The Brief

Starting this week, the Trump administration will resume collections on defaulted student loans. This means the Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid can take funds from borrowers' tax refunds, Social Security benefits and wages.

Given this change, what should you keep an eye on if you have federal student debt? Experts say that if you have student loans, it’s time to be vigilant.

For this guide, LAist reached out to multiple college affordability advocates, and heard back from spokespeople for:

• EdTrust
• The Institute for College Access & Success
• The National College Attainment Network, and 
• The Student Borrower Protection Center

What federal changes are in motion?

In recent months, the Trump administration has taken actions that could significantly affect federal student loan borrowers, including more than 3.8 million Californians.

After moving to dismantle the Department of Education, the president issued an executive order that aims to deny debt relief to public servants whose work he’s deemed “illegal,” including those who provide aid for undocumented immigrants or gender-affirming care.

The administration also announced that the country's $1.6 trillion student debt portfolio will be transferred from the Education Department to the Small Business Administration. Both agencies are facing mass layoffs.

All the while, 8 million borrowers have been in limbo because of lawsuits against Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), a Biden-era repayment plan that offered low monthly bills and promised not to let original balances build up due to unpaid interest. Those borrowers’ payments have been on pause for months.

What to do if you have federal student debt

Know your current situation. If you haven’t taken a good look at your debt recently, the college affordability advocates said it’s time to go to studentaid.gov, make sure your contact information is up-to-date, and verify the name of your student loan servicer. (It may have changed.) Jessica Thompson, senior vice president at the Institute for College Access & Success, also recommends taking screenshots of all your information and keeping it in a secure file.

If the Trump administration succeeds in making the changes it has called for, “there's going to be a lot of movement and shuffling and reprogramming,” Thompson said. “We're very concerned that customer service is not going to be up for this task because of the cuts that have been made at the Department of Education.”

Borrowers need to have records. Document how much you owe and how much you’ve paid, in case anything goes awry. If you are in an income-driven plan or working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), be sure to document that too, Thompson said.

Victoria Jackson, assistant director of higher education policy at EdTrust, suggests borrowers download their data file, along with copies of their master promissory notes (the contract to take out student loans).

Be sure to stay in good standing. The federal government is reporting delinquency, Thompson added, which can affect your credit score. “If you are looking at a [bill] that you can't afford, call your servicer and see what's possible for you,” she said.

Focus on current policy, not on what might happen

MorraLee Keller, a spokesperson for the National College Attainment Network, said borrowers should “stay on top of any changes that Congress may make,” without letting political headlines derail them.

For instance: Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, underscored that despite President Donald Trump’s executive order, PSLF eligibility has not changed. “Only an act of Congress can end this program or fundamentally change it in any way,” she added. “So keep making your payments, so you can stay on track toward that relief.”

Also, although the SAVE plan remains unavailable, borrowers can apply for the Income-Based Repayment (IBR), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plans.

“Every federal loan borrower has the right to tie their monthly payment to their income and to see cancellation after 20 or 25 years,” Canchola Bañez said. “Ensuring that folks know that these are resources that are still at their disposal is very important."

As triple-digit temperatures bake some parts of California, two new laws aim to help educate students about heat illness and protect them from it.

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that will require the state Board of Education to consider teaching students about the symptoms of heat illness in schools. Another law, which the governor signed in 2024 with a key deadline this month, requires schools to come up with rules for outdoor activities when there are extreme weather events like heat waves.

Both are promising, low-cost measures. But neither requires the state to spend money on the things that experts say would actually make schools safer: updated HVAC, shade structures, a funded health curriculum. The governor's office says as of now it has no plans to propose funding for an updated health framework.

The laws “demonstrate that children in California are already being harmed by extreme heat,” said Sarah Matsumoto, director of policy and government affairs for Green Schoolyards America. “It's not a future problem anymore. There definitely needs to be a comprehensive plan to protect children from extreme heat.”

A student’s experience becomes law

In 2022, during a record-breaking, triple-digit heat wave in Sacramento, the air conditioning in Natalie Rubio’s school cafeteria gave out. She was in the fourth grade; she and her classmates had to eat lunch outside.

Now 13, Natalie recalls some of her peers feeling sick – flushed with red cheeks and headaches, symptoms of heat illness. She brought her experience, and her idea for a bill promoting heat education, to the legislature: Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Palmdale Republican, wrote Assembly Bill 1653.

Adding guidance on how to teach heat illness in schools is a “simple, common-sense step,” Lackey said in a legislative hearing about the bill.

“This bill creates no mandates,” said Lackey. “It simply promotes awareness and prevention. Because sometimes the most powerful way to protect our students is by giving them the knowledge to protect themselves.”

Heat illness is a growing concern for students, parents and educators as heat waves become stronger and longer. In California, 618 children ages 5 to 17 went to the emergency room in 2024 because of heat illness, according to Tracking California, a health surveillance tool by the Public Health Institute. That’s about a 30% jump from the previous year.

California students lost more than 40,000 hours of instructional time in the 2025-26 school year due to closures and disruptions from extreme heat, according to data collected by UndauntedK12. Extreme heat accounted for 73% of weather-related school closures in the fall semester.

Natalie envisions short, interactive lessons tailored to each grade level and reminders during heat waves. “I want schools to teach every student the signs and symptoms of heat illness and how to respond in a memorable way,” the middle school student said.

Lackey’s law doesn't guarantee new lessons — that depends on when the state next updates its health education framework, which last happened in 2019.

The Board of Education could incorporate heat illness lessons into its health education framework – a voluntary guide for teaching about subjects including nutrition, physical activity, drugs and alcohol and mental health – the next time it considers updates. But there's no further update scheduled, and doing so again “must be initiated and funded by the legislature.” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor, referred questions about whether the administration would fund a new framework to the education board. The board did not respond to CalMatters’ questions by deadline.

Stephanie Seidmon, a project manager for UndauntedK12, said the nonprofit educational advocacy group supported the law “because this is a potentially low-cost solution in a time when our state budget is (limited).”

If an eventual update does include heat illness education, it could make a real difference in the number of kids that end up in the nurse’s office with serious symptoms, said Rosemarie Dowell, government relations committee chair for the California School Nurses Organization.

Students “might not realize that this headache or this dizziness might not just be feeling tired but could be a sign of heat illness,” Dowell said. “That can empower them to react for themselves, react for somebody else, to encourage them to get water, to find that shade or to tell an adult.”

A push for more protections

The state Department of Education offers no official guidance on how hot is too hot for students to be outside, or how teachers should respond to unusually high temperatures. The department refers schools to a list of resources, including the state health department’s guidance on extreme heat, defined as longer than two days and nights.

Nationally, an estimated 9,000 high school athletes suffer from and receive treatment for exertional heat illness every year, with most incidents occurring in the month of August. The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, sets and can enforce heat-related policies, including rules about practice times and hydration breaks for student athletes.

Senate Bill 1248, authored by Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Bakersfield Democrat, requires schools to adopt protocols for outdoor activities, such as sports practice and recess, during extreme weather. This includes setting criteria for when schools should cancel outdoor activity. The death of 12-year-old Yahshua Robinson, who in August 2023 collapsed and died during P.E. class in Lake Elsinore, prompted that law.

The law requires schools to develop heat-safety plans that include monitoring weather forecasts, designating safe indoor alternatives to outdoor activities, and training staff to recognize heat stress, among other measures. The law required schools to have those plans ready by July 1 of this year.

In a legislative hearing in 2024, Yahshua’s mother said her son died following dangerous school rules.

“It was in the nineties outside that day, and even the best and highly trained athletes wouldn't run in it,” she said. “Yet Yahshua's class of middle schoolers were made to run in that heat. Physical education should happen only in environments conducive for physical activity.”

The funding gap that laws don’t touch

School and environmental advocates want state leaders to go further by investing in better cooling systems and more shady areas for children to play. But limited state and school funding stands in the way.

“Many of our school buildings were built before the era of extreme heat fueled by climate change,” Seidmon said. “Our kids are playing on playgrounds, in schoolyards and on fields that don't have shade ... So it's critical that our school buildings and grounds protect our children from extreme heat.”

Emily Penner, an associate professor of education at UC Irvine, is researching the effects of heat exposure on school children and how schools are adapting to warmer days. Response, she’s learning, varies widely by region — schools that have long struggled with extreme heat are more likely to try new approaches, such as using more heat-resilient materials for playgrounds and prioritizing air conditioning in school buses.

Adaptation efforts like shading infrastructure and HVAC in most schools can make a significant difference, Penner says. At the same time, these projects require funding that many schools may not have.

“This is a case where we have some pretty concrete things we know we need to do, like put HVAC at most schools across the state, and now we have to kind of figure out how to marshal political support for something like that,” Penner said.

Money on the table, but not enough

Even where funding exists, schools are finding it hard to secure or insufficient to meet the need. In 2020, the legislature created a state program, known as CalShape, funded by utility ratepayers, which has helped schools pay for assessments and upgrades to their air conditioning systems. But the program administrator, the California Energy Commission, abruptly paused applications in 2024, citing budget constraints. The state will return the leftover $200 million to investor-owned utilities if the Legislature doesn't act by the end of the year.

In 2024, Californians voted to approve Proposition 2, a bond measure that earmarks $10 billion for school facilities. But school modernization projects already demand more than  the funding provides.

Voters also approved Proposition 4, which sends another $10 billion to climate projects statewide. That includes $50 million for the state’s Urban Forestry Program, which funnels money to local projects that add green space, including in schools.

“Compared to the federal government and many states, California is one of the leaders in this issue,” Matsumoto said. “And we are still not collectively meeting the moment.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A nonprofit law firm has created a resource to teach people who are in custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, or at the neighboring Desert View Annex, how to challenge their detainment.

Available in English and in Spanish, the information packet walks immigrant detainees through the process of filling out their own petitions for habeas corpus.

“Habeas corpus” means “you have the body” in Latin. In the U.S., this writ refers to a judicial order that forces authorities to bring the person they’ve detained before a federal district court and justify their continued confinement.

This provision — enshrined in Section 9 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution — is a safeguard against arbitrary imprisonment.

Immigrant Defenders Law Center created its resource for people who meet two criteria:

1. The petitioner has an open case in immigration court or a pending appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals.
2. The petitioner was previously detained and released by immigrant officials. 

Once immigrant officials release a detainee — once they decide that the person in question is not dangerous and does not pose a flight risk — “they can't just arrest you again without proof of any change in circumstance,” said Sarah Houston, managing attorney of the law firm’s rapid response team.

An LAist investigation recently found that more immigrants are being held in detention without bond, and the increase in denials is steepest at Adelanto. Plus, given reports of unsanitary and unsafe conditions at Adelanto, along with a surge in deaths at ICE detention facilities across the country, Houston said her team is acting out of a sense of urgency.

“We don't want anyone to sit in detention for months and months, when they could potentially be drafting this and getting out,” she said.

How this resource helps immigrant detainees

Immigrant Defenders Law Center is based in downtown L.A. Each week, their attorneys make the trek to the long-term detention facilities in Adelanto, out in the Mojave desert.

“We have a great network [of pro bono and low bono lawyers],” Houston said, “but there is no way we have enough attorneys to meet the needs of [scores of detainees].”

At the same time, she added, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California was getting inundated with petitions for habeas corpus — so much so that it made a form for detainees who opt to represent themselves. In the legal world, self-representation is referred to as “pro se.”

Meanwhile, Houston and her team kept hearing about people who’d been re-detained at Adelanto. In response, they created their resource for these “pro se” litigants.

The nonprofit’s 24-page resource contains detailed instructions on how to file a petition for habeas corpus, but it’s meant to be uncomplicated, Houston said. When creating it, the law firm’s goal was to “make it as clear as possible,” while mitigating the possibility that petitioners might make a mistake.

Before sharing the resource widely, the law firm identified one detainee for a test case. A judge decided the government was holding that person in custody illegally. Then, another detainee used the resource to secure his release and that of five others, Houston said.

Now, when her team goes to Adelanto, they take packets of the resource with them to distribute widely among detainees.

“Our clients are so intelligent and so resourceful, and they will do anything to go back to their families,” she said. “Our job is to give them as much information as possible for them to be able to draft the best habeas.”

What happens if a petitioner makes an error?  

Even with detailed instructions, Houston acknowledged, detainees who file habeas corpus petitions “sometimes do make mistakes.” As a result, their petition might get rejected, forcing the detainee to refile. But in Houston’s experience, courts tend to be more lenient when people are representing themselves.

“If it's a minor error, they'll just go forward with it,” she said.

Under the second Trump administration, petitions for habeas corpus have skyrocketed.

A ProPublica report found that immigrants filed more of these petitions in the first 13 months of the second Trump administration than in the past three administrations combined — including President Donald Trump’s first. In parts of California and Texas, these petitions have been especially prevalent.

Houston underscored that the resource her team created is specifically geared at people who are both detained at Adelanto and who meet the criteria she outlined.

Habeas corpus is “so complicated that you can't make a resource like this for every type of person,” she said. “We wanted to start off where we know exactly what the case law is, where it's pretty clear cut.”

The law firm is currently working on translating the resource, to ensure it’s available to immigrants who speak other languages.

After 25 years of anticipation, the Burbank Public Library opened a time capsule monument only to find…nothing.

They were expecting to come across a collection of memories from 2001, when the monument was last opened. But the capsule was never created. And library officials don’t know why.

“It's a fun little mystery we got going on,” said Kathleen Zapata, marketing analyst for the Burbank Public Library. “Instead, we found the original time capsule that was placed in 1976 by the Burbank Bicentennial Committee who started off this whole time capsule project to begin with.”

The 2001 time capsule was never created, and library officials say they aren't sure why.

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Courtesy of Burbank Public Library

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The monument has four compartments, and while it says it was sealed in 1977, the original time capsule contents are from 1976.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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In 1976, the committee built a monument in front of the Central Library for four time capsules, according to officials. The idea was to open a time capsule, and add another into the monument, every 25 years for the next century.

But wires got crossed somewhere along the way. Zapata noted the committee’s instructions were “a bit vague.”

“Potentially, the 2001 crew just thought maybe that we were supposed to open the 1976 [capsule] every 25 years to maybe admire it? I don't know,” she said.

The library is now working on a 2026 time capsule for future generations — and officials want to hear from you.

Keeping up the tradition

Zapata said the new time capsule should represent life in Burbank today. They’re specifically looking for small, non-perishable items that will stand the test of time (and weather).

It could include movie tickets from all three of the city's AMCs. Or a yellow Porto’s Bakery bag. Or furniture instructions from Ikea, which Burbank boasts as the largest in the U.S.

“If anyone has an item that they could even donate to the time capsule, that would be fantastic,” she said. “We're open to absolutely any ideas that folks have … we hope that the community can join us in this collective brainstorm.”

For example, the original time capsule included photos of the committee who started the program, a book of utility rates that showed what people were paying for water and electricity decades ago and a menu from a long-closed restaurant.

The items were a blast from the past, including a telephone book and utility rates book that showed what people were paying for electricity and water decades ago.

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Courtesy Burbank Public Library

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The Burbank Bicentennial Committee kicked off the generational project.

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Courtesy Burbank Public Library

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A few photos of Burbank residents in the 1970s were tucked away in the time capsule.

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Courtesy Burbank Public Library

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The first time capsule was from 1976 and included items that represented the area at the time, including a nearby JCPenney.

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Courtesy Burbank Public Library

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You can submit ideas to the library’s form here through September.

Zapata is also hoping that anyone who knows why the last capsule was skipped will come forward and cue the library in, too.

What happens next?

Once complete, the library will put both the 2026 and 1976 time capsules safely in storage until its new Central Library location is built.

The new branch, which Burbank got a $9.95 million grant for a few years ago, is expected to open in 2029, according to Zapata.

You can find more information about the project and share feedback here.

If you want to see the original time capsule in person before then, the items will be on display at an open house later this year. Zapata said you'll be able to find the time and date on the library's website once those details are finalized.

In recent years, some Southern California cities have tried a new approach to softening the blow of large rent hikes. When landlords raised rents beyond what tenants could afford, cities required them to give those tenants thousands of dollars in relocation assistance.

But that strategy had one major problem. According to recent court decisions, it was illegal.

Following legal victories by landlord groups, the cities of L.A. and Pasadena have deleted guidance about those relocation payments from their websites and officials are no longer enforcing the requirement.

Whitney Prout, who works on legal affairs for the California Apartment Association, said the landlord advocacy group successfully argued that Pasadena's requirement illegally imposed heavy costs on landlords who raised rents to levels allowed by state law.

“It was a consequence that was imposed for exercising a legal right,” Prout said. “That is effectively the same as limiting the right that exists. And you're not allowed to do that.”

No more payments to ‘cushion the blow’

A California appellate court ruled in December 2025 that Pasadena’s relocation requirement due to rent hikes was illegal. In April, the California Supreme Court declined to review the decision. A separate case brought against L.A. later used the Pasadena case as precedent to strike down a similar requirement in that city.

Tenant advocates said the decisions mean that renters getting pushed out of their homes by large rent hikes will now have to shoulder the cost of finding new housing entirely on their own.

“It was a new attempt to protect tenants that wasn't as legally tried and tested,” said Ryan Bell, a coordinator with Tenants Together and a member of the Pasadena Rental Housing Board. “The idea was to help cushion the blow of displacement. And now that doesn't exist anymore.”

Who was getting relocation aid?

Pasadena’s relocation requirement was created by Measure H, the November 2022 ballot initiative that nearly 54% of voters passed to implement rent control and eviction protections.

Pasadena landlords would have to pay relocation assistance if they increased rents by more than 5% plus the amount of the city’s current rent control cap. Today, that limit would be 7.25%. If tenants informed their landlords that they could not afford increases above that amount, they would be entitled to relocation payments.

The protection wasn’t designed for Pasadena tenants living in rent-controlled apartments. Landlords cannot legally raise rents that much in units covered by those caps.

Instead, the relocation payments were geared toward tenants living in other kinds of housing not covered by local limits, such as single-family homes, condos and apartments built after Feb. 1, 1995.

A separate state law caps annual rent increases — currently at 8% in L.A. County — in many homes not subject to local rent control caps. But not all housing is covered by that state law.

Relocation payments still required in some cases

Though landlords no longer need to pay relocation fees when tenants are pushed out by large rent hikes, they still must pay tenants who are evicted through no fault of their own, such as in cases where landlords want to move a family member into the tenant’s unit.

The amount of relocation assistance Pasadena requires landlords to pay varies based on how many bedrooms the unit had, how long a tenant lived there, and the tenant’s age, parental status and disabilities. The payments range from $8,340 to $40,210.

The rules have worked similarly in the city of L.A., where relocation payments currently range from one month’s worth of rent up to $27,400. The rule requiring relocation payments due to “economic displacement” was created by the City Council in 2023 as the city began ramping down its COVID-19 pandemic tenant protections.

What’s changing now

Santa Monica has also required relocation payments in situations where tenants can’t afford large rent hikes. The city still lists that requirement in online documents. LAist reached out to city officials to ask if they have changed their approach to enforcing the requirement in light of recent court rulings. We did not receive a response.

In guidance on tenant protections published this month, the city of L.A. dropped information about relocation payments triggered by rent hikes. Pasadena officials removed details about the rent-hike relocation rules after LAist asked if they planned to drop the requirement, which was still described in detail on the city’s website earlier this week.

Prout, the California Apartment Association legal affairs expert, said the changes will be welcome news for landlords who felt blindsided when the rules first took effect a few years ago.

Many, she said, “were very surprised to learn that — despite the fact that they were not rent controlled — if they increased the rent more than the city wanted them to, they were facing a pretty significant potential financial consequence.”