The Brief

Elizabeth Hill saw going to college as her way out of poverty. But 26 years later, she is still paying back student loans, with around $145,000 still left to go.

“I've been able to stay afloat, but I do not have $145,000 to give them,” Hill said. “My debt-to-income ratio has impacted my ability to do things because I've got this six-figure loan just sitting there on my credit report.”

Hill is a therapist who specializes in care for Black, brown, indigenous, queer and trans people. And as an autism assessor, she was relying on an Obama-era plan to have her loan forgiven. She said she signed up for a consolidation plan, and if her loan was in good standing for 20 years, her loan would be forgiven.

That option has ended, though, which means she is looking at a lifetime of repaying her debt.

July 1 brings a plethora of changes to student loans as the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act goes into effect. It ends the Biden-era SAVE plan, where monthly payments were calculated on income and family size, so now borrowers have to look into new repayment plans. And if you do not transition to a new plan, you will be automatically transferred to a plan. Some of the plans on offer could increase monthly payments by a couple of hundred dollars. And the new changes also set limits for how much prospective students can borrow — and could force them to seek out costly private loans.

California could feel those effects deeply. An analysis by the California Policy Lab found that around 11% of borrowers in the state were 30-plus days late on their monthly payments last September. That number was around 3.7% when the pandemic began. Around 10% of Angelenos were delinquent on their loans. Per an analysis from Protect Borrowers using federal data, the total student debt in the SoCal region was $70.7 billion, with over half of that number owned by women.

Trying to do good, at personal cost

Hill had a Pell Grant — financial aid from the federal government that does not need to be paid back — and work study to complete community college in Oregon. Then, at the age of 18, she took out loans in her name, as well as under her mother’s name, to attend San Diego State University for undergrad.

After she graduated, she tried to stay afloat and keep her loans in good standing. But to become a therapist, like she wanted to, she said she needed a graduate degree to increase her earning potential.

“I come from a family that didn't have any money, and the only way to go to school was to take out these loans,” she said. “There was no advisement — this is what the interest is going to be; this is how much you're going to pay back. I'm 18 years old, just signing stuff so I can get into school.”

As a therapist, Hill said, she works with “the most marginalized populations because that's where my heart is, that's where I feel the most comfortable, and I'm a member of those populations as well.”

But that means she has to also work on a sliding scale.

“So the folk who can afford to pay the fee are almost essentially sponsoring the other ones who can't, if that makes sense. It's almost like a system of mutual aid,” Hill said.

Despite doing this work helping uplift marginalized communities for around 25 years, Hill said, there is no reward for it.

“I'm still expected to come up with over six figures to pay back the government,” she said.

No job plan, just a repayment plan

Sara Alsheikh took out student loans to attend the University of California, Riverside.

College, she said, was a confusing time. She thought she wanted to pursue a career in psychiatry but then pivoted to linguistics.

“ It focused on language, etymologically, and then also, I love anthropology, I love culture, I love people, I love to travel, so linguistics seemed like the perfect match for me,” Alsheikh said.

When she graduated, she didn’t have a plan. But that did not stop the loan repayment.

“ I'm not really seeing the fruits of my labor, and immediately, I got to start paying my loans. So, it kind of felt like, did I make the right decision?” she said. “I think I'm still kind of in that limbo, where like, OK, I went to school, I was proud, and I was happy that I did this, but I don't know.”

She’s still uncertain whether she made the right decision to go to college, she said.

Alsheikh graduated in 2023 and the total loan amount then was around $25,000. Three years later, that number is still the same. She made some payments but had to take a break when she lost her job.

Alsheikh said she only had a “vague understanding” of what she was signing up for.

“ It was just packaged up nice, like, take loans because you need to go to school, and then you can get around it. There will be options for you,” she said.

Those options haven’t materialized. Instead, Alsheikh said, she and others have been “left to the wolves” to figure out a “suffocating and quite complicated” process.

And the upcoming changes mean her monthly repayment amount is set to jump from $50 to around $150 — and this is after she called up her loan servicing provider to figure out her options.

College, Alsheikh said, is encouraged and portrayed as a way to improve your financial standing. But now, she said, she feels like “money is at the center of education.”

Helping new students learn from her experience

Shirley Portal, a nurse turned financial professional living in Los Angeles, gets triggered every time she hears the term student loans.

“Everybody in my position that went to school had to deal with it, whether it's federal or private loans. I feel like there's a lot of miseducation, or actually no education at all on the subject,” she said. “When I went to school, I went to the office. I wanted to ask how to start, how to pay. The first thing they did is literally shove the name of the company they work with, the loaner, and they just recommended it, and that's it.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ends the Biden-era SAVE plan, where monthly payments were calculated on income and family size, so now borrowers have to look into new repayment plans.

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Maria Grejc for NPR

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Portal took out a student loan with an 11% interest rate to pay for nursing school, a rate she said was “inhuman.”

And after graduating, despite a padded resume with volunteer work and high test scores, she still couldn’t get a job.

“I had to go back to work an office job just to pay those loans,” Portal said. And even then, she considered living out of her car to pay off the loans just because of how high her payment was.

And then came COVID-19, “a slap in the face,” she said.

“They begged us to work, which means I worked 20 days in a row. There was no equipment. I have pictures of me wearing trash bags as gowns that we cut, and there were no masks, so I worked the same mask for 14 days,” Portal said.

The overtime had a silver lining, though: It meant she could finally pay off her nursing school loans, which amounted to over $50,000 plus interest.

But all that overtime also meant she had to pay more taxes.

“ I realized that I'm paying a lot more taxes than I should because I simply worked overtime. I worked holidays while everybody else sat at home and got paychecks,” Portal said.

It was at that moment that she decided to switch careers.

“I'm done being used and abused. This job is already hard mentally, physically, and then after COVID, there was zero appreciation,” she said.

Now, Portal works as a finance professional helping borrowers navigate student debt and taking hold of their finances.

And as borrowers reckon with the changes to their monthly payments because of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill, she’s on hand to help.

How should students navigate the new loan changes?

Celina Damian is California’s student loan ombudsperson, appointed by the state to investigate complaints into loan service providers.

With the incoming changes to federal student loans, she said, it might lead to prospective students and families turning to riskier types of financing: private loans.

These have “higher interest rates, they don't have the forgiveness, discharge programs, the repayment forbearance options that federal loans do.”

Damian added that private loans would also require established credit worthiness, which might force students to look for co-signers. She hopes prospective students understand the implications of taking these loans and how it could impact their financial standing in the future.

“You really have to be making good decisions on the front end because then we're seeing this at the back end where I am, right, and I hear many borrowers that have regrets,” Damian said.

Damian advised prospective students and their families to understand their debt they could potentially be taking on. They can start by going to the California Student Aid Commission. Damian said they will help students fill out their FAFSA and help them determine the real cost of attending a school.

And if they are in school and run out of money, Damian asked students to really shop around and understand their options and understand things like fixed-interest rates vs. variable interest rates.

 ”There's scholarships everywhere, through your parents' employment, through the banks, through McDonald's,” Damian said. “But it does require work. It does require someone to start in the 10th grade sometimes, trying to get those scholarships.”

Voters on Saturday rejected a measure that would have weakened California’s landmark environmental law by fast-tracking reviews for some projects.

With about 76% of votes counted, voters rejected Prop. 45 by 55.7% to 44.3%.

The vote maintains the status quo under the state’s Environmental Quality Act, which since 1970 has required public agencies to review project developments that could have harmful environmental impacts, and mitigate those harms.

“Californians have sent a clear message to corporate developers, utilities and data center builders that they will not stand for a broad assault at the ballot box on state law protecting our air, water and natural resources,” No on 45’s Woody Little said. “We were outspent but not outgunned.”

Supporters had said the changes would reduce building costs. The California Chamber of Commerce sponsored Proposition 45, the Building an Affordable California Act, which would limit the length of environmental reviews for projects deemed “essential” to 365 business days and require courts to resolve litigation in 270 calendar days. Those projects include housing, water, broadband and transit developments.

Proponents said the savings from building more quickly would pass to consumers and spent $41 million campaigning for the measure. The Building a Better California political action committee was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The organization is funded partly by current and former Google executives Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. Two of the largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison, together donated $4.4 million.

Environmental groups argued the measure would go too far in weakening a law meant to protect people from environmental harms. Opponents, including a coalition of environmental, health and union organizations, spent $30 million trying to stop it. Wendy Schmidt, a Democratic philanthropist, was the largest donor, giving $10 million to the campaign. The political action committee Clean and Healthy California Sponsored by Environmental Organizations contributed $7 million.

The California Democratic Party opposed the measure. The California Republican Party supported it, while county Republican groups were split.

Deborah Sivas, an environmental law professor at Stanford University, said Prop. 45 would radically change current law. It would shift power “away from local governments and to developers by giving them some new tools … and limiting what courts can do in terms of reviewing decisions that agencies and local governments make,” she said.

CEQA and housing

California’s environmental review law, signed in 1970, requires agencies to assess the environmental impacts of developments and help mitigate them.

Over decades, developers have raised concerns about the process, arguing litigation and bureaucracy slow down construction.

State legislators have tried to fix the problem by passing laws that exempt or streamline certain projects from environmental review. In 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws that exempt many urban housing projects from the full review process.

But some supporters of Prop. 45, including the California Building Industry Association and the California Council for Affordable Housing, say those changes don’t go far enough.

“It’s an important piece of the puzzle, but (that type of housing) does not produce quickly or at scale,” said Jennifer Hernandez, an attorney who helped write the measure. “We need quicker, at scale, affordable housing.”

Supporters say Prop. 45 would help California redevelop large, unused sites like malls and parking lots into housing and make it easier to build away from urban areas.

Pro-housing groups, public agencies divided 

Pro-housing and local government groups usually support CEQA reform, but Prop. 45 has divided many of them.

Housing advocates in the Bay Area, including East Bay for Everyone and the Greenbelt Alliance, oppose the measure. Other Yes in My Backyard groups are neutral, including Abundant Housing Los Angeles and both California YIMBY and YIMBY Action — the movement’s two flagship advocacy groups.

The split between pro-housing groups lies in whether California should keep building outward onto undeveloped land or promote construction in urban centers. Some supporters, including Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, have said the state needs all types of housing.

Others say building away from urban centers would make it harder to address climate change.

“We believe we can (and must) solve the housing and climate crises simultaneously. That means building communities with denser housing and alternatives to automobile dependence,” wrote Max Dubler of California YIMBY in a blog post explaining the group’s neutral stance on Prop. 45.

Public agencies and local governments that could benefit from the building rules were also divided.

The California Municipal Utilities Association opposes the measure. But most other groups representing local governments, including the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties, remained neutral.

Financial impacts for Prop. 45

Prop. 45 supporters argued that streamlining development would make life more affordable for Californians, but the long-term financial benefits are unclear.

An analysis by Blue Sky Consulting Group, commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce, estimated the measure would produce $1.5 billion in savings and additional revenues for public agencies over 10 years that would reduce overall housing costs.

But the measure would initially cost local governments and public agencies more as they adjust to the measure’s rules, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan adviser to the Legislature.

Democrats have done well in recent elections when they win young voters by a margin of at least 20 points. On Tuesday, they carried Gen Z — those under 30 — by nearly 50 points, according to exit polling.

It's a stunning shift from 2024, when the party lost critical ground with young people. Long seen as a part of the Democratic base, voters under 30 shifted right towards Donald Trump, motivated by his pledge to better their economic prospects.

But this week, the youngest generation of voters issued a strong rebuke of Republicans, taking another chance on Democrats and their change-focused message at a moment when many of them feel as though the American Dream is out of reach.

How young voters powered Democrats to victory 

Americans ages 18-29 have a history of turning out at lower rates than older voters, and this year was no exception. Gen Z made up 11% of the total vote on Tuesday.

However, where young Americans may have made the greatest difference is on the margins in House and Senate races where Democrats flipped seats.

The Texas Senate race is a key example. Democrat James Talarico won the state by 12 percentage points; however, when looking at just Gen Z, he won it by 60 points.

Explaining the massive shift from 2024

When assessing gains more broadly, Democrats argue the party's strong slate of candidates helped drum up increased enthusiasm.

But another motivating factor remains strong opposition to Trump. Throughout his second term, Gen Z increasingly soured on the president, with some arguing he failed to make good on a number of core campaign promises — from pledging to lower prices and repeatedly vowing "no new wars," to calling for a crackdown on federal corruption and the release of the Epstein files.

Much of that disappointment was reflected in exit polling. Economic issues were the top concern for a plurality of 18- to 29-year-olds, at 43%, and these voters expressed broad frustrations with Trump's handling of the issue. More than eight in 10 said that Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, with similar shares opposing his tariff strategy and the decision to go to war with Iran.

The young voters Trump lost

Early analysis from CIRCLE indicates that 15% of young people who backed Trump in 2024 voted for a Democratic House candidate in this year's midterms.

Democrats made gains with some young voters who backed Trump two years ago, including white men and Latino men, two blocs that narrowly voted Republican in 2024 and then voted blue on Tuesday by double digits. Democratic candidates also narrowed the margins with young rural voters and people without college degrees.  

Some of those gains may have been helped by young Trump voters who chose to sit this election out, but it's unclear how many of them there were.

How the election results broke down by age

The midterm results underscore how neither of the two major parties owns Gen Z, according to John Della Volpe, a left-leaning pollster who's extensively studied the politics of young Americans.

"The cohort of younger people in this cycle had a different set of experiences than the cohort of people two years ago, or four years before that," he said. "Every candidate, every party has to earn their votes."

Della Volpe, who runs the Harvard Youth Poll, notes that in the latest survey, released in October, there was a sizable enthusiasm gap between young Democrat and young Republican respondents. While half of Democrats said they definitely planned to vote, just a third of Republicans and less than a quarter of Independents said the same.

"I also think we shouldn't overread what's happened," he added. "Clearly a significant historic rebuke on the party in office — that's obvious — however, I think we need to more fully, kind of understand, the contour of the electorate, who showed up and who didn't show up."

By 2028, Gen Z and millennial voters will make up more than half of the electorate, a demographic shift with huge implications for Democrats and the GOP.

"Young adults can make a difference," said Elizabeth Matto, who serves as the director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University.

"They do care about politics. They can sway the outcome of elections. And they're a voting bloc worth paying attention to."
Copyright 2026 NPR

The morning after Tuesday's midterms was gloomy and rainy in Minneapolis, but people still gathered at the place where Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a VA nurse and U.S. citizen, last January. All week, community members have come here to place their "I Voted" stickers at the memorial.

Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and was his close friend for nearly 17 years, watched quietly as a woman added her sticker to a street lamp completely covered in the red decals.

"I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here," she says. "It just means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex, too."

A few blocks away, people left their stickers where an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mom of three and a U.S. citizen, just a few weeks before Pretti's death. In Houston, they left them where an ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and a Mexican immigrant, in July.

Adams says these stickers, and the election results this week, send a clear message to Congress: "You work for us, and please carry on these values that we care about … We want to be seen and heard and taken care of and have our neighbors taken care of."

The deaths of Pretti and Good during the ICE surge in Minneapolis marked a pivotal moment for the country, sparking intense public backlash to President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts. But federal law enforcement officials have given little indication they're progressing in investigating their deaths, or the deaths of at least seven other people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. DHS did not respond to an NPR request for the status of those investigations.

Now, after Democrats' sweeping wins this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the targets of renewed investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to the major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath before the legislature.

That could include White House Border Czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others.

Congress can also demand internal documents, like use-of-force reports.

"They can dissect these individual shootings, and really unravel the story of what happened," says Naureen Shah, who leads the ACLU's immigration policy work.

Democrats have already held shadow hearings on the ICE shootings, during which they've called in family members and witnesses to testify.

But Shah says now Congress can ask key questions of top decision makers: What orders were given to immigration officers in the field? What was training like for these officers?

Who made the decision to paint Good and Pretti as threats, including calling Pretti a "would-be assassin" and a domestic terrorist, when video showed otherwise?

"It's like we can turn the faucet on and actually find out so much more," Shah says. "There's an aspect of this that is really about a kind of reckoning with how it's possible that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you have that reckoning if you don't actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?"

Democratic leaders have already said that's the plan.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told NPR in a statement that Congress will use "every tool" at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it is time for the agency to "start answering to the American people."

California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, vowed to take on DHS and ICE abuses in a two-word statement: "Lawyer Up."

Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter on Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding the agency "comply with all document preservation requirements."

Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social media that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should "clear" their schedules.

In response to that, DHS general counsel James Percival said Democrats are "more interested in political shenanigans than in governing" but said the agency is prepared to "deal with this nonsense."

There are key limitations to what Democrats in Congress can do with their majority when it comes to ICE accountability, says Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Major changes, like clawing back funding for the agency, would require a veto-proof majority, something the Democrats don't have.

"You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and in fact, a great deal of knee jerk defensiveness about their conduct," Moran says.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson told NPR "if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people."

Democrats, the statement added, "should be reminded that we still control the federal government and all of its powers."

But that's not true. Congress has its own powers, one of them being the ability to compel testimony. Moran says a deeper probe into the shootings could still serve important purposes, like making evidence available for states to use in their own criminal investigations.

Minnesota officials, for instance, have been fighting with the federal government to get evidence related to the Pretti and Good killings.

Brent Ganger, Renee Good's brother, says learning more information about his sister's death will be hard to hear, "but I think it's also super important for us to understand what happened that day. I don't want history to keep repeating itself."

It was painful, he says, to watch immigration agents kill more people after his sister. He thought her death would be a turning point. In a way, it might have been the start of one. After the surge in Minneapolis, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.

Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister's memorial site, with all the "I Voted" stickers.

"I was very grateful to see the repudiation of this administration from the country. It felt very supportive of my entire family," he says.

The next morning, in his home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister's favorite breakfast.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Abraham Zavala was born at Adventist White Memorial. So were his kids. So late Friday, when he heard federal immigration agents were at the Boyle Heights hospital, and that local youth were out blowing whistles to warn neighbors, he went. 

“To me that’s sacred ground,” said Zavala, an organizer with Unión del Barrio.

“I’m a dad,” he said. “I wanted to be there to support the youth.”

He was among the Boyle Heights residents who converged on the hospital and stayed in a standoff with federal immigration agents into the early hours of Saturday. Agents detained at least two people, according to rapid response groups.

Neighbors alerted each other with noisemakers and fireworks. A woman pounded her pots and pans. Teenagers ran across Mariachi Plaza, shouting that ICE was in the area and urging residents to lock their doors. 

“Even though we’re afraid, you know we’re still showing up,” said Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident who rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE in the area. “We’re not going to allow them to just come into our communities and terrorize us because they’re the real terrorists causing harm.”

Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident and co-owner of Espacio 1839 rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE.

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Alejandra Molina

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Boyle Heights Beat

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The confrontation peaked around 11:30 p.m. Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat shows agents pushing back protesters who had moved toward them, and the two sides begin shoving. Agents appear to pepper-spray people on the sidewalk. One agent then tackles a man and pins him to the ground, while a second person is pulled from the crowd. Both were detained.

The standoff continued past midnight. Zavala said agents got out of their vehicles and formed a line in front of the parking lot where paramedics enter, blocking an emergency exit. “They literally became White Memorial’s private security detail,” he said. Zavala said he and another person were sprayed with Mace.

Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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The Dept. of Homeland Security declined to comment about the incident in Boyle Heights, and, in a statement, the agency said they would “not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations.”

The spokesperson instead said that obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime.

“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the statement said, despite the large turnout of protesters who encountered the masked agents at the hospital.

Father Brendan Busse, who pastors nearby Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, rushed to White Memorial after seeing reports from the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network of ICE at the hospital.

Busse, a Jesuit priest, said he witnessed people caring for each other and tending to those suffering from pepper spray. People there advocated for them to find treatment at White Memorial, Busse said. Community members, he said, “were obviously doing their best, not just to communicate their feelings, but to push, to instigate the dispersal of this ICE presence.”

As clergy, Busse said their presence can help combat a narrative of those advocating for immigrants as “somehow dangerous, or violent, or vulgar.” 

“Just to be there is a sign that that’s not the only version of what this looks like,” he said.

Initially, Busse showed up wearing a hoodie, but he decided to change into his green stole he had in his car as things appeared to get tense. “Just try to do what I could to bring a presence of maybe a little moral authority,” he said.

“It’s bad enough that people have to lift up their voices to say something so obvious, that their lives matter, that our communities are sacred, that families belong together,” Busse said. “It’s bad enough that they have to be out at 3 a.m. in the morning to tell anybody that.”

“It’s even worse if they would have to suffer the consequences of retribution and violence that comes from speaking out in that way,” Busse added.

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