“The gauntlet has been laid. It also reminds us that public policy really does have a role to play. We should take a hard look at why this was needed in the first place.”
Some presidential candidates' critiques promote unhelpful assumptions about who tuition-free and debt-free college would actually serve. (Spoiler: it's not millionaires and billionaires.)
"The percent of low-income students borrowing for a bachelor’s degree is unconscionably high, particularly if you consider their debt loads as a percent of their family income and wealth. Even if low-income students and high-income students were borrowing the exact same amount for college, that debt is a far greater burden relative to their family wealth.”
"In today’s competitive economy, nothing is more important than getting a college education. Yet college tuition costs in the U.S. have been increasing at a breakneck pace, making college unaffordable for millions of Americans.”
"Income is actually a somewhat imperfect way to judge whether or not a family is financially secure. The typical black family making $100,000 has a lot less wealth than the typical white family making $100,000."
Bloomberg has quietly begun to roll out a series of policy proposals, and this week, it was higher education’s turn. His plan says a lot about where consensus currently is—and is not.
Ensuring just and equitable access to and ownership of one our most vital natural resources—energy—is vital to building a vibrant, inclusive democracy.
“These are folks who are serving [and] preparing food for all of the rest of us. It's a recipe for contagion when...the people preparing your food cannot afford to stay home when they have a contagious disease.”
This pandemic is revealing the deeper inequities for Black and brown people that have always been present in our economy and democracy but that are often papered over in ordinary times.