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.
“Not only are students of color more likely to borrow more for a degree, and borrow in higher amounts for the same degree, but they’re more likely to struggle to repay student loans than white students."
“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.”
As Congress Takes Up Sweeping Financial Reform, Report Urges Fundamental Change of Ratings Agency Model
Washington, DC — With the House of Representatives and a key Senate committee poised to vote on sweeping financial industry reforms, a new report by Demos finds that the proposed remedies fail to fully address the problems that led the credit rating agencies to become key enablers of the housing bubble and Wall Street meltdown.
The Disparate Impact standard is critical to continued and enhanced opportunity to access fair credit, housing, and homeownership. Demos strongly opposes efforts to undermine this longstanding enforcement tool.
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.”