Donald Knierim planned his retirement around student-loan forgiveness.

He spent most of his career designing financial data systems for major companies. At the age of 60, he took a pay cut and moved to the public sector, working for Metra, Chicago's commuter railway. His primary draw to the job was lower stress, and an added bonus was that it qualified for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which erases student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years.

Knierim had a $62,000 balance remaining on the student loans he took out to send his kids to college. If all went according to plan, a decade at Metra would wipe that clean.

In November 2025, the now-71-year-old logged on to his Federal Student Aid dashboard. It read "Congratulations! You've satisfied your obligation, and no additional payments are required for this loan." That tracked — Knierim said he had never missed a payment, always verifying that his payments were counting toward his forgiveness progress. So he put in his notice and retired.

Months later, he received an update: 15 payments that had previously counted toward forgiveness were changed to "non-qualifying." The notice said his payments were below the amount required under his income-driven repayment plan, but did not specify the proper amount. That means he has at least another year and a half of payments — about $470 monthly — to achieve PSLF.

"If I have to restore that payment, it's going to put my wife and me in a bad situation," Knierim said. "We're too tight in retirement to be shelling out money for stuff that we can't afford."

Since 2023, Business Insider has heard from student-loan borrowers whose loan forgiveness was rescinded. Over the past few months, issues with PSLF have become more widespread, with borrowers reporting challenges in receiving accurate payment counts. Some had their payments toward forgiveness removed after the Department of Education said it was correcting accounts following Biden-era coding errors.

An Education Department spokesperson said that the agency "remains committed to ensuring that every qualifying payment is properly credited to a borrower's account."

Knierim said that even if he could land a new public service job, he wouldn't be able to take it. Caring for his wife, who is facing serious health issues, is a full-time job. He has reached out to his servicer and filed multiple complaints with Federal Student Aid, requesting his payments to be returned to a qualifying status. Meanwhile, he has not made the new payments his servicer said were due, which has lowered his credit score by more than 200 points. He recently received a notice that his account is delinquent and at risk of default, putting him at risk of seizure of federal benefits, like the Social Security he relies on to stay afloat.

Now, he's asking for the initial communication he received from his student-loan servicer to be honored.

"I thought I was done, they gave me that notification that I was done, and then they clawed it back," Knierim said. "I didn't know where that came from, or what to do."

An error-riddled student-loan forgiveness program

There are a few reasons a borrower might get their PSLF notices rescinded. An internal Education Department memo from 2023, reviewed by Business Insider, said that servicer MOHELA erroneously discharged loans for 64 student-loan borrowers "due to inadequate staff training." The memo recommended that MOHELA send notices to affected borrowers explaining what had happened.

In 2023, one borrower received a notice that his loans had been discharged under PSLF. Nine months later, he received a notice that the forgiveness was a mistake, and his payments were restarted. Between those two notices, the borrower said he had bought a home and paid for his son's preschool. The reversal required him to reconfigure his family's budget.

More recently, the Trump administration removed some PSLF borrowers' qualifying payments, with the Education Department citing Biden-era code errors that "resulted in inaccurate payment counts for some borrowers."

Bonnie Latrielle, an official in the Education Department's Federal Student Aid office under former President Joe Biden, said PSLF errors often arise during communication between the Education Department and servicers; servicers report qualifying PSLF payments to the department, and the department matches that information with a borrower's employment records to determine if the borrower is PSLF eligible.

"Those are all things that are outside of the borrower's control," Latrielle said.

Knierim said his servicer told him that some of the payments he made toward the Temporary Expanded PSLF program — a Biden-era program that allowed payments previously deemed ineligible to count toward forgiveness — did not qualify because they were below the required amount. He said he did not receive any further explanation as to why his payment amounts did not qualify, despite following his servicer's guidance on reaching forgiveness.

"I have a flawless payment history," Knierim said. "I have never missed a payment, and I paid what they told me to pay."

From relief to repayment

The Education Department has a "stated policy of holding borrowers harmless," Latrielle said, and borrowers have the right to submit complaints to the department's ombudsman if they have been harmed by their servicer.

However, amid staffing cuts in the department as part of the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the agency, it has stopped monitoring servicer performance and routine borrower complaints. Latrielle said a growing number of states have student-loan ombudsmen and a borrower bill of rights, offering resources and protections for borrowers within the state. Borrowers can also file lawsuits against their servicer if it violates state law, Latreille said.

Knierim, with the help of his daughter, an attorney, sent a letter to his servicer offering to pay the shortfall in his monthly payments. He said the letter was never acknowledged. He does not want to resume payments or switch repayment plans if doing so could further complicate his progress toward forgiveness. Still, his account is also inching toward default, and finding a resolution is becoming more urgent.

In September, eight state student-loan ombudsman offices, including those from Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, where Knierim lives, sent a letter to the Education Department and congressional leaders calling for stronger oversight of PSLF. They cited an example of a public service worker who had more than the required number of payments for forgiveness, but his progress tracker was reset to zero.

"Borrowers have received no clear explanations for individual reductions, making it difficult to verify the accuracy of the new totals, even though these retroactive adjustments can delay forgiveness by years," the letter said.

Knierim is still searching for clarity on where his student-loan forgiveness stands. He said he recently spoke with a Federal Student Aid representative who told him that a "reconsideration request" for the payment denial is in progress. That process could take up to two months, Knierim said he was told, and in the meantime, he's seeking to put his loans on forbearance until he gets a final answer.

"I kept getting different answers," Knierim said. "I can't go back and work. I have no recourse here."

Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

After 20 years of balancing her corporate leadership roles with motherhood, Trisha Daab was ready for a break.

"Life had felt like sprinting a marathon for as long as I could remember," Daab, 47, told Business Insider. "I had no idea how tired I was until I stopped working."

In her year off, she tap danced, volunteered at a food bank, traveled to Disneyland and Alaska, and spent more time with her kids. By the end, she had decided she couldn't go back to her old life.

"My job often demanded that it came first — never-ending to-do lists, urgent emails, travel, and always chasing the next promotion," Daab, who's now a travel writer and substitute teacher, said. "Stepping away helped me realize my priorities had shifted."

Now in their 30s and 40s, many millennial women are skeptical of corporate and instead becoming business owners, content creators, and mothers, prioritizing more flexible work schedules. Instead of striving to get to the top, they're inverting Sheryl Sandberg's mantra of the 2010s — and leaning out.

Sandberg, Meta's former COO, told Business Insider that the corporate exodus is due to women feeling undervalued at work.

"This is not the women who are saying, 'I don't want to do it,'" Sandberg, 57, said. "It's the women saying, 'I don't want to do it because I'm not wanted, I'm not getting the same opportunities and the same support, and I face an unfair burden at home.'"

Even Lean In, the organization founded by Sandberg and named after her 2013 bestselling book, is noticing a recent shift in women's ambitions in the workforce.

According to the organization's 2025 Women in the Workplace report, published in December 2025, which surveyed 9,500 US employees across 124 organizations, women were less likely to say they wanted a promotion compared to men. This was true when filtered to include only millennials, who made up roughly one-third of participants.

When asked why, over 28% of millennial women said "personal obligations" made it hard for them to take on more — compared to 17% of millennial men.

Annie Wright, a licensed psychotherapist who works with Silicon Valley leaders, has also observed more of her millennial female patients shifting their ideas about what constitutes a fulfilling career.

"I'm watching them make more person-centered choices than necessarily career-only-driven choices," she told Business Insider. "I don't think many millennial women are becoming less ambitious. I think they're just becoming less willing to confuse ambition with self-erasure."

The rise and fall of the have-it-all girlboss

Let's, for a moment, remember what is now referred to as the "girlboss era" of the 2010s.

It was a time of She-E-O-led startups, of crushed velvet sofas and the words "I Want It All" aglow in cursive neon lettering. Of earnest enjoyment of "Fight Song" and T-shirts with earnest phrases like "feminist" and "woman up."

Of a future that was female, tinged millennial pink — until a series of public reckonings punctured the fantasy. Leaders of several companies stepped down amid allegations of toxic workplace cultures, exposing the facade of the girlboss promise.

Then came the remote work culture of 2020. Suddenly, many women had time to breathe, whether that meant not rushing to day care pickup, having more time to work out or see friends, or simply not being "on" all the time.

For some, the slowly creeping requirement to return to the office dealt the final blow.

Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas specializing in gender economics, described the influx of new RTO policies by some companies as having a "chilling effect."

"That does disproportionately disadvantage women in general," Heggeness told Business Insider, "just because women are more likely to carry an invisible load of work within families."

The working mom paradox

After the birth of her first child, Kendra Rothermel switched from full-time to part-time work as an office manager while her husband remained at his full-time job. "As we grew our family, it made sense for me to have a more flexible schedule," Rothermel, 34, told Business Insider.

When she had her third baby, his clubfoot diagnosis meant frequent orthopedic appointments. Even part-time work wasn't flexible enough, so she eventually started her own venture helping small businesses with operations and marketing.

Rothermel said she was partly inspired by watching other working moms do the same.

A recent analysis of job-market data by Matthew Nestler, a senior economist at KPMG, found that labor force participation between December 2023 and May 2026 decreased among college-educated women with children under 5. Meanwhile, participation increased for women without children and most groups of men, including fathers.

Because millennials are generally having kids later than previous generations did, Heggeness said parents, moms in particular, are more likely to be parenting young children just as their work responsibilities are ramping up.

"If they were going to lean out, now would be the time," she said, whether it's to save on childcare costs or introduce more flexibility.

Add to the list aging parents. The costs of childcare and eldercare, sometimes unaffordable even with the intense work commitments required to afford them, have prompted some women to leave their full-time jobs for more flexible or minimum-wage work.

To Sandberg, it's a sign that companies are not adequately adjusting to meet women where they are, whether that's offering more flexible hours, longer parental or bereavement leave options, or better healthcare coverage.

"We're at a critical moment in time for women, because what a lot of women are seeing is that commitment to them in leadership pulling back," Sandberg said. "Then what's happening to them is their ambition is pulling back. And that's a loss. It's a loss for our economy. It's a loss for our companies. It's a loss for our children."

The allure of going at it alone

Not all women who are leaning out are doing so because they are overworked. Some, like Heigi Jeong, 30, have dreams beyond corporate America.

"While I wouldn't say I loved the work, I liked it," Jeong, who made $173,000 working in product design, told Business Insider. "It was my dream job as an immigrant, and it was sustainable."

Still, Jeong was pulled toward her other ambitions: writing a book and being a content creator. She was also intrigued by the idea of being her own boss.

"When I'm working for myself, I entirely choose the role I will play," Jeong said. "I wanted to experience it myself and have my own take rather than constantly wondering 'What if I quit?'"

Three months after quitting, she enjoys not feeling as rushed as she used to, even if the price is an inconsistent income.

Both Heggeness and Wright have noted a growing interest in entrepreneurship and self-employment among women. A 2024 Census working paper found that the share of women business owners under 45 rose between 2012 and 2020, with the biggest increase among women ages 25 to 34. It also found that newer women-owned employer businesses were disproportionately owned by women under 35.

The creator economy opened another path. More than 200 million people worldwide now identify as content creators, though that broad figure includes far more than full-time influencers. Some Gen Z and millennial consultants are even leaving MBB and Big Four firms to build audiences and businesses online — trading the girlboss crown for a bubble headband.

In a 2023 Vogue article, writer Daisy Jones wrote that the newest iteration of girlboss swaps grind culture with the similarly perfectionistic "soft life" defined by travel and lucrative brand deals. Pantsuits were exchanged for sweatpants; speaking engagements and spread-thin multitasking gave way to self-care and supplement stacks.

"In some ways, the career woman appears to have been replaced by the health-conscious woman," Jones wrote, "the one who prioritizes her vitamin intake, hydration, and sleep cycle over endless meetings and salary increases."

Content creation doesn't come without its own costs. Plenty of influencers report feeling financially insecure or overworked, unable to take a day off without losing money.

Still, if they're going to burn out or worry about their job security, some figure they might as well enjoy their autonomy to create their own schedules.

"For some women, there's been a paradigm shift in values," Wright said. "Promotion or success now looks like more availability, presence, and freedom."

When everyone leans out

Sandberg, who herself stepped down as Meta's COO in 2022 to pursue philanthropy and early-stage investing ventures, said she supports women's career choices, whatever they may be.

"I think being at home with your children is great," she said. "Going back to school, great. Starting a company, great. Going part-time, great. Anything you want to do is great."

Part of the issue, she said, is that without female leaders, there are simply fewer people to advocate for the very policies that make other women more excited to move up in a company, be it egg-freezing coverage, lactation rooms, or more competitive maternity leave options.

It's why she feels companies need to do more work to assess why women are leaning out enough to jump ship entirely. "It's easy to overly characterize the words 'lean in,'" she said. "What I mean by them is very clear: I think women should make decisions based on believing in their own abilities, based on believing that they should and can have the same opportunities as men."

It's just a shame, she continued, if the decision stems from not feeling valued enough in the corporate world.

"I just hope that enough women want those senior leadership roles," she said, "that we get the environment for women that they deserve."

• The battle for voters in the 2026 midterm elections is playing out on the TikTok For You Page.
• One in four Americans say creator content has influenced who they voted for.
• Political candidates are scrambling to connect with more creators in order to reach voters.

Content creators are influencing much more than our coffee orders and skincare routines.

About one in four Americans (26%) say influencer content has affected who they've voted for, according to a survey of around 2,000 US adults conducted by Morning Consult in September, commissioned by Business Insider.

Creator content is an "underestimated avenue" for political campaigns, said Nicole Dunger, a founding partner at the marketing firm People First, which works with candidates and advocacy groups on their creator strategies. "It is a real player and a big player in this space now."

If 2024 was the podcast election, 2026 is shaping up to be the influencer one. Instagram and TikTok creators have joined Fox News hosts and personalities like Joe Rogan as go-to sources of information for voters.

Influencers like Jake Paul and Hasan Piker have emerged as main characters in politics this year.

Paul recently joined President Donald Trump in Ohio for a midterm rally, posting TikTok clips of his Air Force One flight. Piker, meanwhile, has become a campaign ally for progressives like Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed and a negative talking point for Fox News commentators.

As online attention has become a key asset in politics, influencers are helping candidates break through the noise.

A little over half of US adults (56%) told Morning Consult that creator content had affected their views on political or social issues to some degree. That figure jumped among Gen Z respondents, where close to three in four respondents said their views had been swayed by influencer posts.

For campaigns, the challenge is identifying the right creators to work with, particularly when many influencers don't regularly talk about politics.

"You have to have your base of people, your core supporters, and then you have to have a broader cultural space of people who don't always talk about politics," said Parker Butler, a managing partner at the digital strategy firm Luminary Strategies, which works on social strategy with Democratic candidates like James Talarico. "It's worth having different pockets of creators for different purposes."

Reaching creators with smaller followings than Piker (about 3 million Twitch followers), or Paul (around 21 million YouTube subscribers) is a focus in 2026, Butler said.

He said the goal is to shift the creator outreach strategy from "this person has a million followers" to identifying influencers who work in a particular niche a campaign is trying to reach.

Political chatter is moving from TV to YouTube

More and more, political discussions are playing out on digital platforms, whether that's podcasts, YouTube videos, or Twitch streams.

YouTube was the top source for political and election news among US adults in September, narrowly beating out TV, print, and X (formerly Twitter), according to a survey from Syracuse University.

About one in five Democrats and Republicans said podcast appearances could make them "more likely to support a candidate," according to a July through August survey of likely midterm voters from the podcast industry group Sounds Profitable. A smaller share of Independents (11%) said podcasts could make them more likely to back a candidate.

While campaigns see attention moving online, they're still spending the bulk of their ad budgets on TV.

Part of that may be because they're accustomed to buying TV spots. They're also reckoning with the fact that influencer marketing is harder to predict and measure, particularly as social-media feeds become more personalized and algorithmically driven.

"It can be very challenging, but you see the results in the end," Dunger said. "It's the same with door knocking. We know door knocking somehow works and has worked for so long, but it's not like we have those direct measurements."