Listener calls John Curley a ‘schmuck’ over student loan views, debates topic on-air

When KIRO Newsradio host John Curley opened up and scrolled through X this week, he discovered a listener calling him a “Schmuck” who knows “NOTHING” about student loans.

Curley’s response: “Want to come on the air and talk about it?”

Hey Curley-

I can tell you know NOTHING about student loans.

I strongly suggest you keep you TRAP SHUT until you know something about them.

Talk to these people.

Quit defending the Dept of ED’s loan SCAM.

You Schmuck. pic.twitter.com/URECKKvtnZ

— STUDENT LOAN JUSTICE (@StudentLoanJus1) April 25, 2025

Alan Collinge is the founder of Student Loan Justice, a citizens’ group that aims to fight for student loan forgiveness by being “the leading force” behind the push for student loan cancellation at the federal level.

Curley and Collinge seemed to be at odds regarding the topic, so Curley invited him to chat on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio to get to the bottom of their differences.

In 1965, a program now known as The Federal Family Loan (FFEL) was introduced as a way for the government to ensure prospective college students had access to loans by allowing them to get them from banks and non-profit leaders, according to New America.

“The men came back from World War II, and we decided we’re going to send these vets to college. All of a sudden, there was all this need for a college education,” Curley stated. “And then it gets all mixed up with a whole bunch of junk. So if you could just wipe the board clean…how would you structure college loans?”

Collinge thinks, in order for loans to be effective, the whole system must be restructured.

“If we have to have loans, there’s got to be all the standard consumer protections that all other loans have, most notably bankruptcy protections,” Collinge replied. “Student loans are the only type of loan to be uniquely stripped of this constitutional right. It lies, really, at the heart of everything.”

Finding common ground

Curley found this to be common ground, noting the government should not have such a strong arm in student loans. The pair also agreed that, in the private sector, interest rates should be set at the lender’s discretion, and vary depending on what a student chooses to study.

Even with all of this in mind, the country’s current problem with student loans is not the borrower, according to Collinge.

“The government is making money hand over fist on this. They’ve made a king’s ransom. They take all the risks and put it directly onto the backs of the borrowers,” Collinge said, ” I see so many well-intentioned conservatives out there, and they’ve been completely hoodwinked. What happens is…their first response is to blame the borrowers, to wag their finger at the people being wrecked by this loan scam, rather than looking at the lending program itself.”

Collinge apologized to Curley for his initial message and name-calling, to which Curley shrugged it off.

“I honor anyone who is passionate about trying to make a change and pushing this giant rock up this hill, and I hope for everyone that education can be affordable and obtainable,” Curley said. “We clear the decks, get the government out of it, and have colleges actually start to provide a good education that could then be taken into the marketplace, and then the person can utilize what they’ve learned. Are we all in agreement there?”

“I certainly am,” Collinge said.

Listen to the full conversation below.

Listen to John Curley every weekday afternoon from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jcurleyshow