• The US is considering deploying more military advisors to Ukraine, officials have said.
• Additional troops would primarily support logistics and oversee US weapons sent to Ukraine.
• The move comes amid warnings that Russia is likely to intensify its offensive operations.

The US is considering sending additional military advisors to its Kyiv embassy as Russia continues its offensive operations in Ukraine, Politico reported.

Four unnamed US officials and another unnamed person familiar with the matter told the publication that the additional troops would primarily support logistics and oversee the weapons being sent to Ukraine by the US.

They would also assist the Ukrainian military with weapons maintenance, one of the officials and the person familiar with the plans said.

There was no confirmation of how many additional US troops would be sent to Ukraine, although two of the officials said it could be up to 60.

In a statement to Business Insider, the Department of Defense said: "Throughout this conflict, the DOD has reviewed and adjusted our presence in-country, as security conditions have evolved. Currently, we are considering sending several additional advisors to augment the Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) at the Embassy."

"The ODC performs a variety of advisory and support missions (non-combat) and while it is staffed exclusively by DoD personnel, it is embedded within the U.S. Embassy," it continued, adding that "personnel are subject to the same travel restrictions as all embassy employees."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West against sending troops to Ukraine.

After French President Emmanuel Macron said in February that sending NATO ground forces to Ukraine "cannot be ruled out," Putin made his position clear, saying, "the consequences for possible interventionists will be… tragic."

It comes as the US House of Representatives on Saturday approved a bill to send more than $60 billion in additional aid to Ukraine.

The think tank the Institute for the Study of War said in an update on the conflict that Russia would now likely intensify its attacks on Ukraine in order to make the most of "abnormally dry spring ground conditions and persisting Ukrainian materiel shortages" ahead of the new package.

"The now expected arrival of US security assistance has likely emphasized these considerations for Russian forces," the report said. "The Russian military command will likely intensify offensive operations and missile and drone strikes to pursue operationally significant effects that will certainly become harder to achieve against well-provisioned Ukrainian forces."

It added that Russia will likely target areas where Ukraine's defenses seem relatively unstable or where they are close to achieving an "operationally significant objective," such as to the west of Avdiivka or near Chasiv Yar — both in the Donetsk region.

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Emily had a lot of fight in her.

The petite 7-year-old had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was also diagnosed with autism, and she had been struggling ever since her mother, Sarah, moved her and her brother hours away from their dad during the pandemic. After the move, Emily became increasingly frustrated with her inability to articulate her thoughts and began boiling over into rages that required interventions at the public school she attended.

So in August 2021, Sarah moved Emily to New Story, a private school in State College, Pennsylvania, dedicated to serving children with special needs, in the hopes that the teachers there would know how to keep her little girl calm. But at New Story, Emily seemed to be having even more meltdowns, and the school called Sarah to intervene when her daughter broke down. So Sarah left work, again and again, to comfort her daughter with bear hugs.

She would rather miss work than let New Story teachers use their preferred tactic: corralling the first grader with gym mats that Emily would fight and scratch so hard, she'd come home with foam lodged beneath her bloody fingernails.

Then one afternoon in April last year, Sarah asked a family friend to pick up Emily from New Story. When the friend arrived, the little girl was on the playground, pinned down under the weight of four adults.

That night, Sarah decided that this nightmare had to end. Emily would not return to New Story. A year later, her daughter still hasn't talked about the incident at home or in therapy. New Story calls itself a "safe, nurturing environment for our students and their families," but Emily has a different term for her old school: "the mean people."

After nearly two semesters of second grade at a public school, Sarah said her daughter has progressed faster, academically and behaviorally, than she did at New Story. When Emily has an in-class meltdown, public school staff discreetly shepherd her to a quiet sensory room to calm down.

"Now, at the very least, I know that she is safe and she can communicate that to me," said Sarah, who asked that we use pseudonyms to protect her daughter. Their identities are known to Business Insider.

Sarah didn't know it at the time, but when she enrolled Emily in New Story, she was unwittingly signing on to an experiment in American education, one that worries former staff, US senators, and special-education researchers alike: New Story is the country's first large-scale special-education-school network owned by a private-equity firm.

In 2019, the Boston-based private-equity arm of Audax Group, which manages $36 billion for investors, including the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System and the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System, purchased a mid-Atlantic special-education-school network called New Story Schools for an undisclosed price. Under Audax, New Story has purchased other local school chains, like Pennsylvania's River Rock Academy, as well as various behavioral-services companies, and rolled them up under New Story's corporate umbrella. The deals have created what New Story calls one of the largest special-education companies in the US, serving children with autism, behavioral problems, and other issues.

Now, Audax is reportedly looking to flip the company. More than a quarter of private-equity-owned companies across industries are sold to other private-equity firms, so the new owners may look much like the current one.

To some, private equity's business model appears antithetical to special education. In a basic private-equity deal, a firm pools money from investors like public pensions to buy a business, improve it (or load it up with debt), and sell it. Fast expansion means the firm can sell the business, typically four to seven years after buying it, and make a profit of 15% to 20% or more. Private equity targets companies that can grow fast, often by acquiring similar businesses.

A private-equity firm also makes money well before offloading the business, including by collecting fees from its investors and charging the businesses it owns for management and advisory services.

Special-education schools bring in a reliable income stream, typically from public funds: School districts and states pay New Story anywhere from $27,000 to $95,000 per student, and some schools operate year-round. (The average public school district in Pennsylvania, where New Story operates the most schools, spends about $23,000 per child across all types of public education. Additional services, such as providing an individual aide or specialized therapy, can push those costs much higher.) And a fragmented nationwide market means that a company like New Story — which Audax grew from 15 schools to a network of 75 schools and centers across seven states — has plenty of opportunities for expansion.

This year, New Story expects to bring in $305 million in revenue, the analytics firm Mergermarket said. The company serves a few thousand students, a tiny slice of the 8 million Americans between the ages of 3 and 21 who receive special-education services each year — a 25% increase from 2011, according to government data. (In 2021-22, 2% of these children attended public or private schools dedicated to students with disabilities.)

Under Audax, New Story gutted departments focused on quality and education and struggled with turnover.

To understand how New Story changed under private-equity ownership and what private-equity takeovers could mean for the special-education landscape, Business Insider reviewed more than 3,000 pages of public records and spoke to 20 current and former New Story employees and parents. Many of them said that under Audax, New Story pushed to expand at the expense of student safety and academic progress. While parental complaints and even lawsuits alleging mistreatment are not uncommon at special-education schools, records of complaints and interviews with parents and educators show that New Story's focus on profit under private-equity ownership added an alarming layer of stress to special education.

Under Audax, New Story gutted departments focused on quality and education and struggled with turnover. The company's hiring practices grew so lax in some instances — including hiring an administrator who was fired from her previous school for failing to report suspected sexual abuse — that state regulators expressed alarm. Some parents, like Sarah, grew concerned about the inappropriate use of restraints and isolation.

Shanon Taylor, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies privately run special-education schools, told BI that private equity's push to make big profits is fundamentally at odds with special education's mission. Since the schools are generally paid flat reimbursement rates by school districts or insurers, she said private-equity firms make money by cutting costs.

"They'll cut the number of employees. They'll pay employees less. They'll hire less-qualified employees so they can pay them less. They're going to defer maintenance on their facilities and not have the equipment necessary in those facilities," Taylor said, speaking about private-equity firms generally. "All of those things then are impacting the services to these vulnerable populations."

As a parent of two adults with special needs, Taylor said she would not have sent her children to a private-equity-owned school.

"Most people don't even realize that the school that you may be sending your child to — because you're looking for a specialized setting — may not be run with the best interest of your child at heart," she said.

Top policymakers are concerned, too.

"Private equity has no place in education — especially special education," Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio told BI. "From nursing homes to retail to housing, we have seen private equity kill too many jobs, dismantle too many businesses, raise prices, and hurt too many patients in our state, and I am deeply alarmed it is now working to undermine — and endanger — a student's fundamental right to a free and appropriate public education." New Story runs 12 schools and centers in Ohio.

Brown's colleague, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, where New Story operates 27 schools, agreed. "Public education dollars should be spent ensuring that students with disabilities have their individual education needs met by qualified teachers and health professionals, not padding the pockets of wealthy private equity executives," he said. Casey chairs the Senate's Health Subcommittee on Children and Families.

'A moneymaking machine'

New Story was founded in 1997 by Paul Volosov, a certified school psychologist who created several for-profit businesses to support adults and children with special needs and other challenges.

Volosov wasn't a perfect owner. Before New Story was acquired by Audax, its schools were the focus of a handful of lawsuits alleging improper treatment of students and employees. And Volosov drew internal scrutiny for his erratic behavior and off-color remarks about women and religion, some former employees said. Volosov stayed on as New Story's CEO until January 2022, when he transitioned to chairman.

Audax filled the company's four C-suite roles with people who had no education or behavioral-health experience.

But former staffers said some of New Story's problems under Volosov were magnified with Audax's ownership. After the education and quality departments were slashed in summer 2022, staff said the disconnect between corporate objectives and the classroom widened. Audax filled the company's four C-suite roles with people who had no education or behavioral-health experience.

"Since the expansion, I think it's just a moneymaking machine," said Jim Grinnen, a former regional manager of education for New Story's central Pennsylvania region. He joined the company in 2018 and left in 2021. "Being a special educator, knowing why I got into it 25 years ago, it just makes your stomach turn when you're seeing these rich people give speeches in front of you with no clue what we're doing here."

Despite those concerns, some parents and educators have expressed satisfaction with the level of care New Story offered. For some families, New Story schools were a last resort, taking a difficult child when no one else would. In Pennsylvania Department of Education records, 11 superintendents and other public school administrators praised one arm of New Story, an 11-campus alternative-education school called River Rock Academy that enrolls disruptive students.

"It is a company that truly cares about the students and treats them as if they were their own. The company provides a high level of service," wrote the superintendent of one Pennsylvania school district in River Rock's application for relicensure.

In an October letter to BI, New Story's senior vice president of operations for Pennsylvania, Christina Spielbauer, highlighted the improvements the "deeply mission-oriented" company has made under Audax, including hiring over 221 new staff members last summer and investing $2 million last year into facilities. Spielbauer wrote that the company was "open to sharing more information" with BI.

Nathaniel Garnick, a spokesman for the company, subsequently declined to answer a list of questions or make New Story or Audax representatives available to interview. Garnick issued two statements, one on behalf of Audax and another on behalf of New Story. He wrote that the company has invested almost $50 million into New Story facilities and improved the student-teacher ratio.

"Rather than focus on the positive impact we have every day on thousands of students with severe emotional and behavioral issues, it is unfortunate that Business Insider has chosen to cherry-pick a handful of isolated incidents in an effort to sully the reputation of our hard working, dedicated team who put their hearts and souls into the work they do," Garnick wrote.

Speaking for Audax, he wrote that staff shortages mean schools are "ill-equipped to confront the escalating mental health crisis on their own."

"Our investment has enabled New Story to expand access and provide vital support to a significantly underserved population of students who often cannot attend traditional public schools," he wrote.

Trying to do more with fewer people

Craig Richards loves teaching and doesn't shy away from a challenge. The elementary-school teacher started a chess club in the Reading School District, one of Pennsylvania's poorest and worst-performing districts. He's also worked in a youth detention center, and his wife is a teacher.

In 2017, Richards joined River Rock Academy, which specializes in educating students who can't stay in their

Under its new owners, Richards told Business Insider, River Rock subordinated student care to profits.

public schools because of misconduct. He said staff members at River Rock were caring and tried their best to educate a group of students who often wanted to be anywhere else. Richards left the school after two years. While he was away, New Story bought the school. When he returned for the 2022-23 academic year, he found that the tenor had shifted: Under its new owners, he told Business Insider, River Rock subordinated student care to profits.

"Now since it's New Story, they're definitely more money-driven. They're trying to do more with fewer people," Richards said.

Several former staff members in Pennsylvania said New Story schools there chronically lacked substitute teachers. When Richards missed roughly a week of work during the last academic year for the flu and another three days to take care of his daughter when she broke her foot, behavioral staff — not teachers — covered his classroom.

Asking staff to double as subs might be reasonable if New Story expanded its staff for such needs. But Richards said the school employed fewer staff under New Story than during his first stint, putting extra pressure on teachers to work no matter what.

"It definitely made you feel a little less human. You're not allowed to be sick, your daughter can't have a problem, because we don't have enough people here," he said.

Teacher and staff turnover is a perennial problem for public and private schools nationally that was exacerbated by the pandemic. The people who spoke to BI said New Story turnover is high, even at the top levels. For instance, two Pennsylvania education directors left in spring 2023, according to records obtained by BI — one after just months in the role. Neither was immediately replaced. One Ohio school had four directors, including a 25-year-old, in 2022.

Such director turnover is highly unusual, Judith McKinney, a Virginia-based special-education advocate, said. In her five years evaluating private schools with Virginia's Department of Education, she said directors typically stayed at the same school for years, sometimes decades.

Several grad students working at Green Tree School were so deeply alarmed that they registered their concerns with the Pennsylvania Department of Education

At River Rock, Richards struggled with new curriculum demands under New Story's ownership. His school previously reimbursed teachers who bought worksheets and other items on a popular online marketplace called Teachers Pay Teachers. But last year, River Rock began directing teachers to upload their own worksheets or other material to share with colleagues across River Rock's 11 schools — a closed, unpaid version of Teachers Pay Teachers.

When Richards sought other curriculum resources, he was pointed to a school closet that contained donated materials.

"One of the manuals didn't even have the first unit — it was ripped out," he said. "I'm like, 'Can we look at getting something else?' I had ideas of books we could use. They wouldn't."

Though he loved his colleagues and some aspects of the job, when a position to manage a local running store came up, Richards eagerly took it. He left in June — just two semesters after his return.

(In state paperwork, River Rock said it offers teachers "a variety of textbooks and resources including a resource bank available to them to provide appropriate course content to students based on their individual need.")

Grinnen, the former Pennsylvania administrator, told BI that his schools also struggled with curriculum resources, including having to give 12th graders textbooks written for second graders. That surprised him since the company seemed to have deep pockets to open new locations. Some schools acted more like holding pens than educational facilities, Grinnen said.

Donnell McLean, who briefly ran a New Story campus in Virginia, said the school's lack of a standardized curriculum led to some students being warehoused.

There was "not a lot of challenging work, especially for the higher-functioning students," McLean said.

Last spring, several graduate students working at Philadelphia's Green Tree School were so deeply alarmed by what they saw that they registered their concerns with the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This, along with other complaints, prompted several visits to Green Tree by PDE employees in April and June. One state employee wrote to her supervisor that her visit's "purpose is to do a walk through to determine how much instruction is actually going on based on the complaints that were received." (Subsequent communication about employees' trips was redacted in PDE records obtained by BI.)

In Ohio, New Story administrators told BI they pushed back against the company's plans to increase school enrollment and convert some schools into centers with a half day for school and a half day for therapy. Such a switch would allow New Story to make more money per student by billing insurance companies for more therapy.

While enrollment data is difficult to come by across states, Ohio offers a window into how New Story has increased enrollment without similar teacher increases. Four New Story-branded Ohio schools collectively added 106 students from 2022 to 2024 — a 52% increase — but lost 31 licensed staff, per state data. (BI did not include a recently opened New Story school in this analysis.)

Private equity has been piling into other autism services and similar behavioral-health companies.

Meanwhile, huge additions to the ranks of support staff quickly changed New Story's employee composition. In 2022, support staff comprised 41% of New Story's staff — but 87% this year. For comparison, BI examined 19 other private, secular Ohio special-education schools' data. From 2022 through 2024, those schools' rosters were, on average, made up of about half support staff and half teachers. None had more than 75% support staff, who are generally paid less than teachers and have less training.

(New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia do not track staff numbers for privately run schools.)

New Story employees questioned other corporate changes. Some staff disagreed with a plan to give bonuses to administrators based on student enrollment, something the company discussed across states, two people said.

"Our rationale was we never wanted to create a financial incentive to enroll a student that we couldn't properly serve or to keep a student that was ready to return to their public school," said one of the employees who said they pushed back on the plan.

Not all teachers take issue with New Story's approach. Natalie Stoup teaches seven autistic and intellectually and developmentally disabled students at New Story's New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, campus. Stoup, who has taught for 27 years, said she has loved her two years at the school.

"I absolutely really have a strong respect for the program," she told BI. "I think they're doing wonderful things."

Blackstone's autism bet

While New Story is the first large-scale, private equity-owned special-education school network, Audax's bet comes as private equity has been piling into other autism services and similar behavioral-health companies. Many of the biggest private-equity players have snapped up autism-services providers in the wake of state and federal changes requiring more payments for mental-health and autism services.

That shift made the industry look much more profitable and scalable, magic words for private-equity players like the industry giant Blackstone. In 2018, the firm bought a majority stake in the behavioral-therapy provider Center for Autism and Related Disorders. Blackstone then put the business into bankruptcy proceedings in June, citing labor costs and lease obligations for centers it closed. Forbes reported last year that former employees attributed the company's challenges to a "model that put profits ahead of patient care." (New Story bought CARD's Virginia locations during bankruptcy, and the bulk of the company was sold back to the founder.)

When employee costs rise quickly, companies like CARD and New Story can't pass on the costs to their customers as fast as other businesses, like a restaurant raising menu prices. Insurance reimbursement and school tuition haven't kept pace with the post-pandemic economic landscape, increasing pressure on behavioral-health companies to make money by trimming costs and expanding.

NBC News reported that CARD's staff training decreased under Blackstone's ownership and many employees left after wages stayed stagnant for three years. (Blackstone claimed that it increased training, though staff documents reviewed by NBC News showed the opposite.) Like New Story, CARD's private-equity-installed CEO had no special education or behavioral-health experience.

Other private-equity-owned healthcare companies have recently come under intense regulatory scrutiny. The Biden administration is pressing for transparency for private-equity-owned nursing homes, while the Federal Trade Commission is suing an anesthesiology company and its PE owner for creating what it calls an anticompetitive scheme. PE's special-education and autism-related companies have, so far, largely flown under the radar.

Restraining kids without uniform policies

Educational and disciplinary data about privately run schools like New Story is virtually impossible to obtain — and New Story doesn't volunteer it. The schools are not required to publicly report testing data, attendance, or other markers of school success. And because of the varied student populations, such data would be difficult to compare to public or private schools. In Pennsylvania and Virginia, state Department of Education spokespeople said their agencies don't even keep track of how many students attend private schools.

Nickie Coomer, a Colorado College education professor who has written about the privatization of special education, told BI that this data gap is a major regulatory hole, one that private-equity companies are happy to exploit.

"There's not a lot of accountability about how we're adhering to the laws we have in place to protect kids with disabilities," she said. "There's no governance, no elected school board … It's the antithesis of what schools should be."

One key metric for student safety that's reported at public schools is restraint usage. In most districts, when a student could endanger themselves or others, staff may use restraints, including physically immobilizing the student or isolating them so they can calm down. As with other data, New Story's restraint usage is not publicly reported.

Parents BI talked to had a wide array of experiences, from Sarah's ordeal to others who say New Story's restraint practices have been appropriate and effective for their children. One father of a student who graduated State College's New Story school in 2022 told BI that his young adult son, who frequently needs to be held down at home to avoid self-harm, was always appropriately restrained and the incidents were properly documented.

Interviews with multiple staff members indicate that their training on how to handle challenging student situations varied from school to school.

Donnell McLean, the former Virginia school director, said he never received any restraint training through New Story. Instead, he relied on what he knew from his prior job. In Virginia, public schools are legally required to document any restraint use and notify parents — but McLean said he didn't always receive reports from his staff after they restrained students.

In 2022, an Ohio school director at a New Story school fired an employee who restrained an 11-year-old with such force that his parents sent photos of hand-shaped bruises on the boy's shoulder.

Shyara Hill, a parent of three students at the New Story-owned Green Tree School in Philadelphia, told the Pennsylvania Department of Education that she wasn't properly notified when one of her children was placed in isolation. In emails and phone calls to the agency last spring, Hill detailed other troubling incidents at the school. She reported that one of her children was hurt in a classroom fight but wasn't examined by a nurse; one was repeatedly bullied with no staff intervention; and one came home soiled after staffing shortages prevented them from visiting the restroom.

"The school has not followed the agreement, safety protocols, [or] parent notification plan and has not responded to several communications from myself and [my] child's attorney," Hill wrote in the email, obtained in a public records request from the state Department of Education.

(Neither Hill nor her attorney responded to requests for comment.)

Documents that River Rock sent to Pennsylvania's Department of Education state that restraints "will be used as a last resort" and will be reported to the agency.

A staffer with a criminal record

BI's review of records and litigation turned up alarming lapses in New Story's vetting of new hires as Audax rapidly expanded operations.

This summer, the company hired Amy Hall Kostoff to oversee student services across seven Pennsylvania campuses and serve as the educational director for one of them.

Hall Kostoff was fired in April 2022 from her tenured job as an assistant supervisor at a Pennsylvania county special-education center for failing to properly report suspected sexual abuse involving two students, one of whom is nonverbal. In March 2023, the state's acting secretary of education assessed that Hall Kostoff was dishonest during the subsequent investigation.

A representative for the public school that fired Hall Kostoff declined to comment, including about New Story's background check.

Hall Kostoff, who was still employed at New Story as of late March, declined to comment.

Pennsylvania Department of Education records show that employees were concerned about the hiring practices at Philadelphia's Green Tree School. One department employee wrote to her colleagues in April that staff records at Green Tree were "missing a lot of information," including about background checks and teacher certifications. That employee later wrote that her background check of one Green Tree staff member turned up convictions for public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and indecent exposure — the latter of which would legally prohibit employment at a school. BI was unable to corroborate the PDE employee's claims, and it's unclear if the charges stemmed from incidents in or out of school, or if that employee continued working for Green Tree. The staff member did not respond to requests for comment.

New Story has terminated other staff members accused of wrongdoing, including an occupational therapist in Pennsylvania who was arrested in 2022 and charged with attempting to solicit a minor for sex. A company spokeswoman told a local newspaper the charges did not involve a New Story student.

In 2022, the principal of a New Story-owned school in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, told police that graduates of the school had received sexually inappropriate messages from their former gym teacher, who was still employed there. The teacher wrote to the female students about how he "was sexually attracted to students while they attended the school," and he named specific students, a police report said. (The students told police that no inappropriate behavior occurred while they attended the school.) The teacher also asked another former student if they wanted to smoke weed and gave the former student his Snapchat handle. The police report said the teacher was placed on leave pending an internal investigation; it is unclear whether further action was taken. A detective advised against pursuing charges because the former students are adults, and the messages, "though inappropriate," were not illegal, he wrote. Asked if the teacher was still employed, New Story's spokesman declined to answer and the school's principal did not respond to a request for comment.

Love, Emily

In State College, Emily is thriving in public elementary school. She splits her time between mainstream and special-education classes, spending time with her peers in a way she never did at New Story, where she was the school's only young student.

(Researchers told BI that students miss out on building key social skills when they're sequestered in special-education programs.)

This year, Emily has attended a birthday party and playdates, the kinds of childhood interactions Sarah feared she'd never experience.

"I want my children to be sound, functioning, responsible adults, but I don't want to break their spirits," Sarah said.

She said that public school employees have been kinder — a New Story staff member once said Emily had a "nasty side" — and that Emily is behaving better.

She recently asked Sarah how to sign a card with "love, Emily."

Do you have a story to share? Email this reporter on a non-work device at mmorris@businessinsider.com.

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• When I was a VP at my company, I was too afraid to speak up or tell my boss "no."
• I reached burnout and collapsed during a meeting, forcing me to leave the office on a stretcher.
• Once I explored my childhood trauma in therapy, I was able to set boundaries at work.

"Teresa, you can plan the office party, right?"

My stomach tightened, and I felt lightheaded at the question. I went through a mental checklist of everything I was asked to lead. I tried to repeat the boundary script I read in a Forbes article the previous day.

Instead, these words come out of my mouth: "My workload is already full, is there any chance you can maybe find someone else to cover? If not, I will try my best to make a plan."

My boss stared blankly at me before telling me I should just plan the party.

I had recently been promoted to VP of Human Resources. I was already stretched thin with developing new training programs, improving our hiring pipeline, and onboarding new hires. I was nearing burnout — and fast.

I was too anxious in the office to set boundaries

I knew what boundaries were, intellectually. Yet, on the few attempts that I tried to "set a boundary," my body took over. I froze in terror, and my throat closed up.

After being promoted to the executive suite, I became the only woman in the room. My heart raced whenever I contributed to a meeting. When I left the room, I obsessed over everything I said, questioning whether I sounded stupid or not. Soon, I lost my appetite, stopped sleeping through the night, and drastically lost weight.

It all came to a head one day in a meeting. I remember my heart rate quickening. I felt my heart skip a beat. I tried to excuse myself, but after just two steps, my body swayed, and if it weren't for a nearby chair, I would have fallen.

"Teresa, should we call the ambulance?"

I blinked, and — in blurry, distortedness — I saw the faces of the CEO and CMO of my company staring at me. Soon, I was lying on a stretcher and being wheeled out to the lobby. The elevator doors opened and closed. The whole office was staring at me — jaws agape. I felt so small and mortified.

I thought it was a heart problem, but at the hospital, they did a lot of tests that came out clear. The doctor diagnosed me with burnout and anxiety.

I found the solution to my troubles when I started trauma therapy

Before all of this, I met one of my best friends for coffee at Starbucks. She was talking about her dad. At the end of the conversation, she said something that stuck with me: "I'm just curious, T. You never talk about your mom and dad. Why is that?"

I evaded the topic of my childhood around friends and in the therapy room. Perhaps part of me hoped that journaling and the mindfulness work I was doing would be enough.

But my friend's question kept playing over in my brain.

That's when my psychologist guided me through Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, a practice where I embodied myself at different ages. I remember — during a session — embodying 9-year-old Teresa. My dad was screaming at me because my running shoes were not organized in a straight line at the door. As I described the scene to my therapist, he responded, "None of this was your fault."Tears fell down my cheek. It felt like my therapist was talking directly to 9-year-old Teresa — not to 45-year-old Teresa.

Even though both childhood trauma and burnout symptoms often overlap, the solution differs. Most traditional burnout recovery approaches overfocus on external solutions — like physical exercise or an adequate rest and sleep schedule. While these are healthy and self-care-promoting, for someone who has experienced childhood trauma, true relief comes from addressing your deeper needs, I learned.

I implemented what I learned into my work life

I realized that I was responding to male authority figures like I was a child, and that's why I couldn't tell my bosses "no," and that led to my burnout.

Having the awareness that this was happening changed everything. If I feel triggered at work, I quietly tell myself that freezing or complying helped younger Teresa survive scary events. And then I tell myself that things are different for older Teresa. I am not in physical danger, and the responses that served me when I was younger no longer serve me. Doing this means that I allow the fear or anxiety to pass through me. From here, I can assert my boundaries from a regulated state.

This isn't a one-and-done solution. I look at boundary work and trauma-based work as a lifelong practice. It's a constant journey of understanding the patterns.

Every time I manage to successfully navigate a difficult conversation that would have triggered me in the past, it reaffirms that I am, in fact, capable of asserting myself and setting boundaries — especially in the workplace.

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• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories. Fed up with the cost of life in the US? An increasing number of Americans are turning to "geoarbitrage."

On the agenda:

• It's not just you — Reddit is taking over Google's search results.

• America's big cities are about to run out of money.

• A McKinsey associate left a $200,000 salary to salvage their mental health.

• Microsoft's astounding plan for the AI boom: Triple data-center capacity.

But first: Netflix added millions of subscribers. Wall Street balked.

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If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Insider's app here.

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This week's dispatch

Netflix's Wall Street worry

Netflix announced last week that it had added 9.33 million subscribers in the first three months of the year, far surpassing Wall Street expectations.

It now has almost 270 million subscribers, which is comparable to the populations of Russia and Mexico combined.

However, those kinds of comparisons will be harder to make in the future, as Netflix also announced that starting next year, it will stop releasing subscriber numbers and will instead announce milestones as it passes them.

Wall Street did not react well to the news, sending the stock lower.

Netflix's password-sharing crackdown has been a great success. That's good news for other streaming platforms like Disney that are looking to launch their own crackdown. But the boost will likely fade over time, and some on Wall Street worry the new level of secrecy on subscriber numbers is a sign that growth is decelerating.

Plus, Netflix's stock had increased 50% in the six months before earnings. It's possible some investors saw an opportunity to book some of their profits.

What's not in question? Netflix's supremacy in streaming.

---

Reddit overruns Google Search

If you've noticed more Reddit posts popping up in your Google Search results, you're not alone. Posts from sites like Reddit and Quora are overrunning the search engine.

In part, Google's shift to promoting more human, helpful sites has helped bring on a surge in Reddit traffic. And already, spammers are using the new trend to their benefit.

How Reddit took over Google.

Also read:

• Read Google's memo warning employees to 'think again'

• Google just made a huge company shakeup. Here's who's gaining power.

---

Bad times for big cities

Across the country, the rise of remote work has led to a decline in commercial real-estate prices and falling property-tax revenue. Cities from San Francisco to Boston are weighing whether to slash budgets.

At the root of these cities' woes is the struggle to figure out what the new normal budget is and how to deliver the services and investments citizens depend on without breaking the bank.

Things could soon get even worse.

---

Leaving McKinsey

When this employee started at McKinsey in 2021, they knew they were there "for a bad time, not a long time."

The employee said they worked from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., and received no mentorship or guidance. They ultimately took a mental health break after a year, and left soon thereafter.

What they learned from their time at McKinsey.

---

Microsoft's big plans for the AI boom

A leaked presentation revealed that Microsoft significantly expanded its data-center capacity recently, and plans to ramp up growth to astounding levels going forward.

In the first half of Microsoft's 2025 fiscal year, the company aims to "achieve 3x growth" in new data-center capacity.

Read more from the leaked presentation.

Also read:

• Microsoft has a target to amass 1.8 million AI chips by the end of the year, internal document shows

• Electric grids need upgrades thanks to data centers. Guess who helps pay for that.

---

This week's quote:

"Only the very wealthy are going to have any dignity in their old age."

— Pam, a 57-year-old worker, on the looming retirement crisis.

---

More of this week's top reads:

• It's easy to bash tech, but I've started taking robotaxis — and they're awesome.

• More and more Americans are becoming "ALICEs."

• Remote workers are about to get a rude awakening.

• Harry and Meghan are terrible at business. So why do companies keep offering them millions?

• America's young men are blowing their money like never before.

• More and more Americans are deciding that the only way to get ahead is to leave.

• Goldman Sachs wants its coders to have studied philosophy.

  ---

  The Insider Today team: Matt Turner, deputy editor-in-chief, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.

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• Ancient remains found in France reveal two women were likely tortured and killed Mafia-style.
• The women experienced "self-strangulation" using a ligature that bound their ankles to their necks.
• Twenty similar ritualistic burials have been discovered at sites across Europe.

An archaeological discovery in France has revealed the Stone Age remains of two women thought to have been tortured and sacrificed in a form of murder associated with the Italian Mafia.

Though the remains were discovered in 1985, a study published last week in the journal Science Advances reveals the "atypical" positioning of the bodies.

The paper's authors believe the women could have died by "self-strangulation" using a ligature that bound their ankles to their necks. The torture is known as "incaprettamento," a homicide ritual of the Italian Mafia, sometimes used to punish people thought to be traitors.

A third woman was found in a normal burial position nearby.

"Killing people with homicidal ligature strangulation has been interpreted as a form of symbolic suicide, as it is the individual who, by strangling themselves, causes their death," said the study's authors.

The skeletons, found in "pit 69" at a site in the town of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in France's Rhône Valley, are believed to have been buried sometime between 4,000 and 3,500 BC in an arrangement consistent with summer and winter solstice rituals in early farming societies.

The killings could have been part of ritual beliefs that a human sacrifice could ensure a good harvest and food security, said the archaeologists, noting similar practices existed in the Inca civilization of South America.

"There is always this idea that somebody is dying and that the crops will grow," Éric Crubézy, one of the paper's lead authors and a biological anthropologist at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, told CNN.

Other interpretations, reported Science Advances, believe it is a form of retainer sacrifice, "where officiants killed enslaved people, servants, relatives, wives, concubines, or others to accompany their masters, social superiors, or relatives into the afterlife."

One of the women had her "lower limbs bent and a fragment of grindstone positioned on her skull," the study states. The grindstone is a symbol of agriculture and harvest, it said.

Another was in a prone position, her knees bent, "with her neck resting on the thorax" of the first woman. This second woman had "two pieces of grindstone placed horizontally on her back."

It is thought that the violent deaths would have left the first woman struggling to breathe with the weight of the second woman on her neck, while the second woman would have also struggled to breathe, possibly leading to cardiac arrest. 

Throughout the Neolithic, or late Stone Age, era, the study states that "homicidal ligature strangulation" may well have become a common practice associated with ceremonies and ritual sites.

The study reviewed skeletons discovered at other archaeological digs across Europe spanning 2,000 years. Researchers found that there were 20 other likely instances of similar ritualistic murders at 14 different sites. Self-strangulation was the probable cause of death.

The study said the number of such rituals was likely higher, but there was insufficient information about skeletons at other archaeological sites to draw solid conclusions.

At the other sites, men and children have also been found, the study said.

The earliest example of this method of killing was at a Mesolithic site dating back to somewhere 5,400-4,800 BC.

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• Many people intentionally book flights with long connections so they can explore the layover city.
• Airlines capitalize on this trend with "stopover" programs, some even offering free hotels and food.
• These stopovers benefit travelers, airlines, and the carrier's home country by boosting tourism.

A special segment of adventurous travelers will purposely book itineraries with long connections in layover cities just to leave the airport and explore for a few hours or days between flights.

Airlines have jumped on this growing trend with built-in "stopover" programs, which can come with free or discounted hotels, excursions, transportation, and food at the layover destination.

It's basically a vacation within a vacation.

Although it sounds too good to be true, stopovers benefit everyone involved. Travelers get more choices and don't have to be confined to an airport, airlines gain customers who may have otherwise chosen a nonstop option on a competitor, and the carrier's home country sees a boost in tourism.

Plus, the cheap or complimentary accommodations typically come at a small cost to airlines, thanks to partnerships with local hotels or tour companies.

Not all stopover programs are structured with an emphasis on tourism, though, as some were created simply to offer conveniences during long layovers. Still, they are a way to secure a free hotel and explore an extra city.

Here are 22 global airline stopover programs, each lasting anywhere from hours to months.

Many carriers allow stopovers to be added to a regular cash booking, but some are only available via award tickets. This means the flight was paid for using points/miles or a combination of points/miles and cash.

Air Canada

Air Canada has a stopover option built into its Aeroplan loyalty program. It allows customers booking award flights to add a stop on international journeys and explore practically any city the airline flies to outside the US and Canada.

The add-on costs 5,000 Aeroplan points each way and can only be booked if the stop is at least 24 hours, capping out at 45 days.

Air France/KLM

Air France and Dutch carrier KLM's Flying Blue loyalty program offers a stopover of 24 hours or more in a connecting city on either carrier or their airline partners.

The option is free to add to award tickets, and passengers can stay up to a year in the stopover city.

China Southern Airlines

China Southern Airlines offers a free one-night hotel stay for transfer passengers with connection times lasting between six and 30 hours, though there are some time and route restrictions.

Breakfast and transportation are included for eligible travelers.

Copa Airlines

Copa Airlines' Panama stopover program allows customers to spend anywhere from 24 hours to seven days in the nation's capital, Panama City, on their outbound or return trip.

The option is free for the first stopover, but a second stopover can cost up to $250 plus taxes. Copa offers discounted hotels and tours that can be booked via its stopover website.

Emirates

Emirates allows a stopover in Dubai with the option to add discounted tours or hotel bookings to the itinerary via its website.

The UAE carrier also has a "Dubai Connect" program that gives passengers with layovers between 6 and 26 hours, depending on the cabin, a complimentary hotel, transfers, meals, and any needed visa.

Dubai Connect only triggers if the customer takes the next available flight. Essentially, you can't intentionally book a longer layover to quality for the free stopover hotel.

Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines' transit program gives customers flying via Addis Ababa a free hotel, transit visa, and transfers during layovers lasting between eight and 24 hours.

The hotel on the airline's website is the Ethiopian Skylight In-Terminal Hotel, located inside the airport.

Etihad Airways

Etihad Airways offers a stopover in its Abu Dhabi hub, which comes with an undisclosed discount at select three-star hotels for up to two nights.

Two and four-night stays can be booked at more luxurious four and five-star hotels at a 40% discount. The minimum stay is 24 hours.

Although Etihad's website says it is temporarily unavailable, the airline used to allow eligible travelers to use a so-called Transit Connect Package that provided a free hotel near the airport for layovers lasting 10 to 24 hours. It is unclear when or if the program is returning.

Fiji Airways

Fiji Airways offers a stopover program in Fiji for those traveling to and from Australia, New Zealand, and other South Pacific nations.

Hotels and activities like ziplining and beach resorts can be booked through the airline as part of the stopover package.

Finnair

Finnair allows passengers to book 6, 12, or 24-hour layovers in Helsinki at no additional fare charge and outlines itinerary ideas and information on its website, like transportation, free walking tours, and restaurants.

Customers can book a hotel through the airline and earn Finnair Plus points.

Iberia

Iberia customers can plan a stopover in Madrid to or from an international destination for one to six nights at no extra cost.

Discounts on hotels, excursions, and transfers in the Spanish capital are available through Iberia.

Icelandair

Icelandair offers a stopover option for one to seven days in its capital city of Reykjavik on transatlantic itineraries for no additional charge.

The airline offers itinerary help and assistance in booking excursions and tours. Hotels need to be booked separately.

Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines considers itself one of the "most stopover-friendly" carriers in the world.

The stopovers, which trigger at 24 hours, are not limited to JAL's hubs in Tokyo but can be enjoyed in places like Osaka and Kyoto using the airline's multi-city booking tool.

Latam Airlines

Latam Airlines offers stopovers for between one and three days on flights that connect in São Paulo, Brasilia, Fortaleza, Recife, Manaus, Curitiba, and Belem. Only international itineraries that connect in São Paulo.

Hotels and amenities can be booked via Latam, but the stopover booking is free.

Oman Air

Oman Air offers customizable stopover packages to give travelers time to explore the country's capital, Muscat, and beyond. An additional fare charge may be applicable, though the airline does not fly to the US.

Packages and a-la-carte options include discounted hotels for up to three nights, as well as organized tours, meals, and transfers.

Qantas

Australian flag carrier Qantas offers its stopovers in a similar manner to JAL in that multi-city bookings can be manipulated to add extra days between flights in layover cities, like Bangkok, Osaka, or San Francisco.

This comes at no extra cost on eligible Qantas fares and can be used on its Oneworld partner airlines.

Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways' stopover program allows passengers with a minimum layover of 12 hours and up to 24 hours to choose from a list of deeply discounted four and five-star hotels. Certain flight itineraries allow for up to four nights.

Nightly hotel rates start at $14 per person for 1 night at four-star standard hotels, with premium five-star beach hotels starting at $30 per person for one night.

Royal Jordanian Airlines

Royal Jordanian Airlines' transit program gives economy and business-class travelers with at least eight and six-hour layovers, respectively, a free hotel room, meals, and transit, assuming certain fare conditions are met.

However, the connecting flight must be the earliest possible — meaning, similar to Emirates, passengers can't intentionally book a longer layover to be eligible for the complimentary perks.

Swiss International Air Lines

Swiss International Air Lines, or SWISS, has a multi-city stopover booking tool on its website that allows passengers to find itineraries with extra days in Switzerland.

The cost of hotels and other perks is on the customer, though.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines' stopover program is available via the multi-city tool, similar to other carriers, where travelers can add hotels, transfers, and activities. The stopover can last one to seven days.

Singapore also offers free transit tours to passengers with layover times between five and a half and 24 hours at Singapore's Changi Airport. It's first-come, first-serve and includes sightseeing around Singapore.

TAP Air Portugal

TAP Air Portugal allows customers to add a stopover in Lisbon or Porto between one and 10 days, offering discounts on hotels, food, and activities.

It also offers 25% off a domestic flight to a second Portuguese destination, like the Azores or Madeira islands, to take during the stopover.

Turkish Airlines

Turkish Airlines' stopover program gives economy travelers a one-night free hotel stay and business flyers a two-night free stay if the period between their connecting flights in Istanbul exceeds 20 hours.

Those traveling from the US in economy class can stay up to two nights in a four-star hotel, while those traveling in business can stay up to three nights in a five-star hotel.

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• An Nvidia engineer spoke to BI about salaries at the chipmaker.
• The West Coast-based worker has a $250,000 base and gets half that amount again in stock annually. 
• He said the reality was "not as rosy" as it seems, given high taxes and the cost of living. 

An Nvidia engineer who makes $250,000 a year said the amount employees make at the chip giant was "not as rosy" as some might think.

He told Business Insider that while some Nvidians may be lucky enough to be millionaires, "a million doesn't go too far."

The software engineer didn't want to be identified as he's not authorized to speak to the media. BI has verified his employment and earnings.

The West Coast-based engineer, who joined the company several years ago, gets nearly half of his base salary amount worth of restricted stock units (RSUs) a year.

"If you're looking from a far distance and you say Nvidians are millionaires, yes absolutely, but that million doesn't go too far," he said.

"But because the stock has gone sky-high, there's an expectation that everybody has made a lot of money," he said. "In reality, the RSUs you get is where the bulk of your exponential growth in wealth will be and not everybody will get a lot."

Even if some employees get a lot of RSUs given to them, he said that they might not all have held onto them.

"You will end up cashing your stocks to meet your annual obligations in terms of personal taxes, property taxes, and any other expenses you will have," he said.

Nvidia, which has about 26,000 employees, has greatly benefited from the generative AI boom as its GPUs are key components for applications like ChatGPT.

Its stock has soared in the past 12 months, making it the most valuable company after Microsoft and Apple. However, Nvidia shares fell 10% on Friday and are now almost $200 below their March peak, leaving the company worth $1.9 trillion.

Misconception

Nvidia engineers are called "individual contributors" (IC) and are ranked from tier 1 to tier 8.

The engineer BI spoke to is an IC level four.

He said that he's often asked in social settings how much he's making. However, the worker argues it's a misconception that all Nvidia staff are cash-rich, as much of their wealth is tied up in stock, with taxes also taking a big chunk out of their earnings.

"It would be incorrect to consider a job at Nvidia as a way to turn a quick million," he said.

His base salary places him in one of the second-highest federal income tax brackets, with a rate of 35%.

On top of that, he pays property taxes, Social Security, and Medicare levies.

'Life happens'

He argued that a million was "not a big number" in California, where Nvidia has four offices, as house prices and the cost of living are typically high.

He added that "life happens," meaning there are always unexpected bills or costs.

The biggest purchase he has made since cashing out some of his Nvidia stock was a $250,000 down payment on his three-bedroom house, which cost almost $1.4 million in 2018.

There's also a cap on how many stock units workers can get. Even the most exemplary employees are capped at receiving 50% of their base salary in stock a year.

That means that a Nvidia employee earning $1 million a year may not be considered rich in a place like San Francisco. According to the 2023 Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey, you need a net worth of $4.7 million to be "wealthy."

There's also big pay disparities between Nvidians in the US and other countries. A software engineer in India, who is an IC level 3, earns a base salary of about $19,000.

"I'm still happy with where I am and I'm glad I've made it, but it's not as rosy as it looks from the outside," the engineer said. "I'm really happy with the price Nvidia stock is trading at."

The stock surge helped make CEO Jensen Huang one of the richest people in the world. He's in 21th spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, worth about $67 billion.

Nvidia didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• A US Army officer said military trainers had warned soldiers of the dangers of cellphone use.
• "The cellphone is the new cigarette in the foxhole," he told Foreign Policy.
• Ukraine has used Russian soldiers' cellular data to locate and target their positions.

Cellphones have revolutionized the ways war is documented, providing snapshots of life on the front lines, glimpses of the latest military equipment, and harrowing images of death and destruction.

But they are also potentially lethal for the soldiers carrying them, a US Army officer has said.

Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor told Jack Detsch, a reporter at Foreign Policy, that Army trainers had been warning soldiers about the dangers of taking cellphones on operations.

"We've shown soldiers, 'Hey, your cellphone can get you killed,'" Taylor, the commanding general of the National Training Center and Fort Irwin, said.

He pointed to one training incident when he said he and his team were able to locate an otherwise undetectable Apache stealth helicopter as it made its way through their air defenses because the pilot's phone was moving at 120 miles per hour.

Taylor compared the dangers posed by cellphones to that of cigarette smoking during World War II, when the spark of a match or the glow of a cigarette could help snipers pick out enemy targets.

"The cellphone is the new cigarette in the foxhole," Taylor said.

Ukraine has targeted Russian cellular data

The Russia-Ukraine war has been marked by the use of cellular data to target enemy positions.

A January report by the cybersecurity company Enea highlighted the Ukrainian strike on a Russian barracks in the city of Makiivka in eastern Ukraine on New Year's Eve 2022.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the strike occurred after Russian reservists turned on their cellphones, allowing Ukrainian intelligence operatives to identify their location.

The area was then targeted by an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Russian sources claim 89 soldiers were killed in the strikes, while Ukraine put the number at around 400.

In a statement following the incident, the Russian Ministry of Defense said: "It is already obvious that the main reason for what happened was the switching on and massive use — contrary to the prohibition — by personnel of mobile phones in a reach zone of enemy weapons."

"This factor allowed the enemy to locate and determine the coordinates of the location of the servicemen to launch a missile strike," it added.

Russia is likely using similar tactics to its advantage, however.

It is known to be using the Leer-3 electronic warfare system, which is capable of identifying 2,000 phones within a 3.7-mile range, potentially exposing Ukrainian locations, Sky News previously reported.

Electronic warfare uses the electromagnetic spectrum, including signals like radio, infrared, or radar, to disrupt and degrade an enemy's ability to use those signals, according to defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

It has played a crucial role in the conflict so far due to its potential for identifying targets and combating drone attacks.

While the dangers of using a cellphone on the battlefield appear plentiful, the Enea report said: "A mobile device — despite its risks — has utility as a backup communication system; a means to document enemy movements, create after-action reports or other intelligence; and as a propaganda/content generation system."

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• Almost half of China's major cities are sinking, a new study has found.
• Around 45% of China's urban land is sinking faster than 3 mm per year.
• Water extraction is likely the main reason behind it, Robert Nicholls, a climate adaptation professor, said.

Almost half of China's major cities are sinking, putting millions of locals at risk of flooding, according to a new study published in the journal Science this week.

The study found that 45% of China's urban land was sinking faster than 3 mm a year, while 16% was sinking at a rate of more than 10 mm a year.

The study authors looked at 82 Chinese cities with populations of more than 2 million and used radar pulses from satellites to identify any changes in the distance between the satellite and the ground.

They then measured how the cities' elevations had changed between 2015 and 2022.

They found that China's largest city, Shanghai, was continuing to subside despite already sinking around 3 m over the past 100 years.

Cities such as Beijing and Tianjin were also particularly affected.

Causes

There are a number of factors leading to the subsidence, but Robert Nicholls, a professor of climate adaptation at the University of East Anglia, who was not involved in the research, told the BBC that he believed that water extraction was "probably the dominant reason."

"In China there are lots of people living in areas that have been fairly recently sedimented, geologically speaking. So when you take out groundwater or you drain the soils, they tend to subside," he said.

The paper also suggested that the resolution to the issue "could lie in the long-term, sustained control of groundwater extraction."

In a comment article also published in Science, Nicholls warned that "subsidence jeopardises the structural integrity of buildings and critical infrastructure and exacerbates the impacts of climate change in terms of flooding, particularly in coastal cities where it reinforces sea-level rise."

Subsidence already costs China over 7.5 billion yuan, which is around $1.05 billion, a year, Reuters reported.

The problem is not confined to China, however.

Another paper published in February said that around 6.3 million square km, or around 2.4 million square miles, of land around the world was at risk of subsidence, with Indonesia one of the worst affected countries.

Parts of the US have also suffered from the problem, with more than 17,000 square miles of land across 45 states directly affected, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

According to the USGS, more than 80% of the identified cases of subsidence in the US occurred due to the exploitation of underground water.

"The increasing development of land and water resources threatens to exacerbate existing land-subsidence problems and initiate new ones," it adds.

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• Joel Lambdin, 49, received $250,000 in student-loan forgiveness in January.
• It's a result of the Education Department's one-time account adjustments. 
• Lambdin said the relief will allow him to save for retirement while considering longer term dreams.

Joel Lambdin finished graduate school in 1998 — but as a professional musician, he was hardly making enough money to pay off his student loans and his other bills.

So Lambdin, now 49, said his only option to make ends meet was to put his student loans on forbearance — in which he was not making payments, but interest was still accumulating.

"It was just so that I could subsist, so that I could survive," Lambdin told Business Insider. "With the hope that at some point, I would be making enough money that I would be able to take them out of forbearance and start paying them down."

But he grew to realize that the only way he could make a significant dent in his student loans was by switching careers. Since he didn't want to do that because he loved working in music, he decided to keep his larger student loan in forbearance and begin paying off his smaller loan with a lower monthly payment.

He continued making those payments until the pandemic student-loan payment pause, at which point he and his wife started making a plan of action to tackle the larger debt once the pause ended. That led them to discover the Education Department's one-time account adjustment initiative, which allowed the department to evaluate borrowers' accounts and update payment progress toward forgiveness on income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, including any payments made during a forbearance period.

That account adjustment led to a letter Lambdin received, reviewed by BI, from his student-loan servicer Aidvantage on January 31 stating: "Congratulations! The Biden-Harris Administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) listed below with Aidvantage in full."

For Lambdin, that letter meant his $249,255 outstanding student-loan balance was effectively wiped out.

"It had started to feel like my fate was being decided for me by the cold hand of finance," Lambdin said, "and that was a weight that I didn't realize was there until it wasn't there."

"The feeling was much more like putting down a backpack that was really full of books that you got used to. And then you put it down, and you're like, 'Oh, man, that feels so much better.' It's more like that, rather than sort of a jump-for-joy kind of situation," he said.

While Lambdin is still working to determine what exactly the relief will mean for him and his wife, he said that discussing retirement is "a much more present conversation now" because contributing to savings is viable after the relief. He can also begin to look into buying a home.

The Education Department continues to cancel student-debt through its one-time account adjustments, a process it plans to complete this summer. Most recently, the department wiped out $7.4 billion in student debt for 277,000 borrowers, some of whom benefited from the adjustments.

Beyond financial goals, Lambdin said the relief is also allowing him the freedom to pursue some of his long-term dreams, including taking a sabbatical to study with his meditation teacher in India.

"It's something that I wouldn't have been able to even consider doing if we had to pay off student loans, but without them, it's something that I can really seriously consider doing," he said. "And so those are the kinds of things that I think get really lost in the monetary side of the conversation about debt relief."

'I've been really lucky'

While Lambdin said he feels as though he earned the relief given his decades of payments, he also recognized that it's not that easy for many other borrowers.

For example, as BI has previously reported, some borrowers who might qualify for relief through different repayment programs may not have gotten it yet due to paperwork backlogs and administrative errors. On top of that, funding for federal student-loan servicers is strained — meaning many borrowers face hourslong hold times and cannot get clear answers regarding their payment progress from customer service.

"There are some real horror stories out there, and I've been really lucky in that I haven't experienced the kinds of shenanigans that other people have experienced," Lambdin said. "So I actually feel very lucky that things have transpired the way they have."

Some of those horror stories include inaccurate payment projections and delayed billing statements. When it comes to student-loan forgiveness, some borrowers told BI that their servicer made a mistake with the forgiveness, reinstating their payments months later.

The Education Department has said it's aware of the challenges borrowers face and has established an accountability framework to punish servicers when they fail to fulfill their contractual obligations.

The department is also in the process of crafting its new student-loan forgiveness plan — it recently released the draft text of the rules, which included relief for borrowers with unpaid interest and those who have been in repayment for at least 20 years.

As for Lambdin, he's still figuring out how to approach life without student debt hanging over his head. But now he can consider a range of options, and he can thank the loan forgiveness for that freedom.

"There's a certain amount of waiting for the other shoe to drop because it's not that I don't trust that it's happening, but just that the debt has been with me for so long, and then it's not there," Lambdin said. "And it's something that I think really takes some getting used to."

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