding campaigns
With just a few clicks, people can easily set up a crowdfunding campaign online. Among those hunting for mask donations, some raise tens of thousands of dollars in just a matter of days.
“The response has been phenomenal. I think what it really shows is that people want to help … and not only are people giving money, I’ve learned so much about many aspects of this from people who are volunteering information,” said Kara Dyer of Massachusetts.
Dyer raised $41,000 in six days and will bring in 20,000 KN95 masks from China next week. With her decadelong experience of running her own toy company, Dyer has navigated the fast-changing Chinese medical supply chain.
“I’ve been a little nervous because a lot of people are counting on me, but more than that, the doctors are counting on me, and I really want to be able to deliver for them,” noted Dyer.
Tough competition
Some fundraisers face roadblocks along the way. Raising money seems easier than securing masks.
Tinisha Stone started a campaign on GoFundMe to get National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-standardized N95s from China.
The coronavirus outbreak was not yet serious in Austin, Texas, but she wanted to get ahead of the curve and prepare for a surge. Her husband is a doctor.
But on the day that her order of 3,000 masks was scheduled to be shipped, she received a message from her contact in China.
“The [mask] factory got shut down, surrounded by police. The government shut it down before they were able to send our supplies,” Stone noted. “It’s become extremely difficult to source the N95s now. And we’re still working on it but it’s been hard every day, all day, for the last 10 days,” Stone said.
Stone says her contact in China is again offering to get supplies from the same factory if she can order more, at a higher price.
Stone says she will carry on with her mission.
“I just feel like I need to do what I promised that I was going to do or I need to get the money back [to the donors]. I don’t want to give it back. I’d rather succeed and be able to help the health care workers in Austin.”
See all News Updates of the Day
- By VOA News
5 tips to help international students settle into US life
An article in Community College Daily looks at ways to support international students in and out of the classroom.
- By VOA News
Communications, value key in attracting international students, research finds
ICEF Monitor, which bills itself as "a dedicated market intelligence resource for the international education industry," takes a look at what matters to international students looking to study abroad.
- By VOA News
Diversity, alumni and funding help make US attractive to international students, school says
A blog post from St. John's University in New York breaks down six reasons international students love studying in the U.S.
They include:
- Gaining access to a global alumni network;
- Unlocking a wider net of scholarships and
- Unmatched cultural diversity.
Millions have had student loans canceled under Biden, despite collapse of his forgiveness plan
Despite failing to deliver his promise for broad student loan forgiveness, President Joe Biden has now overseen the cancellation of student loans for more than 5 million Americans — more than any other president in U.S. history.
In a last-minute action on Monday, the Education Department canceled loans for 150,000 borrowers through programs that existed before Biden took office. His administration expanded those programs and used them to their fullest extent, pressing on with cancellation even after the Supreme Court rejected Biden's plan for a new forgiveness policy.
“My Administration has taken historic action to reduce the burden of student debt, hold bad actors accountable, and fight on behalf of students across the country,” Biden said in a written statement.
In total, the administration says it has waived $183.6 billion in student loans.
The wave of cancellations could dry up when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump hasn't detailed his student loan policies but previously called cancellation “vile” and illegal. Republicans have fought relentlessly against Biden's plans, saying cancellation is ultimately shouldered by taxpayers who never attended college or already repaid their loans.
Biden loosened rules for debt forgiveness
The latest round of relief mostly comes through a program known as borrower defense, which allows students to get their loans canceled if they're cheated or misled by their colleges. It was created in 1994 but rarely used until a wave of high-profile for-profit college scandals during the Obama administration.
A smaller share of the relief came through a program for borrowers with disabilities and through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created in 2007 and offers to erase all remaining debt for borrowers in a government or nonprofit job who make 10 years of monthly payments.
Most of Monday's borrower defense cancellations were for students who attended several defunct colleges owned by Center for Excellence in Higher Education, including CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University. They are based on past findings that the schools lied to prospective students about their employment prospects and the terms of private loans.
Before Biden took office, those programs were criticized by advocates who said complex rules made it difficult for borrowers to get relief. The Biden administration loosened some of the rules using its regulatory power, a maneuver that expanded eligibility without going through Congress.
As an example, just 7,000 borrowers had gotten their loans canceled through Public Service Loan Forgiveness before the Biden administration took office. Widespread confusion about eligibility, along with errors by loan servicers, resulted in a 99% rejection rate for applicants.
Huge numbers of borrowers made years of payments only to find out they were in an ineligible repayment plan. Some were improperly put into forbearance — a pause on payments — by their loan servicers. Those periods didn't end up counting toward the 10 years of payments needed for cancellation.
The Biden administration temporarily relaxed the eligibility rules during the pandemic and then made it more permanent in 2023. As a result, more than 1 million public servants have now had their balances zeroed out through the program.
All those rule changes were meant to be a companion to Biden's marquee policy for student debt, which proposed up to $20,000 in relief for more than 40 million Americans.
But after the Supreme Court blocked the move, the Biden administration shifted its focus to maximizing relief through existing mechanisms.
Republicans have called for a different approach
Announcements of new cancellation became routine, even as conservatives in Congress accused Biden of overstepping his power. Republican states fought off Biden's later attempts at mass forgiveness, but the smaller batches of relief continued without any major legal challenge.
As Republicans take hold of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Biden's changes could be targeted for a rollback. But it's unclear how far the next administration will go to tighten the cancellation spigot.
Trump proposed eliminating PSLF during his first term in office, but Congress rejected the idea. Project 2025, a blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term, proposes ending PSLF, and narrowing borrower defense and making repayment plans less generous than existing ones.
- By VOA News
Startup aims to help international students with US life
Think of it as one-stop shopping for all things American, aimed at international students.
According to an article in Washington Square News, New York University's student newspaper, roam, a student-funded startup, helps individuals navigate pricing plans for every necessity one could think of, including SIM cards, bank accounts, health insurance, scholarships, student visas, work visas and even meal prep. The all-in-one platform makes information about these necessities accessible and digestible."
