While scrolling Twitter — ahem, X — taking in all the UFO content, I ran across a gem:

“I’m not paying student loans if there are aliens sorry,” posted Braxton Brewington, press secretary of The Debt Collective, a debt-elimination advocacy group.

The broke and bothered second this alien motion.

What’s your highly ridiculous yet fully substantive reason for not paying back your student loans? Slide in my Twitter DMs and let me know.

Join me as we dive into student loan debt myths and other predatory factors that leave us both broke and bothered.

The Big Payback

Student loan debt forgiveness has been the subject of a lot of talk for the past three years, leaving many borrowers with questions about what’s true and false.

Hopefully, these 4 common myths on student loan debt can give you the tools you need to hold the feet of the loud and wrong to the fire.

Myth: “I’ll have to pay on past interest from my paused loans”

If you have federal student loans that have been paused since March 2020 by the U.S. Department of Education, there is no current plan that borrowers will have to pay interest from the last three years.

Myth: “If I don’t pay my student loans back my credit won’t be impacted”

Student loans can impact your credit similarly to other loans, but student loan servicers offer an ounce more grace before reporting borrowers for making late payments or not making any at all.

If you have not paid your loan in 30 days, late fees will be applied to your balance. After 90 days, federal student loan servicers will report delinquencies to major national credit bureaus, but private lenders will report borrowers after 30 days — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

Myth: “My loans are discharged when my college or university closes”

Borrowers who were enrolled at a college or university that recently closed, were on an approved leave of absence or they withdrew 180 days before the school closed could be eligible for the discharge of their federal student loans.

Myth: “Young adults are the only borrowers struggling to pay back their loans”

With more than 43 million Americans living with student loans, this crisis affects a range of generations struggling to repay their debt.

While young borrowers like Gen Z (1997 to 2012) will have to contend with higher monthly bills and the immediate shock from the payment pause ending, Gen X (1965 to 1980) still holds the largest share of federal student debt, with an outstanding amount of $525.3 billion. Millennials (1981 and 1996) came in second, collectively owing $482.4 billion in student loans.

I ain’t got it

When student loan debt payments resume, for a lot of people it will mean their lives are turned upside down and inside out. Understanding the weight of this debt, Reckon asked readers like you who are worried about their finances, future, family and more to tell us what debt relief would mean for them. Each week, we’ll share a story that provides a glimpse into a borrower’s life.

Name: Hannah O. 

Student loan debt: $75,000 

Location: Oregon 

Age: 28 

If debt payments resume: My spouse (whose loans we will also make payments on) and I will barely make it. I work for my local county, and he is a small business owner. We prioritize paying our bills and spend little on eating out or items we don’t need.

“It is difficult not to feel like I was duped by the higher education system; I have a master’s degree and it is not giving me the financial power I was promised. It’s hard to feel that my advanced degree is valuable when the cost is so high.”

A movement for your money

Being broke takes away our capacity to live the quality of life we all deserve and when unforeseen and predatory factors pop up — it only exacerbates the already thin budgets we skate by on daily.

For example, when a boot is placed on your tire.

Well, there are people fighting back in creative ways to free your tire from the shackles of private parking enforcement companies in Georgia, the Boot Girls in Buckhead. The Boot Girls in Buckhead charge $50 and use a legal key, according to the Atlanta Police Department, to unlock metal car boots and save drivers hundreds of dollars with their business.

A friend who frees us from brokenness is a friend indeed.

Go follow them on Instagram in case you need a boot removed in the future.

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Borrowers are worried about the future of affording and paying back their student loans. Are you one of them? Share your story and thoughts here with Reckon.