Search Demos.org

"I think this does pull back the curtain around some things that people intuitively know to be true—like, privilege tends to reproduce itself."

"There is more consensus about the need to go big on college affordability than there has been in previous election cycles."

“There are massive benefits to institutions, to students themselves in the long term in being more diverse and having a set of students from different backgrounds.” 

Why New York State must act now on climate justice and public financing of elections.

“To the extent we have had baby boomers running for president for the past few decades, they got an education in a world when you did not have to take on debt."

"Regardless of dollar amount, the existence of debt is far riskier for low-income and middle-income households."

"The justification for student debt as the primary way we pay for college has been in part based on the assumption that we’ll have consumer protections in place, and we’ll try to make it as painless as possible for people."

The dramatic rise in student loan debt has placed unacceptable risk on working-class families and on people of color, who must take on more debt for the same degree as white students.

"The potential of this plan is that it increases public investment back to levels we saw when college was much more affordable, and it pegs it to a price for students."

“If you compare this to some of the other gifts given in higher education, it’s incredibly stark, and I would hope points us to a smarter, better model of philanthropy where people’s lives are genuinely being transformed.”

“Your income or your family’s wealth is extremely predictive of whether you’re going to go college at all and certainly what program you’re going to do."

With the country’s total student loan debt amounting to about $1.5 trillion, borrowers lose an average of $208,000 in lifetime wealth accumulation that could have come from retirement savings, investments or home purchases, according to studies from Washington, D.C.-based 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."

"State governments have disinvested from public colleges and universities for a few decades now, and we need to reverse those trends."

A debt-free plan “changes the target."

“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.”

“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."

"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."

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.