No, Senator Warren’s student loan plan isn’t a slap in the face.
It’s a way forward.
Presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren shared a proposal to forgive student loan debts and reduce the cost of higher education in the United States on Monday. Under Sen. Warren’s’ plan, about 75 percent of households with student loan debt would receive “total loan forgiveness.” Folks who do not qualify for total loan forgiveness could see at least some of their student loan debt forgiven. This plan, if implemented, could have significant economic, social, and even public health benefits.
I teach at a private university in Washington, DC. I graduated from a public university and two private universities. I know plenty of highly-educated folks my age who are paying too much in student loans. And my current students are facing the same challenge. At the same time, many of these folks are also dealing with unaffordable rents, like paying about half of their income on housing, and high costs of living. This means that millennials are less likely to invest in building their wealth, like buying homes or saving for retirement. Student loans limit the economic choices people can make and has impacts throughout the rest of their lives.
The student loan crisis affects everyone. Crushing student loan debt is an anchor to individual and community economic progress. But it’s hitting Black communities especially hard. Many Black families rely on student loans to finance higher education that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. Historical practices, like the denial of GI Bill benefits for education for Black veterans or discriminatory mortgage practices, have prevented many Black families from building wealth that they could then use to finance their children’s education, leaving student loans as their only option to pursue higher education. To also address the effects of racial discrimination on students, Sen. Warren also proposed to not just support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority-Serving Institutions, but also to put significant money behind that support.
It’s true that college graduates are more likely to have higher incomes than those who do not attend college. But even if college graduates leave school with high-paying jobs, it doesn’t mean that repaying the debt is affordable. Jobs with high salaries tend to be located in or near cities with high costs of living. Take Washington, DC, for example. The median price of a one-bedroom apartment in DC is about $2,000. Even with roommates, many folks pay more than a third of their income on rent, and sometimes more than half. This leaves little room for paying for student loan debt, which could be $1,000 or more a month, and other necessitates, like food and healthcare, especially as these costs continue to rise.
Despite the high costs of student loan debt on families and the economy, not everyone supports this plan. While scrolling on Twitter, I saw comments saying that such a plan is a “slap in the face” to folks who struggled and worked hard to pay off their own student loans. It’s incredible to see that some folks prefer others to suffer the way they did rather than prevent future generations from being harmed. To move the country forward, we need to extend opportunities, not raise the ladder up after us.
Implementing a plan like Warren’s is not a slap in the face. It’s a way to remediate the economic costs of higher education for those who need it most, especially for a generation who was strongly encouraged to go to college and take on risky student loans, with the unfulfilled promise of that it will all pay off in the long run. It is righting a wrong.
I’m excited about Sen. Warren’s proposal because of its short and long-term benefits. This plan does not just help students and graduates now, but will also have intergenerational impacts. In the US, significant wealth, and its benefits, tend to be built across generations. Imagine how those currently struggling with student loans could instead redirect their debt payments into investments that build wealth to pay for their children’s higher education in the future. Two generations (or more) could be better positioned to maximize the economic and social benefits of higher education.
I wasn’t paying much attention to Sen. Warren’s campaign before, but she has my attention now.
