{"id":10192,"date":"2022-12-06T06:21:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T06:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loans.tiida-nissan.ru\/?p=10192"},"modified":"2022-12-08T18:39:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T18:39:52","slug":"cancelling-student-debt-is-necessary-for-racial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loans.tiida-nissan.ru\/cancelling-student-debt-is-necessary-for-racial.html","title":{"rendered":"Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
At the urging of thousands of borrowers and over 220 organizations representing students, workers, and people of color, the Biden-Harris administration just announced an eighth extension to the federal student loan repayment pause. Payments were set to resume in January 2023, after a Trump-appointed judge\u2019s federal injunction blocked the administration\u2019s planned student debt relief program. Now, despite the plan\u2019s popularity, a right-wing backlash takes the case to a conservative Supreme Court next year, where the plan is unlikely to survive.<\/p>\n
Why are some politicians and their functionaries so opposed to debt relief? Because debt sustains racial capitalism, through which the powerful maintain white supremacy by creating and exploiting crises for profit. And student loans are the second-largest type of US personal debt, next to mortgages: approximately 45 million borrowers hold $1.74 trillion in student loan debt.<\/p>\n
Amid growing debt and a stagnant economy, 2022 has seen a resurgence of student debt activism pushing for total cancellation. After a decade of organizing to move debt cancellation from the margins to the center of national policy debates, the movement to cancel student debt continues to gain ground, as NPQ\u2019s Rithika Ramamurthy documented earlier this year. Debtor-activists, policy scholars, and education advocates all understand that student loans are a growing part of a predatory lending industry that extracts wealth from Black borrowers\u2014especially Black women\u2014and their families and communities. The data is clear: student debt is a racialized form of social control that perpetuates inequality\u2014and cancelling it is necessary for racial and gender justice.<\/p>\n
As a result of decades of state disinvestment from public education, deregulation of the lending industry, and financialization, student debt has ballooned. The US\u2019 $1.74 trillion in student debt is nearly 8.5 times what it was in 2000. And it\u2019s worsened over the past decade, during which $700 billion\u2014over 40 percent\u2014of student debt accumulated.<\/p>\n
For decades, student loans have been a huge moneymaker for the federal government, which holds over 90 percent of all student debt in the US. Given this, it\u2019s unsurprising that the student loan market is notoriously opaque, as Marian Conway observed recently in NPQ, resulting in complicated terms that capitalize on borrowers\u2019 unpaid interest.<\/p>\n
Education is promised as a path out of poverty\u2014but it\u2019s also a means of extraction under racial capitalism.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration\u2019s broad-based plan\u2014to cancel up to $10,000 for federal student loan borrowers, and up to double that amount for Pell Grant recipients\u2014could relieve millions of borrowers from some or all of the student debt they\u2019ve accrued. In an announcement, the White House said it would \u201cprovide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education is promised as a path out of poverty\u2014but it\u2019s also a means of extraction under racial capitalism. Black borrowers hold the most student loan debt across all racial groups. According to the Education Trust (Ed Trust), a national nonprofit engaged in research and advocacy for educational equity, \u201cBlack students are more likely to borrow, borrow more, struggle with repayment, and default on their student loans than their peers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their National Black Student Loan Debt Study outlines the enormity of the student debt crisis for Black borrowers\u2014and why addressing it is critical for racial justice. Led by Dr. Jalil B. Mustaffa, the study was based on a nationwide survey of 1,300 Black borrowers and 100 in-depth interviews with borrowers in various life stages. It was designed to situate the crisis\u2014and proposed solutions\u2014in the lived realities, perspectives, and stories of Black student loan borrowers. Listening to these stories was important because, as Dr. Mustaffa notes as co-author of the NAACP\u2019s Legislation, Policy, and the Black Student Debt Crisis report, even though the prospect of student debt cancellation has entered mainstream policy debates, few\u2014if any\u2014studies have centered the experiences of Black student debtors. In a country that has a growing Black-white racial wealth divide, this is a serious and telling exclusion.<\/p>\n
In a report and series of briefs released over the past year, Ed Trust researchers analyzed student debt\u2019s impact on Black borrowers. The report, Jim Crow Debt: How Black Borrowers Experience Student Debt, highlighted four top-level findings:<\/p>\n
One story underscores the lifelong impact of student debt on Black borrowers and why repayment plans don\u2019t solve the crisis: Georgia says, \u201cI have worked at a nonprofit for 27 years and have tried to work with my multiple loan servicers to get public service forgiveness. I only get the run around \u2026 I tried the Department of Education, my congressmembers. I am 62 years old and do not know how I will retire.\u201d Georgia borrowed $24,000 in 1990. Today, after working throughout her adult life, she owes $125,000.<\/p>\n
In addition to addressing borrowers\u2019 immediate needs, student debt cancellation is vital for racial equity and justice because student debt impacts students\u2019 career choices, denying marginalized communities of color access to critical services like legal aid. As the executive director of the East Bay Community Law Center, Zoe Polk, wrote recently for NPQ about the PSLF program, \u201cLegal aid attorneys like me work to ensure that millions of low-income people of color stay in their homes, are paid fair compensation, expunge faulty criminal records, and access immigration relief. We must be afforded simple, comprehensive pathways to cancel our debt.\u201d Polk\u2019s argument provides an important counterpoint to the twisted logic of state attorney generals, whose lawsuits reveal how they tax young debtors and coerce workers into public service jobs with lower pay by promising to offset the cost of graduate school with loan forgiveness.<\/p>\n
Because of inequitable access to capital, women and people of color hold more student loan debt. The American Association of University Women notes that women hold two-thirds of all US student loan debt. Living at the intersection of racial and gender inequities, Black women are especially impacted by the student debt crisis. According to a Momentive survey for CNBC earlier this year, Black women have the highest rate of student debt at 31 percent, compared to 11 percent of white men, 17 percent of white women, 15 percent of Black men, 10 percent of Latinx men, and 19 percent of Latinx women.<\/p>\n
In pursuing higher education\u2019s promise of social mobility, Black women have become the most highly educated demographic group in the US\u2014and the most indebted. Of this, Ed Trust observes the following:<\/p>\n
Ultimately, as the Education Trust argues, \u201cStudent debt is not just a crisis for Black borrowers but the whole country. Racist public policy created it, and we will need bold structural solutions to fix it.\u201d They make several recommendations for addressing the crisis, including the following:<\/p>\n
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Though it falls short of activists\u2019 demands for total debt cancellation, the announced Biden-Harris plan was a significant victory for the growing movement to cancel student debt. Racial and economic justice organizers\u2014including groups like Dream Defenders, Movement for Black Lives, and Debt Collective, a debtors\u2019 union advocating for debt abolition\u2014have been at the forefront of this movement. According to Braxton Brewington, press secretary for the Debt Collective, Biden sided with creditors and bankers throughout his career as a senator for Delaware\u2014the epicenter of the US credit card industry. By bringing debtors together and elevating their stories, organizers were able to shift public narratives about debt, mobilize progressive political leaders, and change policy.<\/p>\n
With the Biden-Harris plan now stalled in the courts, what can be done to address the student debt crisis?<\/p>\n
To ensure that student debtors obtain this long-awaited relief, activists are pushing the Biden administration to go further by using a stronger authority\u2014one that it\u2019s had all along\u2014to cancel all student debt. \u201cAnything less than total cancellation is dragging your feet,\u201d said Brewington. \u201cIt paves the way for people on the right to file these frivolous lawsuits that get held up in court\u2014in a system that we know today is illegitimate,\u201d he continued, referring to the US\u2019s politicized judiciary.<\/p>\n
That is exactly what happened. The Debt Collective foresaw the challenges the administration would face when relying on the authority of the HEROES Act, which grants the president special powers in the wake of a national crisis\u2014in this case, the pandemic. \u201cThe Biden administration has not used all the tools in their toolbox,\u201d says Brewington, who argues that the Higher Education Act of 1965 presents a stronger legal authority for the administration\u2019s debt relief plan\u2014and for total cancellation altogether. Under this act, the owner of the debt, the Secretary of Education on the government\u2019s behalf, has the right to compromise on and settle these debts. As Brewington pointed out in conversation, doing so wouldn\u2019t be unprecedented: the Obama and Trump administrations used this broad and more established authority to provide minor relief to specific groups of student debtors. Short of such sweeping action, debtor-activists are leveraging the power of their collective debts\u2014by refusing to pay them.<\/p>\n
In response to the debt relief injunction, the Debt Collective has called for a nationwide Debt Strike, encouraging student debtors to join by signing a petition that reads, \u201cI refuse to pay a debt the President promised to cancel. Until the President uses his executive power through the Higher Education Act to cancel student debt for EVERYONE, I am going on debt strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few days later, Dream Defenders, which organizes Black and Brown youth to build power for their communities in Florida, hosted a Cancel the Loans Now, Joe call to mobilize and share lessons from their organizing. Participants discussed the injunction on student debt relief and what it would mean for them. Diana, a Dream Defenders organizer, reminded the group of how many people were in the same boat: according to federal data, 26 million people applied for the Biden-Harris student debt relief program before the injunction came down, and 16 million were already approved.<\/p>\n
The organizers were joined by members of the Debt Collective and representative-elect for Florida\u2019s 10 th congressional district, Maxwell Alejandro Frost. A 25-year-old recent two-year college graduate and former national organizing director for March for Our Lives, Frost ran as a progressive Democrat and is the first Gen Z member of the next Congress.<\/p>\n
Though their strategies and policy recommendations vary, education policy advocates and debt activists agree on one thing: eligibility limits for debt cancellation and income-driven repayment plans are racially inequitable. As the Brookings Institution\u2019s Andre M. Perry and Carl Romer write, for Black Americans, \u201ca lack of generational wealth risks making student debt a long-term financial burden.\u201d Income is not wealth, and Black women and other marginalized groups are often denied access to credit, as Dr. Shamell Bell, an education professor and Debt Collective organizer, pointed out\u2014alongside advocates from Black Girls Vote, Higher Heights for America, and the National Alliance for Mental Illness\u2014in an Ed Trust webinar last August on Black women\u2019s student debt and its impact on mental health. This lack of credit along with debt prevents Black women and their families from building wealth through savings and assets that serve as investments, like homes\u2014as discussed extensively in NPQ.<\/p>\n
As activists also pointed out, incomes aren\u2019t \u201cindividual\u201d for many BIPOC: those who earn higher wages often provide financial support to their families that isn\u2019t tax-deductible, as \u201cdependents\u201d and \u201ccharitable\u201d contributions are for white owning-class taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Failing to follow through on broad-based debt cancellation will have a significant economic and political impact for years to come. In the report, Voters Demand Student Debt Cancellation, Data for Progress and the Student Borrower Protection Center polling shows that, if payments resume, debtors anticipate spending less on necessities like food and housing, while saving less for short-term emergencies and long-term goals. Without savings, debtors are forced to accrue additional debt\u2014credit card, auto, mortgage, medical\u2014to cover everyday needs while paying down loans. This prevents communities of color from saving and transferring wealth across generations. To this end, Perry and Romer argue:<\/p>\n
The Biden plan would have significant impact for many families (according to a study done by the Obama White House, two-thirds of defaults occurred in households with less than $10,000 in student debt), but it would not have the ameliorative racial wealth effects that larger cancellation policies would have. Because the effects of student debt disproportionately lie along lines of race and wealth, any debt cancellation effort would do well to consider the effect of intergenerational wealth on student debt. If implemented correctly, student debt cancellation could be a powerful tool in dismantling institutional discrimination by shrinking racial wealth disparities.<\/p>\n
Finally, these social and economic considerations are also tied up with a political one that progressive Democrats can use to push President Biden to ensure that student debt relief isn\u2019t just a footnote in the story of 2022. As filmmaker and Debt Collective organizer Astra Taylor writes in The Guardian, failing to deliver on a major promise that energized and drove young voters and voters of color to the polls during the presidential and midterm elections will undermine the Democratic Party\u2014and democracy\u2019s future\u2014in 2024.<\/p>\n
Cancelling student debt is a concrete step towards redressing the havoc wreaked by the federal student loan monster\u2014and its perpetuation of the US\u2019 racial wealth divide.<\/p>\n
Student debt cancellation doesn\u2019t fix racial capitalism. Wiping out current debts doesn\u2019t eliminate the racist policies and systems that created the crisis, nor does it end the debt-financing of education, housing, and healthcare. Without further measures\u2014such as making public higher education free, as AlI Bustamante of the Roosevelt Institute argues in a recent NPQ article\u2014future graduates will contend with another trillion dollars of debt.<\/p>\n
Still, cancelling student debt is a concrete step towards redressing the havoc wreaked by the federal student loan monster\u2014and its perpetuation of the US\u2019 racial wealth divide through predatory loans that entrap communities of color in a never-ending cycle of debt. The hypocrisy of the US government requiring loan repayment in a country built by enslaved Black people on lands stolen from Indigenous people is not lost on debtor-activists and policy advocates. \u201cReparations is a debt that needs to be paid,\u201d says Brewington.<\/p>\n
Student debtors cannot wait any longer\u2014not for the pious charity of a payment \u201cpause\u201d or even partial, temporary \u201cforgiveness.\u201d To achieve racial justice for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, the time to cancel student debt is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the urging of thousands of borrowers and over 220 organizations representing students, workers, and people of color, the Biden-Harris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n