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New Demos Report Shows Higher Education’s Debt-Financed System Biased Along Class and Racial Lines

(New York, NY)- During the next few weeks thousands of students across the country will graduate from college, an accomplishment that used to symbolize a step toward financial independence and entry into the middle class.

Press release/statement

How Student Debt Is Perpetuating Racial Inequality

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The nation’s yawning wealth gap is a major reason why minority students end up borrowing more for college. Structural racism has created disparities in home ownership rates, income and other wealth-building vehicles, providing minority borrowers with fewer resources to tap to pay for college, on average.

In the media
Jillian Berman

The Bias Inside the College Debt System

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson vowed that no student wishing to attend college would "be turned away because his family is poor."   Half a century later, a shift in the way college is funded and the declining fortunes of minorities and poor families since the recession have created a college-debt system that the left-leaning think tank Demos calls "deeply biased along class and racial lines."   Because college is increasingly financed by debt taken on by students, it's creating a system that's impacting differen
In the media
Aimee Picchi

7 Charts That Show How Student Loans Are Screwing Minorities

Most students go into debt to pay for college. And while no one wants to be in the red, a new report from left-leaning think tank Demos argues that the increasingly debt-financed higher education system in the United States is especially harmful to low-income, black and Latino kids.

In the media
Emily Deruy

Bernie Sanders' Bold, New Plan May Have Just Locked Down the Millennial Vote

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In the media
Scott Bixby
Black woman working at computer in college library

Five Reasons Why Debt-Free College Helps More than Just the Upper-Middle Class

The most important fact about higher education is that only a minority of people go to college. That fact would change if college was affordable for more people.

Blog
Mark Huelsman

Racism Is Destroying the Right to Vote

Racism has affected voting in America since its founding, and it continues to affect voting today.

Blog
Sean McElwee

Internships Can Pay Off, but They Sometimes Carry a Heavy Cost

One of the major concerns that surround unpaid internships is access. Wealthier students benefit; poor students don’t.

In the media
Eric Adler
Mara Rose Williams

Reports Question NC's Voting Rights Efforts

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Demos, the New York-based group, began monitoring North Carolina about a decade ago because it spotted a drop-off in public assistance registrations. Gary Bartlett, the State Board of Elections director at the time, was eager to attract more voters, said Stuart Naifeh, an attorney with Demos.

“He was as dismayed as we were about the low rates,” Naifeh said. “He wanted to work with us to improve that.”

In the media
Craig Jarvis