"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.”
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.)
To fairly evaluate any higher education reform proposal, we must understand the ways that these dual burdens—less wealth and more debt—lead to worse outcomes for Black students than white students.
“It’s a lot of debt out there. But that debt and the burden of that debt is not necessarily being felt equally. It’s extremely difficult for borrowers of color in particular."
Eliminating all student debt, per Sanders' plan, would increase the wealth gap between white and black households, according to one 2015 study co-authored by left-leaning think tank Demos.
The idea of canceling student debt has become a topic of considerable debate. Here's what you need to know about the Warren and Sanders student debt plans and what still needs to be answered.
“There was an assumption that the student debt problem was concentrated among those at for-profit colleges or predatory programs. Or it was seen as a problem with repayment and not necessarily with debt itself. That has shifted over the last couple of years.”
"White families who did not graduate from high school have the same level of wealth as a black family with a college education. All this has led to a system where black families in particular, but also Latinas, have less wealth to face the challenges when it comes to paying off that debt."
“This is a problem that has not gone away but has gotten worse in many communities. It’s enough of a problem that people expect some action on it, and they expect some plan for how to get there.”
"The ability to pay off your loans has everything to do with wages and the ability to gain secure employment, it has everything to do with housing affordability, it has everything to do with child-care costs."