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.)
Demos’s report details how historical and structural racism contributes to higher interest rates and insurance costs for Black and Latinx people, compared to white Americans.
"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.”
So the next time Democrats complain about lower voter turnout, not just in 53206, but in any beleaguered neighborhood, they might think first about the policies, both old and new, that have served and continue to serve as stumbling blocks for black political participation.
"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.
Removing unnecessary hurdles to small donor participation will help fix a system that currently prioritizes wealthy, white, male donors over communities of color and working-class people.
The global coronavirus pandemic threatens to disrupt the Presidential
Preference Primary election in Florida. The extension of vote-by-mail options and other accommodations at polling places is necessary.
Boosting the returns on homeownership for black families would reduce the wealth gap with white families by more than $17,000, or 16%, according to a 2015 report from the public-policy organization Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University.