Speaker 1: It's Night's Eyes Dan, I'm going you Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much Medicine. As we move into a
Speaker 2: Monday night and another week of Nightside here on WBZ,
Speaker 2: Boston's News Radio ten thirty and your Am dow Rob
Speaker 2: Brooks is here. Rob is actually going to have a
Speaker 2: few nights off later this week. So if you want
Speaker 2: to talk to Rob tonight's the tomorrow night of the
Speaker 2: Night's to call. Other than that, he'll be gone for
Speaker 2: the rest of the week on a very well deserved
Speaker 2: few nights off. Rob takes probably the least amount of
Speaker 2: vacation as anyone I know. Does a great job for
Speaker 2: us here on nightside every single night. Now we we
Speaker 2: will talk later on tonight about the future of Massachusetts
Speaker 2: vocational educational schools. We're going to talk about that. Also
Speaker 2: in just a minute, we'll talk about hazards on the
Speaker 2: roadways and whether or not we should open up Alcatraz,
Speaker 2: as President Trump is suggesting. As a prisoner, as a
Speaker 2: prison I was there by a year ago, it looks
Speaker 2: fine to me. Well, I don't know. I wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to spend a night there, that's for sure. I think
Speaker 2: anyone who would be contemplating going there would be on
Speaker 2: their best behavior. Anyway, we are, as I mentioned, we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about voke ed proposals here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: I happen to have the point of view that we
Speaker 2: need more vocational educational technical high schools in Massachusetts. And
Speaker 2: joining me is a leader in the fight for that,
Speaker 2: former Massachusetts Lieutenant governor and currently he's the president of
Speaker 2: the Worcester Chamber of Commerce. The appellation is supposed to
Speaker 2: be for a former lieutenant governor. Governor, so I will
Speaker 2: introduce you as governor. Welcome to nightside. How are you,
Speaker 2: Tim Murray?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm saying good to be with you, and we
Speaker 3: rolling into Monday.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes we are. Look, this is a very serious topic.
Speaker 2: I'm somebody and I'm know you are somebody who really
Speaker 2: believes in voke ed voke ed technical education for young
Speaker 2: people who may not be inclined to studying you know,
Speaker 2: Shakespeare and Shelley and all of those those great British
Speaker 2: authors in British in British literature courses. Not everybody is
Speaker 2: college you know bound these days, and a great way
Speaker 2: to find a career is through vocational schools. We have
Speaker 2: dozens of vacational technical high schools around the Conwealth of Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: And I guess whenever it's something in Massachusetts is going well,
Speaker 2: somebody always comes along with an idea to mess it up.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Well, no, that's the case, but you're absolutely right. I mean,
Speaker 3: one of the most positive stories that when we talk
Speaker 3: about public education today is our vocational technical schools and
Speaker 3: our agricultural schools. There's thirty regional vote techs in the state,
Speaker 3: but at our comp hentsive high schools across the commonwealth,
Speaker 3: more and more communities are putting Chapter seventy four vocational
Speaker 3: technical programs into those schools because kids and parents want it,
Speaker 3: and it's about preparing young people for college and or career,
Speaker 3: giving them those options, and candidly, that's kind of the
Speaker 3: way of the future in terms of what employers want
Speaker 3: and need. Unfortunately, you know, Governor Healy has put a
Speaker 3: proposal on the table that doesn't dramatically expand you know
Speaker 3: Chapter seventy four vocational technical education, which they're looking to
Speaker 3: do is kind of ration what we have by introducing
Speaker 3: a lottery system admission system by which students would be
Speaker 3: accepted into the vocational technical programs as the stands. You know,
Speaker 3: currently many of these school districts stand have the students apply,
Speaker 3: because number one, this is a more costly form of education,
Speaker 3: and number two, you want to make sure that the
Speaker 3: students genuinely interested in it. And so students apply when
Speaker 3: they're in eighth grade, and to some extent, as it
Speaker 3: stands right now, student's attendance, their grades, and their student
Speaker 3: behavior are factors in whether they're accepted. And the proposal
Speaker 3: on the table by Governor Healy basically says, to an
Speaker 3: eighth grade student, she's been working hard academically to achieve,
Speaker 3: she's got herself up to go to school every day,
Speaker 3: has not been a problem with behavior. That student, now
Speaker 3: with this proposed lottery is being told that hard work
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. They're going to be equal to a student
Speaker 3: that has not strived or worked hard academically, been absent,
Speaker 3: unexcused up the twenty six times, and had behavioral and
Speaker 3: had behavioral problems. And so you're penalizing young kids, young
Speaker 3: people for doing the right thing. Now, I believe that
Speaker 3: that other students should also be afforded opportunities to pursue
Speaker 3: Chapter seventy four education, which is why we need to
Speaker 3: dramatically expand it. We need a march plan right now
Speaker 3: to expand Chapter seventy four programs across the board and
Speaker 3: DAN just you know, in the last fifteen years, more
Speaker 3: or less a program that Governor Patrick and I started
Speaker 3: with the support of the legislature was now known as
Speaker 3: the Capital Skills Program. The Biker Pleto administration continued to
Speaker 3: support that, working with the legislature, but targeted grants to
Speaker 3: vocational technical schools and traditional comprehensive high schools to add
Speaker 3: programs and seats. And we've added nearly fifteen thousand seats
Speaker 3: across the state with just this targeted program. Now, the
Speaker 3: Millionaire's Tax Path or Fair Share Amendment, this significant you know,
Speaker 3: revenue on the table, and what we need is leadership
Speaker 3: that's going to say we're going to you know, have
Speaker 3: universal access for Chapter seventy four programs. We're going to
Speaker 3: work with the MSBA and Treasurer of Goldberg. We're going
Speaker 3: to look for waivers for instructors and some of the
Speaker 3: key trades. And you know, instead of that, we're being
Speaker 3: creating winners and losers with this lottery system in urban
Speaker 3: communities and rural communities and suburban communities, and it just
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense. We should be expanding this, not rationing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a no brainer. And the fact that
Speaker 2: leadership in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now after having turned
Speaker 2: Boston Latin School into a zip code school, no longer
Speaker 2: is it a school of academic excellence. It's a zip
Speaker 2: code school here in Boston. And now they're going after
Speaker 2: these trade schools or vocational educational schools, which are great
Speaker 2: pathways for young people who may not be inclined to
Speaker 2: pursue four years of college and the additional expense that
Speaker 2: that costs to come out with a sociology degree, which
Speaker 2: is probably going to be kind of a dead end
Speaker 2: in many respects sadly. Uh. And to now not make
Speaker 2: education available to kids who for two young men and women,
Speaker 2: I should say, who want to become electricians and you know,
Speaker 2: plumbers and uh and and skill people with actual skills
Speaker 2: by which they'll weren't they'll earn a living for the
Speaker 2: rest of their lives and become you know, contributing supporters
Speaker 2: of the of the Commonwealth of the Commonwealth just doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense. At at nine o'clock we're going to
Speaker 2: be talking with Jamie gass Uh the Pioneer Institute at Boston. Uh,
Speaker 2: dive a little deeper into this. Look, you were on
Speaker 2: Beacon Hilltim, you were a legislator, a lieutenant governor. How
Speaker 2: is this stuff like this in Massachusetts always seems to
Speaker 2: go off the rails when it's working. Well, why do
Speaker 2: people want to mess mess mess with it? Is it
Speaker 2: just because they feel that somehow there's some short term
Speaker 2: political gain for their for their next election. Is that
Speaker 2: what drives this stuff. I'm not trying to put you
Speaker 2: in a box here, but I'm just y, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: frustrated as as a taxpayer who pays a lot of
Speaker 2: money that they've come wealth and sees it wasted in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. Go ahead, I'm sorry, go right ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean they're you know, political narratives or ideologies,
Speaker 3: but you know, the fact of the matter is this
Speaker 3: is look, you know, the folk tech programs and districts
Speaker 3: should absolutely be reflective of the districts and the communities
Speaker 3: from which the you know, students or the district is from.
Speaker 3: And there were some some schools where there were some
Speaker 3: legitimate issues that were brought up. But the Commonwealth has
Speaker 3: the ability to remedy that and to you know, take
Speaker 3: because of a handful of schools, and just recently in
Speaker 3: March of twenty twenty four, the state Department of Momentary
Speaker 3: and Secondary Education and their compliance report to the Federal
Speaker 3: Department of Education. So there were four schools that did
Speaker 3: not fully represents sending communities. Well, the commissioner has the
Speaker 3: ability to go in and make those tweaks and changes,
Speaker 3: so you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Here,
Speaker 3: you've got a system that is working extremely well. If
Speaker 3: there are a handful of communities as reported by Dessi,
Speaker 3: that are not reflective, then go in and make some
Speaker 3: of those changes. But one of the challenges that some
Speaker 3: of the vocational administrators will tell you and believe it
Speaker 3: or not, that in some areas of the state, superintendents
Speaker 3: won't let vocational technical personnel from the high schools come
Speaker 3: in and talk to seventh and eighth creators about the
Speaker 3: opportunity because they don't want want those vo techs. They
Speaker 3: don't want those students leaving to go to the vote
Speaker 3: tech school because the money follows the students. So and
Speaker 3: particularly in some of those communities where there's some of
Speaker 3: the concerns around whether they're they're diverse diversity in terms
Speaker 3: of reflecting miscending districts, some of those same districts or
Speaker 3: the districts that don't allow this NAVA mass associations, vocal
Speaker 3: vocational school administrators and superintendents to go in and talk
Speaker 3: to those those communities. So access is an important factor
Speaker 3: here as well.
Speaker 2: All right, well, look, Tim, I appreciate that you're still
Speaker 2: involved with this obviously as the president of the Chamber
Speaker 2: of Commerce. Out there, you know your city, you know
Speaker 2: what serves your city best, and I just hope that
Speaker 2: you stay on it. We're going to talk about this
Speaker 2: at nine o'clock and talk to hopefully parents as well.
Speaker 2: And please keep us in fond of this because this
Speaker 2: is one that I really firmly believe in in that
Speaker 2: education is not one size fits all. Not everyone needs
Speaker 2: to go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, as simple as that.
Speaker 2: And let's help people find what do they say, they say,
Speaker 2: if you love what you do, you never work a
Speaker 2: day in your life. And let's grand kids who love working,
Speaker 2: you know, with mechanical their skills, their mechanical aptitude, Let's
Speaker 2: give them. Let's open every door for them as possible. Timur,
Speaker 2: a former lieutenant governor, still looking up for the interests
Speaker 2: of the people of Worcester in Massachusetts, appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1: My friend.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Dan.
Speaker 2: All Right, when we get back, by the way, at
Speaker 2: nine o'clock, we're gonna be talking with Jamie Gass as
Speaker 2: I mentioned of the Pioneer Institute, and I hope that
Speaker 2: some of you will weigh in on this. When we
Speaker 2: get back, we're going to talk about the air traffic
Speaker 2: control mess that this country is now dealing with. And
Speaker 2: far be it from any one of us to be
Speaker 2: up at an airplane and have our airplane not followed
Speaker 2: closely by some traffic control. We will talk about that
Speaker 2: coming up right after the break on Nightside.
Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Well, if any of you have watched on television news lately,
Speaker 2: both locally and nationally, you know we have a big
Speaker 2: problem at our busiest airports with air traffic controller shortages.
Speaker 2: With us is Mike Catton, former helicopter and commercial airline
Speaker 2: pilot Newport is having a really rough time. Mike Catton,
Speaker 2: Welcome to Nightside. Thanks thank for joining us.
Speaker 4: How are you tonight, and I'm great, thank you for
Speaker 4: bringing me on what's going on here.
Speaker 2: I remember as a young television reporter back in the
Speaker 2: early nineteen eighties when the air traffic controllers went on
Speaker 2: strike and President Reagan fired air traffic controllers, and I
Speaker 2: think that they brought military air traffic controllers in until
Speaker 2: they reconstituted the workforce. That's my recollection of it. Is
Speaker 2: that your recollection?
Speaker 4: That is my recollection. And it's interesting you brought that up.
Speaker 4: I haven't talked about that today at all, but I
Speaker 4: was a helicopter pilot in the US Army in Fort Riley,
Speaker 4: Kansas when that happened, and I'm curious why this walkout
Speaker 4: didn't trigger the same type of action from the administration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The walkout was in Newark, correct,
Speaker 2: That's the one airport where people have walked out or
Speaker 2: has it spread to other airports?
Speaker 4: As far as I know, it's only Newark at this point.
Speaker 2: My understanding is watching tonight's evening newscast that there was
Speaker 2: a period at some point over the weekend when their
Speaker 2: screens went blank for ninety seconds and they had no
Speaker 2: contact with planes landing or taking off. For a full
Speaker 2: ninety seconds, which must have seemed like an eternity.
Speaker 4: That's true, And I saw the same report, and I
Speaker 4: can tell you these men are consummate professionals, men and women,
Speaker 4: and ninety seconds with them that must have been extremely
Speaker 4: stressful and frankly sheared terror for them. Yeah, communication like that.
Speaker 2: So my question is we had the crash that took
Speaker 2: the sixty seven lives over the Potomac in early January
Speaker 2: or January this year, and many of those folks were
Speaker 2: from an associated with the Boston skating Club. So although
Speaker 2: the horrible accident was over the Potomac, it was felt
Speaker 2: greatly here in New England. They were parents, there were coaches,
Speaker 2: there were skaters amongst the fatalities. Crazy that they're running
Speaker 2: helicopters at night, black Hawk helicopters at night into the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: and that apparently there was that's part of the problem.
Speaker 2: We'll hear from the National Transportation Board like nine months
Speaker 2: from now as to what the cause was. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure they're going to find that somebody was at the
Speaker 2: wrong elevation. But put that aside, how have we gotten
Speaker 2: to this point all of a sudden? It seems as
Speaker 2: if the bottom's falling out of the system. Where has
Speaker 2: been use a military term, the preventive maintenance for the
Speaker 2: last ten years. Did they not see that there was
Speaker 2: a surge of people retiring. How did we get to
Speaker 2: where we are today? Is my question?
Speaker 4: Mike Well, first of all, I'm just condolences to the
Speaker 4: entire Boston area up there. I can relate to this
Speaker 4: up I was fourteen years old and I was very
Speaker 4: close to the site where the Marshall football team crashed
Speaker 4: through Marshall University. So I understand what this does to
Speaker 4: a community and how did we get here? We have,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, and I can back this up, we
Speaker 4: have avoided updating and modernizing the airspace system for years,
Speaker 4: and I'm talking about shortly after nine to eleven. You
Speaker 4: may recall that Al Gore chaired a committee, a focus group,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it, about modernizing the system.
Speaker 4: Recommendations were made to improve the system, upgrade the technology.
Speaker 4: Money was appropriated, It went into an account somewhere, it
Speaker 4: never got spent. Depending on who you talk to, some
Speaker 4: will say the money is still there. Some will say
Speaker 4: the money's already been spent on another program. But we
Speaker 4: are in a dire situation. As far as the technology goes,
Speaker 4: I've been in the rooms up there at Newark. I
Speaker 4: was based in Newark for fifteen years, and I've toured
Speaker 4: the facilities and it is old equipment. As far as hiring,
Speaker 4: they got behind the hiring curve. You may remember a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago coming out of COVID, they called
Speaker 4: it the Summer of Love. Up and down the East coast.
Speaker 4: Jacksonville Center was the choke point, and that's a huge
Speaker 4: choke point, and of course the Northeast is a huge
Speaker 4: choke points. You have all the airports up and down
Speaker 4: there at Boston, LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, and many corporate airports
Speaker 4: up there that people don't talk about either. So it's
Speaker 4: just been a perfect storm of events in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the technology needs to be updated. Okay, how
Speaker 2: are they going to get an infusion of more traffic controllers,
Speaker 2: more competent traffic controllers on such short notice. I just
Speaker 2: don't understand why someone some being counter wasn't sitting there
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, you know how many of what percentage
Speaker 2: of the traffic controllers are going to retire into twenty fifteen?
Speaker 2: The percentage they're going to retire in twenty twenty. They
Speaker 2: could see this stuff on the horizon, Mike, you know that,
Speaker 2: and I know that. How could they miss this?
Speaker 4: They know exactly. They have charts showing the years and
Speaker 4: the number of retirements, just like we had at the airlines.
Speaker 4: You can find any airline how many pilots were retiring
Speaker 4: the pilots. The airlines got behind the hiring curve with
Speaker 4: pilots too. The reason that they are behind the curve
Speaker 4: right now, you ask how long does it take? It
Speaker 4: takes us several months to spool someone up to get
Speaker 4: them out of the academy in Oklahoma City where that
Speaker 4: they can come to a facility and start training again
Speaker 4: for the local traffic in the local area in that facility.
Speaker 4: Getting people to come to work is part of the problem. Also,
Speaker 4: people don't want the lifestyle and nighttime long hours. And lastly,
Speaker 4: one of the incentives they have offered is the administration
Speaker 4: has offered for people who are planning to retire but
Speaker 4: have not reached the mandatory retirement age. They're offering them
Speaker 4: a twenty percent bonus for every year they continue to
Speaker 4: work until they have to retire.
Speaker 2: You know, any major League Baseball team. They have on
Speaker 2: the wall, every general managers will on the wall, has
Speaker 2: every position, and they project who's going to be our
Speaker 2: shortstop five years from now. He's a kid in single
Speaker 2: A ball because our shortstop now is thirty one years old,
Speaker 2: and we got to change that. If they can do
Speaker 2: that for Major League Baseball teams, they should be able
Speaker 2: to do it for something as more important, with air
Speaker 2: traffic controllers. Mike, I appreciate your time. He gave us
Speaker 2: some good perspective and insight in this, and let's hope,
Speaker 2: for the sake of any one of us, could be
Speaker 2: up there in one of those airplanes and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden we find out that we're on a plane
Speaker 2: that is adversely impacted not by power failure, not by
Speaker 2: an engine blown out, but but just just by simple
Speaker 2: inadequate human anticipation of what needs to be done going forward.
Speaker 2: Appreciate your time left to have you back.
Speaker 4: Thank you, I appreciate it, and have a great night
Speaker 4: you too.
Speaker 2: Mike Caton, former helicopter commercial airline pilot. And we get
Speaker 2: back when we talk about collections on defaulted student loans
Speaker 2: may affect millions of people's credit scores I'm not surprised
Speaker 2: at that. I think that probably is going to be
Speaker 2: one of the impacts. We're going to talk with Janie Spooner.
Speaker 2: She's an expert on lending and credit and the market
Speaker 2: president of the Great Planes Bank South Lake. We'll talk
Speaker 2: with Jannis Spooner right after the break.
Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, back to our nightside news update. We do
Speaker 2: this every eight o'clock hour on Nightside. We don't get
Speaker 2: we give the phone callers arrest. Well. We will talk
Speaker 2: a little bit later on, beginning at nine o'clock about
Speaker 2: the the problem that is being created by some of
Speaker 2: the commonwealth to not expand vocational education, but to basically
Speaker 2: limit it and put people in some sort of a lottery,
Speaker 2: which to me seems crazy. If kids want to students
Speaker 2: want to go to vote volgade schools, they should be
Speaker 2: of they should be allowed to do that. Those are
Speaker 2: the best best jobs that I think young people can get.
Speaker 2: They'll always work, which kind of brings us to our
Speaker 2: topic at hand, and that is a lot of students
Speaker 2: have gone to colleges and universities and they've gotten fairly
Speaker 2: useless degrees, and they've come out and there's no one
Speaker 2: knocking the door down to uh TO to hire them.
Speaker 2: And now it looks as if the Trump administration is
Speaker 2: going to once again attempt to begin to collect on
Speaker 2: these defaulted loans with us as Janet Janice Spooner, she's
Speaker 2: an expert on lending and credit market president of the
Speaker 2: Great Plains Bank, South Lake. So, Janice, what what are
Speaker 2: we about to see happen in the next few months?
Speaker 2: The the bell is tolling on these loans, what are
Speaker 2: these students going to have to do? File bankruptcy or what's.
Speaker 4: Going to happen?
Speaker 5: Honestly, I think this isn't just a debt crisis, It's
Speaker 5: a generational economic emergency. The five million barbers heading into
Speaker 5: default represent far more than mispayments. They reflect the system
Speaker 5: that's honestly failing an entire workforce generation.
Speaker 2: Well, I agree with you, really, I do agree with you.
Speaker 2: The problem is they took these loans to go to
Speaker 2: these schools which are overweight with administrators. You know, the
Speaker 2: cost of higher education for thirty years outpaced inflation. You
Speaker 2: and I both know that as people who are perhaps
Speaker 2: a little older than most kids who are just out
Speaker 2: of college, did people not see this coming.
Speaker 5: I don't think they saw it coming at all, because
Speaker 5: sometimes we as consumers stick our head in the sand.
Speaker 5: It's so much of the nation is in the highest
Speaker 5: credit card debt, much less student loan debt or both
Speaker 5: that they don't want to face it. But now it
Speaker 5: is vital that they take notes and listen and check
Speaker 5: to see if they're in default, because repayment on both
Speaker 5: private and federally backed loans has already started and it's progressing,
Speaker 5: and now they can actually go after you because it's
Speaker 5: considered in default, which is by definition two hundred and
Speaker 5: seventy days plus has due. So they're going to bring
Speaker 5: very significant collections and trying to get this money started
Speaker 5: to be repaid.
Speaker 2: The Biden administration, unlike the Trump administration, kept holding out
Speaker 2: false hope to some of these student loan bowers. I
Speaker 2: think they did it for political purposes, and now, of
Speaker 2: course the Biden administration no longer is in power. Trump
Speaker 2: administration is taking a different tact. It seems to me
Speaker 2: that the alternative, particularly in terms of the government loans,
Speaker 2: would be to have What the Bide administration was trying
Speaker 2: to do was let's forgive the loans, and let's have
Speaker 2: others pay for the college education that people secured through
Speaker 2: the loans. But now they're not willing to pay for
Speaker 2: the loans. So people who never went to college and
Speaker 2: who started businesses or joined the military and now we're working,
Speaker 2: we were kind of in the point where who's going
Speaker 2: to pay? And a lot of the the young people
Speaker 2: who owe these loans will hope and there's going to
Speaker 2: be someone else, But looks like that hopes nothing more
Speaker 2: than a pipe dream at.
Speaker 5: This point, Yes, just a pipe dream. And I think
Speaker 5: it is really the most critical advice I could give
Speaker 5: is check to see if you're in default, because and
Speaker 5: I say check, so many people have moved in five
Speaker 5: years time. They might not even know they have a
Speaker 5: new servicer and that's happened. So they really need to
Speaker 5: check at studentaid dot gov and log in with their
Speaker 5: fsaid and look, see, don't ignore, because they can the
Speaker 5: treasury they're going to garnish wages.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you work for a bank, So how difficult
Speaker 2: will it be for your bank and other banks across
Speaker 2: the country to go into court. I don't know. You
Speaker 2: know how many you know defaulted student loans? You have
Speaker 2: not none of our business. But how is this going
Speaker 2: to happen? So the student is going to be told
Speaker 2: that there's a default hearing in some court of proper jurisdiction,
Speaker 2: that default judgment will issue, I guess, and at that
Speaker 2: point the person who they owe the money to will
Speaker 2: be able to find out where they work and garnish
Speaker 2: their wages. I mean, it's going to get pretty ugly.
Speaker 5: It is going to get ugly. In the Treasury Department.
Speaker 5: They're ready to garnish wages. They're going to take tax refunds,
Speaker 5: and they can even really garnish even Social Security. So
Speaker 5: this is real. The irs knows where obviously people work.
Speaker 5: This is a governmental system. They can do cross checks,
Speaker 5: et cetera. And their only legal obligation is to notify
Speaker 5: you in writing and offer a rehabilitation or consolidate your loans.
Speaker 5: But once I notify you and you don't take action,
Speaker 5: if you're in default, that if they're coming to get
Speaker 5: your money.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me ask you this question, if I could,
Speaker 2: is there a difference between that class of former students
Speaker 2: who took a pell grants, government loans or whatever, the
Speaker 2: type of you know, vehicle they used at which government
Speaker 2: paper versus if someone came to a private bank and said,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to get a loan. Uh, and
Speaker 2: the private bank, the private bank, I assume is is
Speaker 2: on the hook themselves.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The government is not going to enforce loans given by
Speaker 2: private banks, I assume, so private banks will have this
Speaker 2: go ahead. I'm right, Well, I bank, So the private
Speaker 2: bank could come after you with the same ferocity as
Speaker 2: the government if they if they so desire.
Speaker 5: It depends on what state, because I'm in Texas, and
Speaker 5: we in Texas have different classes of collections, and I
Speaker 5: could not go after a consumer and garnish their wages.
Speaker 5: It would be a default and it would go to collections.
Speaker 5: But the government can in every state go after your wages.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what you're saying is it almost might be
Speaker 2: in some states better for the students who are the
Speaker 2: former students who are in default to owe a bank,
Speaker 2: the private entity than the federal government. It's what I'm
Speaker 2: hearing you say. Almost you might have a chance to
Speaker 2: delay it or maybe even potentially avoid it if it's
Speaker 2: a bank, than the federal government. Is what I'm hearing
Speaker 2: you say. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
Speaker 5: Not wrong. It still has significant impacts on people and
Speaker 5: their credit credit scores, because once you default, whether it's
Speaker 5: with the federal government or with a private lending institution,
Speaker 5: then it goes against your credit and the lower the score,
Speaker 5: the higher the rate you're going to pay on anything.
Speaker 2: But that's assuming anyone else will lend your money down
Speaker 2: the line as well. Yeah, yeah, hey, Janis, Yeah you have.
Speaker 2: You have simplified what is a complicated problem and a
Speaker 2: difficult problem for many people. I'm empathetic to them, but
Speaker 2: you know what, Unfortunately someone has to pay the piper,
Speaker 2: and it's a little unfair for students to turn around
Speaker 2: and expect other taxpayers who didn't have the benefit of
Speaker 2: that college experience to pay for their their years in academia.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time and being with us tonight.
Speaker 2: Janni's very nice to talk with you.
Speaker 5: Great to talk to you as well. And I will
Speaker 5: say again people check your student loan accounts, start with
Speaker 5: an action, take note, and take a step forward to
Speaker 5: prevent this catastrophic event to happen to you.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you, Janes, appreciate it very much. We'll
Speaker 2: talk again. Thanks you so much when we get back
Speaker 2: here On Nightside. After the break, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: with a psychologist, a licensed professional counselor. We've talked with
Speaker 2: her before, doctor Lee Richardson from the Brain Performance Center.
Speaker 2: Apparently children and teenagers are increasingly self diagnosing themselves with
Speaker 2: mental health issues like ADHD, autism or anxiety based on
Speaker 2: some other something else that they learned about in social media.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that that's a good trend. I think
Speaker 2: the professional should be left to do that sort of work.
Speaker 2: But we'll talk with doctor Lee Richardson about this apparent phenomena,
Speaker 2: which we read about in the magazine Psychology Today. Back
Speaker 2: on Nightside right after the break.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w BEAZ
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Want to welcome back a prior guest, doctor Lee Richardson.
Speaker 2: She's a licensed professional counselor and founder of the Brain
Speaker 2: Performance Center. Doctor Richardson, welcome back to night Side. How
Speaker 2: are you.
Speaker 6: I'm great, Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 2: So Psychology Today is reporting that kids and teenagers are
Speaker 2: self diagnosing themselves with with mental health issues like ADHD,
Speaker 2: autism or anxiety based on something they viewed on social media.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this is there a little bit
Speaker 2: of overdiagnosis going on here.
Speaker 6: Do you think absolutely? I think so. I think. You know,
Speaker 6: you get on social media and at that age teenagers,
Speaker 6: adolescent true looking to trying to figure out who am I,
Speaker 6: what am I struggling with? And we're all struggling with something,
Speaker 6: and they see somebody on TikTok and or any social
Speaker 6: media that says, oh, I have no motivation, Oh oh
Speaker 6: that's me, that's me, or you know I have constant
Speaker 6: mood swings me too, me too, And it's almost like
Speaker 6: we're leading them down the path. Now, you may identify
Speaker 6: with a symptom, but does that mean you really have
Speaker 6: the diagnosis.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, we have learned over recent years how
Speaker 2: detrimental social media, some of the social media can be.
Speaker 2: I mean it is clickbait, is what the phrase is?
Speaker 2: I myself? You know, I'll see, you know, something on
Speaker 2: that pops up on my screen. You know, the ten
Speaker 2: greatest plays in baseball. I'm a big baseball guy. I
Speaker 2: want to see who they put in these, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're interesting and you watch them, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the ten seconds of the couple of minutes
Speaker 2: it takes to watch, it's like I've seen plays like
Speaker 2: that before, Guys jumping over the wall catching a ball,
Speaker 2: somebody who you know who runs into the stands and
Speaker 2: catches a ball. But that's that's clickbait. And so I'm
Speaker 2: the fish that likes the baseball clickbait. Somebody else likes clickbait.
Speaker 2: Of whatever, we can, we just get rid of social media.
Speaker 2: I guess it's here to stay. It's never going away.
Speaker 6: No, it is here to stay. And you know, I
Speaker 6: have to say, I think that there there is some
Speaker 6: good associated with the social media around anxiety and ADHD,
Speaker 6: because if it helps kids recognize the struggles that they're having,
Speaker 6: that's a good thing, because being lost is a lot
Speaker 6: worse than I think that you've identified a solution. So
Speaker 6: I think there's some good. But the bad is is
Speaker 6: what they're identifying with. Is it true? Is it boss?
Speaker 6: So I think that you know, what we have to
Speaker 6: do as a as a community here as a society,
Speaker 6: is to put there is some good on social media,
Speaker 6: and the good is if it makes you ask some
Speaker 6: questions and if it helps you to self reflect and
Speaker 6: get some help, that's a plus.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, all of us have anxiety at different
Speaker 2: points in our lives okay, and I'm wondering if anxiety
Speaker 2: or whatever is not something that we should learn to
Speaker 2: live with and kind of move out of. I think
Speaker 2: that all of us when we're awkward teenagers and we're
Speaker 2: worried about something as simple as actne you know, you
Speaker 2: worry about it, but you get something that clears it
Speaker 2: up or you grow out of it. I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of these things which you know, I can remember,
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted to be a second basement or
Speaker 2: a shortstop, and then they started throwing curveballs at me,
Speaker 2: and I said, I got to become a pitcher. And
Speaker 2: I did okay for a while, and then in high
Speaker 2: school and college I got lit up a few times.
Speaker 2: Then I realized I'm not ever going to be a
Speaker 2: major league pitcher. You deal with it. Isn't that just part?
Speaker 2: Have you caused me? Some anxiety is part of growing up.
Speaker 2: Isn't anxiety a good thing occasionally to experience? Or am
Speaker 2: I nuts?
Speaker 6: No? I think there's good. There is good anxiety. Oh
Speaker 6: my gosh, you're getting married and you get so nervous
Speaker 6: and you get so anxious. What if I walk down
Speaker 6: the aisle, what if I trip on my dress. I mean,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of good anxiety. It's a natural reaction,
Speaker 6: it's a response your body has. And I think that
Speaker 6: we do as we grow up. The brain's not fully
Speaker 6: developed until you're in your mid to late twenties. And
Speaker 6: as we do grow up and that brain gets fully developed,
Speaker 6: we you know, we do learn to roll with it,
Speaker 6: to hit the pause button, to stop and say, okay,
Speaker 6: is it really that big a deal? But in those
Speaker 6: teenage years, you don't have the brain capacity to do that.
Speaker 6: And if you don't have the support system, if you
Speaker 6: don't have a family or friends that can help you
Speaker 6: know that you can talk to about it and help
Speaker 6: you understand. You know, yeah, you do lack of motivation
Speaker 6: about once a week, but who doesn't. I mean, we
Speaker 6: have to learn to put it into context.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you I have anxiety every night
Speaker 2: before I before I start my show, I'm anxious to
Speaker 2: have I thought of anything. Is there some guests that
Speaker 2: I haven't researched well enough? I have. I I think
Speaker 2: you've got to have anxiety. You're gotta have anxiety.
Speaker 6: I think it gives you, It gives you your edge,
Speaker 6: you know, it keeps you on your game. You use
Speaker 6: that as a double check. Okay, am I really ready
Speaker 6: for this? Have I done everything I should have done?
Speaker 6: And I think if you can keep it in balance,
Speaker 6: you get on your show, you take a deep breath,
Speaker 6: and everything ten.
Speaker 2: Seconds one once the once you start for ten seconds,
Speaker 2: it all goes away. I have anxiety every time I
Speaker 2: get in a car to drive because I know that
Speaker 2: there are knuckleheads out on the road who are not
Speaker 2: paying attention to what they're doing. I don't know about you.
Speaker 6: Maybe you don't maybe get.
Speaker 2: Your car huh. You agree with me on that?
Speaker 6: Absolutely? I mean, and does that help you stay on
Speaker 6: pay a little bit closer attention?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, absolutely?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Now there are things that I have anxiety about over
Speaker 2: which I have no control. When I get on an airplane,
Speaker 2: I know that I'm not flying a plane, and I
Speaker 2: gotta tell you take offs and landing are never a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. But if I want to get from
Speaker 2: point A to point B, you got to go through
Speaker 2: with it. I have anxiety. You want to go to
Speaker 2: the dentist to get a tooth glean, to get my
Speaker 2: teeth cleaned. I mean, it's you know, I could be
Speaker 2: a patient of yours. For weeks.
Speaker 6: It's read my mind.
Speaker 2: No, But I'm serious. I mean, I I just think
Speaker 2: that in the life, anxiety is part of life. Now.
Speaker 2: It's not to say that I'm I'm I think that
Speaker 2: people who are trying to deal with full blown autism,
Speaker 2: God love them. You know. That's I kind of imagine
Speaker 2: what that would be like. Adhd uh, you know, not as bad,
Speaker 2: But you know, I just I don't know. I think
Speaker 2: we have we have oversold a lot of these things
Speaker 2: to make people to be convinced that any discomfort, mental
Speaker 2: or otherwise that they that they feel has to be
Speaker 2: a crisis in their life. And I don't think that
Speaker 2: it has to be a crisis.
Speaker 6: I don't think it judgs for for everybody. But I
Speaker 6: think there's a side of anxiety that you don't know.
Speaker 6: And I mean, I work with clients that are so
Speaker 6: anxious you struggle getting on the plane. They can't get
Speaker 6: out of bed, they can't show up at work.
Speaker 2: So I want to struggle getting on the plane. By
Speaker 2: the way, doctor, I get on the plane, it's just
Speaker 2: when the plane starts to take off, them saying, okay,
Speaker 2: make sure we buggle up. Yeah. No, I guess there
Speaker 2: are people I don't know how you deal with people
Speaker 2: like that, and I don't know how those people deal
Speaker 2: with their lives and how they got to that point.
Speaker 2: You must have to figure that out, I assume because
Speaker 2: you're the doctor.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, there are four things that puts a
Speaker 6: brain in a dysregulated state, and anxiety is a disregulated state. Genetics,
Speaker 6: fisco ahead trauma, emotional trauma, and stress.
Speaker 2: What about democratic White House that puts me in a.
Speaker 6: I'm not touching that.
Speaker 2: I'm having fun with you, that's all, you know. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you someone who felt no anxiety was former President Biden.
Speaker 2: He didn't have a moment of anxiety in the four
Speaker 2: years he was there. Look, I look, this is a
Speaker 2: serious subject, and I realized that that we've treated it,
Speaker 2: or I've treated a little lightly. I'm just hoping people will,
Speaker 2: you know, chill a little bit, sit back and relax
Speaker 2: a bit, and realize we're lucky to be here. You know,
Speaker 2: we could have been born three thousand or ten thousand
Speaker 2: years ago and be in a cave cowering at night
Speaker 2: with a fire and hoping that the animals didn't find us.
Speaker 2: That would have been real anxiety.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, you're talking about the days eat or be eaten.
Speaker 2: So all right, doctor Richardson, I always enjoy talking with that.
Speaker 2: I took a little liberty with you tonight. I hope
Speaker 2: you don't mind, okay, I just wanted to at all
Speaker 2: lighting the topic up a little bit. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 6: So much, and it needs to be lightened up.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, doctor Lee Richardson. How can folks
Speaker 2: find you at the Brain Performance Center? Give us that website.
Speaker 6: They can find me on LinkedIn, doctor Lee Richardson. They
Speaker 6: can find us on Facebook, Instagram, v Brain Performance Center
Speaker 6: dot com.
Speaker 2: Sounds great, doctor Lee Richardson. We'll have you back talk soon, okay,
Speaker 2: thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: When we get back, right after the nine o'clock news,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with Jimmy Gass of the Pioneer
Speaker 2: Institute and talking about an effort to make it tougher
Speaker 2: for kids who want to get into vocational educational schools
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts to get into those schools. We're not talking
Speaker 2: Harvardale in Princeton here. We're talking about kids who want
Speaker 2: to go to voke at schools, find a career, and
Speaker 2: live a productive life. We should be expanding vocational education schools.
Speaker 2: In Massachusetts. Shame on the legislature, and shame on the
Speaker 2: political powers in Beacon Hill that we even have to
Speaker 2: talk about this back on Nightside, right after this