One woman’s quest to offer free student loan advice to anyone who needs it

Last year, more than 12,000 people emailed Betsy Mayotte asking for advice about their student loans. She and a few coworkers and volunteers at her nonprofit, The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, wrote back to all of them. For free.

“We answer 95% of the questions we get within a business day,” Mayotte said. “And we do that because we understand that there’s often a lot of anxiety around student loans, and we don’t want to leave people hanging.”

Mayotte is a human encyclopedia when it comes to student loans. She’s been working in the field for more than two decades in compliance and advocacy, and has also participated in negotiated rulemaking sessions where the Department of Education makes changes to student loan regulations. She knows this stuff, inside and out.