Student loans take a toll on more than 44 million Americans, preventing millions from buying homes, starting a business, saving for retirement, or even starting a family. This debt disproportionately affects
Black families, and black women in particular.

Higher education has long been viewed as an essential gateway to finding employment and achieving economic stability and mobility. But due to long-standing systemic racial discrimination, black families
much less wealth to tap to pay for college, creating barriers for black communities to access higher education and create wealth. Black families are more likely to borrow, borrow more, and have difficulty repaying. Two decades after taking out their student loans, median black borrower still owes 95% of their debt, while the median white borrower has Paid 94 percent of their debt.

Students of color continue their graduate studies in a
social and economic system based on racist ideologies which is set up to work against them and perpetuate racial wealth and the income and outcome gaps. To correct this systemic inequality, the ACLU, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and more than 300 other organizations are calling on the Biden-Harris administration and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to use their authority under the higher education law to write off $ 50,000 in student debt per borrower, and Congress must act as well.

To understand the systemic issues rooted in the student debt crisis, we must begin with its history. Although we have standardized the idea that students have to go into debt for college, students have historically benefited from a large public investment in higher education. However, not all students benefited in the same way: Black students had little access to the benefits of the GI Bill, and even a decade after Brown v. Board of Education (1954), predominantly white institutions. (PWI) in many states
resisted integration and equal treatment. In addition, state and federal governments continued to inadequately and inequitably fund Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) despite the high-quality opportunities they provided and the an essential function they performed for black students and communities. This created and cemented the racial wealth and scarcity of resources in higher education institutions.

It was against this background that Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Higher Education Act of 1965. Recognizing the value of broad access to higher education, Johnson hoped the legislation would open the door. to all, especially black students and other students of color, through Pell Grants and other grants.

Yet, at the end of the 20th century, just as black and brunette female students and women entered after decades of legal battles and social struggles, reactionary policymakers
shifted the significant costs of higher education from the public to individual families. What was considered a public good when it was primarily intended for white males, has become a public burden to be transferred families.

This abandonment of public funding, which
accelerated after the Great Recession, led to results: Today, the cost of higher education is beyond imagination. It is beyond the reach of most families, especially black and brown college students, unless they take on unsustainable debt. Indeed, we carry on the horrific legacy of redlining and housing discrimination by requiring that the same black families who have historically been denied wealth shoulder a heavier debt burden than their white peers.

The student debt crisis is just one of the latest iterations in the long and shameful history of too many broken promises to black and brown communities. This country broke its promise to give former slaves the land they worked on to create wealth after the Civil War. Then, from the redlining, unattainable IG benefits, and now the dwindling value of college degrees, blacks have continually seen the roads to economic success blocked outright.

Cancellation of $ 50,000 in student debt can help ensure financial stability and economic mobility for black and brown borrowers who are disproportionately burdened by this student debt crisis and the effects of the racial wealth gap in this country. But even after graduation, blacks and Latinxes
face substantial professional discrimination and earn much less than their white counterparts. This income gap makes it even more difficult to establish financial stability and manage student loan repayments. A college education actually deepens the wealth gap due to the high costs and structural problems of our system. Yet higher education is a necessity, not a luxury, for today’s workforce.

Because of these persistent inequalities, even with a write-off of $ 50,000 per borrower, there will still be millions of borrowers in debt. That number will only increase unless we completely overhaul loan repayment and create a debt-free college system. The Center for Responsible Learning argues that
the federal government should improve reimbursement by: (1) clearing the books of bad debts, such as debts that have been repaid for more than 15 years; (2) restore collection limits and make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy; and (3) make repayment truly affordable and budget conscious with a new income-based repayment plan open to all borrowers. For new students, a new social contract could also double the Pell scholarship and increase funding and support for HBCUs.

We have the opportunity to help millions of families achieve their American dreams, ensure financial stability and economic mobility for black and brown families, and take a critical step towards closing the racial wealth gap. . The charge is clear, the time is here, and the time to act is now: The Biden administration must write off $ 50,000 in student debt per borrower.

photo by MoniQue Rangell-Onwuegbuzia at Unsplash