The ability of college graduates to pay student loans isn’t simply a matter of earnings. It also reflects wealth — and differences that persist in wealth among racial and ethnic groups.
In the midst of a Twitter feed alight with stories about police being used to shut black people out of places to eat, drink, exercise, and relax, comes a story about Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) using policy to do the same. The federal government is adding new and significant hurdles to communities of color — particularly black people — being able to access housing.
Accumulating student loan debt has become a typical part of higher education for students. As of March 2018, nearly 44 million Americans owed over $1.48 trillion in student loan debt, a number expected to grow as tuition rates outpace inflation and wage growth. Few people experience the hardships of student loan debt more than students of color. Approximately 77.7% of all black students use federal student loans to pay for their education. That group also has the highest loan default rates and lowest graduation rates among college students.
In answer to the question, "why, after 200 years, [...] do we need an amendment to say that we are equal citizens?," Demos Senior Advisor for Legal Strategies Brenda Wright lays ou
Six years ago today, on April 25, 2012, activists took to the streets to mark the country’s outstanding student-loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. And in the years since, many of the trends that pushed student debt levels to climb have persisted and in some cases gotten worse.
While no law prevents outside donors, for example, from investing in the campaign of a low-income person, the likelihood that they’ll do so is low. The problem is social capital: Low-income people lack it, and so their personal networks do not often contain millionaires with open pocketbooks.
Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, the left-leaning public policy organization, said he understands why debt-burdened students might take the risk of losing money in cryptocurrency markets. “The risk inherent in higher education now is higher than it ever has been," he said.
While the payoff for a good education remains, the costs are increasingly being borne by families. Debt, he said, is now basically required in order to earn a college degree.
The Black Census Project is intended to “give us a better sense of who black people are, where we are, and what we hope and dream for,” says Alicia Garza who also helped start the Black Lives Matter movement.
[A]ccording to our in-depth analysis of data from Demos and NCES, black and Hispanic students are paying more when it comes to student loans than white students. [...]
According to a new study by Demos, a progressive think tank, public colleges aren’t so public anymore, and that’s deepening America’s racial and economic rift, an article on MarketWatch reports. [...]
Last week, Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education did something uncharacteristic. In an extraordinary announcement, the Department argued that states do not have authority to oversee student loan companies operating in their states and that regulation should be left to the federal government. [...]
Last week, I asked the research group Morning Consult to conduct a poll on education. The main question gave parents a list of schooling levels — high school, community college, four-year college — and asked which they wanted their own children to attain. The results were overwhelming: 74 percent chose four-year college, and another 9 percent chose community college.
But what we know about today’s college students doesn’t support the notion that such a large share of students would be using their loan money for spring break would be using their loan money for spring break, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. [...]
[M]ore and more Americans are realizing student debt has become a widespread financial problem: 92% of American voters said as much in a recent study by policy think tank Demos.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has signed a law that will create publicly financed elections, reversing her previous opposition to a plan that advocates say will help curb money’s influence in District politics.
Bowser announced that she was throwing her support behind the Fair Elections Act, which was approved unanimously by the D.C. Council in February. The law, which will first affect elections in 2020, will steer millions annually toward the campaigns of local candidates and is aimed at reducing their reliance on deep-pocketed donors. [...]
In every state except Wyoming, the share of revenue that public colleges receive from tuition — aka students and families — has grown since 2001, according to an analysis released Thursday by Demos, a left-leaning think tank. And in 24 states, tuition covered more than half of public colleges’ revenue in 2016. Compare that to public colleges of the past, which got much of their money from state and local funding, and kept the costs for families relatively low. In some cases, they were even free.
A new analysis comparing how much members of Congress paid for their schooling to the costs of today’s students backs him up. When the members of the House of Representatives went to college, the average cost for a year of school was $8,487 in today’s dollars, according to the study published Thursday by Demos, a left-leaning think tank.