In the lead up to this year’s midterm elections on Nov. 6 we’ve heard about how young adults, women and people of color are running for office in record numbers.
Meanwhile, the overall cost of net tuition, fees, room and board rose 69 percent at public universities between 1997-98 and last year, even after being adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board. That’s a period during which the Census Bureau reports that median household earnings fell.
“There’s plenty of risk embedded in taking on a student loan,” says Mark Huelsman, an associate director at the think-tank Demos. “Student debt can impact the ability to buy a house, impact the ability to save for retirement, or save for a rainy day or a crisis.”
Sure there are reasons not to borrow, but Huelsman says, on an individual level — if the difference between a small loan is finishing college or not finishing — that’s a different story.
Instead of putting money towards changing these systems — by funding efforts to make college free across the country or by making it easier for low-income students to get access to decent public K-12 education, for example — wealthy donors tend to funnel their money into causes that keep the system they benefited from in place, Giridharadas said.
Home ownership is a major contributing factor to the racial wealth gap, as Demos, a left-of-center think tank, previously argued in a 2015 report. Seventy-three percent of white households own their home, Demos found; in sharp contrast, home ownership drops to 45 percent among black households.
The Trump administration’s latest attack on immigrants, a proposed rule that would punish families for accessing public benefits, has rightfully come under fire for its potential to threaten children’s health and impose financial hardship on households and communities.
The poll results indicate that politics may soon catch up to the reality borrowers are facing, said Mark Huelsman, the associate director of policy and research at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
“It’s a sign of the increasing anxiety that voters and families are feeling about their own debt or their children going into to debt or them going into debt for their children,” he said.
Experian Boost comes with downsides for consumers, according to Amy Traub, associate director of research at the public policy group, Demos. She said lenders will be able to use the data they glean from consumer bank accounts in ways the public may not understand.
"It also allows them to make marketing decisions: who to promote which products to, how to get us hooked on the products that are most profitable and lucrative for the lender, " said Traub.
As Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst at Demos, an advocacy group tweeted: "the average family inheritance to a white college grad can pay off the average undergrad debt balance and have enough left over for a 20 percent down [payment] on a $575,000 home." That’s assuming the inheritor has student debt to begin with.
If the goal is to resegregate higher education, the efforts have largely worked. Amid budget cuts and attacks on affirmative action, elite public colleges are enrolling fewer black students than they were a generation ago.
Loans may be one solution for helping students afford college and increase achievement, but grants that don't have to be repaid is another. The researchers are working on a new study that examines the academic effects of federal loans versus grant aid and agree that the effects of the federal Pell Grant may be stronger on academic performance, Marx said.
Supporters of a higher minimum wage, however, remain undeterred. "Wal-Mart's business model is pretty simple," said Amy Traub, an associate director of policy and research at equality advocacy group Demos, at a recent debate hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2) in New York.
Our analysis shows Trump accelerated a realignment in the electorate around racism, across several different measures of racial animus—and that it helped him win. By contrast, we found little evidence to suggest individual economic distress benefited Trump. [...]