Let's say good morning now to ABC's I'm getting back and forth with ABC's and KFI is Joel Larsgard, the host of How To Money on KFI every Sunday from noon to two morning.
Joel, morning, I'm from wherever you want me to be, Amy, Okay.
Well you're from New York City, right right? Okay, So let's first talk since we're talking about money, and a lot of people and their kids and their grandkids have student loans, and how is that all going to shake out with everything that's happening with the gutting of the Department of Education.
Yeah, that's a good question. The Wall Street Journal just published an article early this morning basically talking about the Trump administration's intent to get rid of the Department of Education, whether or not they have Congress's help. And that's the thing is typically to eliminate a federal you know, what's something like the Department of Education, a department, a federal department.
It takes an act of Congress, and Congress, as we know, doesn't do much these days, and so the Trump administration is saying, we're going to try to do it on our own. There are lawsuits flying back and forth. How this shakes out is anybody's guests. But at least the intent of the executive order that the President announced was to severely reduce the scope at the Department of Education that's already happening, and then to have other federal agencies
take over some of those duties. So it looks like the Small Business Administration might take over student loans. How that's going to shake out, I mean, there's already been. Anybody with student loans knows that working with their servicer is a massive pain. We've had just severe issues from the companies that the government partners with, the contracts with to service student loans, and it just feels like everybody with student loans right now is just in this massive limbo.
They were told right that they don't pay your loans for three and a half years. Forgiveness is on the way. Forgiveness then didn't pan out. I just feel like, man, I feel that my heart goes out to anybody with student loans right now, because where things go from here, we'll keep an eye on it. But it's just it's hard to it's hard to spell out, and it's hard to say, yeah.
Well, here's a question or a thought Joel, Like one of the things that Dose's doing and making these cuts and all that stuff that they said they're discovering like super old antiquated systems where you have departments that don't talk to each other. So maybe the hope is, whether it happens or not, is that they can sort of figure it out, because you said getting the student loans is a pain in the butt, so maybe they can figure out how to fix the system too.
Well. I mean that that would be awesome. And it's clear that there are some antiquated government systems and that there is like when they talk about waste, fraud and abuse and government, the vast majority of Americans when you look at polling, believe that that exists. The way Dog goes about it attacking some of that quote unquote waste fraud and abuse, and whether or not some of the things are cutting actually fall under those monikers, like that's
another question. Yeah, And it's also going to be interesting to see when you when you kind of look at since the advent of the Department of Education, well, has it had the impact that it was supposed to have? And I don't know that it has. So when you look at how much we spend as a country per student, and when you look at test scores that just have deteriorated year after year after year, and where we stand internationally in some of the rankings, in particular in science
and math. We were much more internationally competitive from a student basis in the nineteen seventies. So eliminating the Department of Education, people are making it sound like, oh, this is this is going to torch the education system in the country. The reality is the Department of Education only fund something like eight to ten percent of state and local schools and so sending it back to the schools and having less Department of Education and less federal oversight
in terms of how states do education. I don't know that that's a bad thing.
Okay, all right, Let's move on to something that everybody has come to know and love, and that is door Dash, and DoorDash is putting up a new payment option.
Yeah. So this is something that when I saw it, I mean tearstream streamed down my face and easy.
Joel's going crazy.
No, I know, I'm pulling my hair out like sackcloth and ashes because door dash is saying, hey, you can split your little fast food delivery up into four easy payments via Klarna. Now, if you're if you're ordering your food, and to me, this is what feels like the culmination, but it probably isn't of buy now, pay later for literally everything. I'm sure it's going to go into more even more places, but I don't really use these food delivery apps because every meal that you buy, if you
get it delivered. Sure it's convenient, but it's going to cost you more. So the fact that it's that people are gonna even split up those payments. You're gonna order a twelve or fourteen dollars meal or something like that, and then you're gonna split it up over the course of four months makes zero sense to me.
Four months, Like, why would anybody in their right mind do that.
They even have something called Klarna pay Later, which means you kick the can down the road even further, and then you can pay a fee to pay even later than that, And so I think it's something. It makes me think of the frog in the pot of water that just like steadily gets warmer. And I don't know if this is actually true, if it's just an old wives tale, but like the frog boils to death if it stays in the water. This is kind of how
we are as consumers. We're getting used to all of these methods of payment that just reduce the friction, and I think the friction is actually a good thing for us. It's like, do I have the money to buy the burger? If I don't, then I probably shouldn't. I should cook at home. And maybe that sounds like it's not empathetic or something like that, but I just I think it's really important to think before you use bye now, pay
later on anything. But in particular, when we're talking about these smaller purchases, using buy now, pay later to break up just a meal delivery to your house, it just to me, it feels almost dystopian in nature, and it's hard for me to stomach.
Yeah, I just I totally agree with you. Like, again, a twenty dollars meal. I've never seen a fifteen dollars door dash meal. I've only used a couple of times, and it was always like stupid expensive because of all the fees. But yeah, spreading it out over four months, what are you thinking? And then do you do that every week and out all of a sudden you have four months later You're like, how do I owe two thousand dollars, right.
And the thing is, the more we kick the can down the road on a bill that we have to pay, right, typically fees or interest add up. But on top of that, it's it's harder to budget. I want people to pay for the things that they're buying, Like, I'm down with credit cards as a method of payment, but I don't want you to buy more than you can afford, and I don't want you to overextend yourself. So you can't pay that credit card bill on time and in full.
By now pay later. It just kind of blurs the lines and people start using it and then they're like, oh, how much do I owe? What's what's my BNPL you know, payment amount this month, and we become payment buyers, just like we have become when it comes to buying a car.
We're payment buyers these days. And to me, that's the real nefarious part of buying now pay later and splitting up payments like this is that we just kind of become used to the monthly payment instead of like deciding whether or not we're comfortable with the overall amount of the purchase to begin with.
Okay, so proceed with caution. And if you'd like to proceed with getting lots more great advice on how to money. You can listen to Joel Larsguard every Sunday, it's noon to two how to Money with Joel Larsguard. You can also follow him and at how to Money Joel. Thank you, Joel.
Thanks Amy