Education has always been foundational to my life: a way to serve others, to support my family’s future, and to open doors that have long been closed. Before medicine, I was a high school physics teacher and mentored my students on the college application process. As the first in my family to attend medical school, pursuing higher education is deeply tied to my values. That is why it is so painful to realize that pursuing higher education can also make people vulnerable to predatory loan practices. I never imagined I would be fighting my loan servicer for tens of thousands of dollars.

Yet here I am, working as a senior resident, balancing the demands of medicine, marriage, and impending motherhood, nearly a year into a battle with my loan servicer over phantom interest charges that, as of October 2025, total more than $35,000.

Most doctors I know rarely check their loan accounts. It is not because they do not care. It is because they are exhausted. Between long shifts, overnight calls, and the emotional weight of caring for sick patients, it feels impossible to also comb through financial records or sit on hold for hours. Resident doctors working long hours are most at risk. We are unable to find time to manage these sorts of issues.

Physicians are also vulnerable because they have some of the highest loan balances in the country. Errors of even a few percentage points translate into tens of thousands of dollars. For many, those mistakes go unnoticed because they assume their servicer has reported correctly, or because they simply do not have the time or energy to investigate.

I did check. And what I found was alarming.

Up until August 1, 2025, my federal loans were supposed to be in one of three statuses:

1) COVID forbearance (0% interest) until October 2023

2) The SAVE repayment plan (interest was waived if you made the minimum payment) starting in October 2023

3) The SAVE plan’s temporary litigation forbearance (also 0% interest), ending August 1, 2025

In none of those circumstances should interest have accrued. And yet, my loan servicer added nearly $21,000 of interest to my account during that period. Even worse, my official account history and writings from my loan servicer shows 0% interest during this time, yet the total balances on my loan servicer account and those reported to the credit bureaus kept creeping upward because of phantom interest being charged all along. Some months I have been charged four to five times my actual interest rate, making the current phantom charges more than $35,000 as of October 2025. Countless letters to my loan servicer and regulatory agencies and even the three credit bureaus, all over a period of a year, have not led to any change in my account. Even after these various complaints, nothing has been fixed.

This problem is not just about numbers on a page. It is about the months I have spent calling customer service, sending written complaints, and carefully documenting my records — only to receive inconsistent responses. It is about being promised call backs by my loan servicer supervisors that never came. It is about submitting qualified written requests through the proper channels, only to have my loan servicer deny my claims are correct or to send vague template replies such as that my loan servicer “cannot discuss financial information with your organization” or “we need more time.” And it is about watching my account balances rise during periods of government-mandated 0% interest or after numerous attempts to ask them to fix my account.

Meanwhile, I am trying to get through residency, which is already demanding, and preparing to welcome my child. Like many physicians, I want to pay down my debt responsibly. I have worked hard to save and have been proud to pay for medical school myself over time. However, I cannot hand over those savings to a servicer that insists I owe more than $35,000 more than I actually do.

It is exhausting, demoralizing, and wrong. And adding insult to injury, because of the court pauses on many of the student loan issues and credit toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), many of the months I have worked in residency in a non-profit hospital will not count toward PSLF.

And if this is happening to me, it could be happening to you.

Doctors, teachers, and nurses — people who took on debt because they believed in the power of education and public service — are often the very people most at risk of predatory lending practices.

Here is what I want every borrower, especially physicians with high loan balances, to do:

Pull your account history. Check whether your ledger shows 0% interest during the COVID pause and SAVE plan protections. No interest should have accrued between the start of COVID and August 1, 2025.

Pull your credit reports. Compare them against your servicer’s records. Do the balances and payments match? I found errors in mine where my payments were not reported.

Look for phantom interest. If your balance grew when it should have been 0% interest, you may also be a victim of mismanagement. Check for overcharging of interest after August 1, 2025 as well.

Know your rights. Federally, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1681) requires furnishers like my loan servicer and others to report accurate and complete information. In California, the Student Borrower Bill of Rights (Civil Code § 1788.100) makes it illegal for servicers to misreport or mislead borrowers.

I am writing here because student loan servicing mistakes are not only about accounting errors. They affect lives, families, and futures. It may be difficult to buy real estate or take out another loan. Do not assume your servicer is right. If you find something wrong, document it, speak up, and keep pushing until it is fixed. There are numerous class action lawsuits and complaints about my specific loan servicer and it takes more people speaking up for things to change. I will continue to work hard to get this fixed on behalf of myself and all other student loan borrowers who may have fallen victim to predatory lending.

Cara Black, MD, is a senior anesthesiology resident in California and former high school physics teacher. She advocates for medical education, patient care, and student loan borrower rights. All views in this article represent her personal opinions as a federal student loan borrower and do not reflect the views of her employer or any other organization with which she is affiliated.