The cost of higher education and the debt we take on for the chance at a better life is one of the most ubiquitously felt financial burdens of American life. But any way you slice it, Black and brown borrowers come out worse off than their white counterparts, often carrying significantly more debt for longer periods and getting less return on their educational investment.
With the net cost of this debt ballooning to more than one trillion dollars in the US, the Biden administration attempted to provide a blanket $10,000 in relief to all borrowers. The US Supreme Court ruled against that modest measure in June 2023. Anxious borrowers continue to wonder when and if relief will ever come.
Maurice explores student debt with two guests in this episode. Recent Howard University graduate Shyann McDonald helps us understand how the real costs of student loans are blurred, and how they affect students today. Then he talks with Deputy Executive Director and Managing Counsel for the Student Borrowers Protection Center, Persis Yu to understand the wider implications of debt, its long-term impact on borrowers, and how we might find our way out.
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00;00;01;10 – 00;00;22;02
Maurice BP-Weeks
As I took out loans for college, I had no idea how my family was covering the full costs. I mean, I knew there was some financial aid to help, but was also where my parents and I were each taking on some significant financial obligations. And by obligation, I mean debt. The amount of money charged per year for my school was laughable.
00;00;22;04 – 00;00;51;05
Maurice BP-Weeks
I mean, just a silly number that had absolutely no basis in reality. $45,000 every year. Yeah, right. We absolutely don’t have that. But sure. My college experience was actually wonderful. All in all, despite the high price tag. And like many private institutions, they boasted about their multi-billion dollar endowment. They also spent a ton of money on new dorms, new buildings, new everything.
00;00;51;08 – 00;01;12;12
Maurice BP-Weeks
Again, the school is nice, and I did get some financial aid. But it was hard knowing that my family and I would struggle to pay and go deeper and deeper into debt. As the college just sat on their endowment, seemingly only opening it up for new buildings. I wasn’t alone. Not by a long shot.
00;01;12;15 – 00;01;17;13
Sound on Tape
I owe $170,000. I have to pay time. 82 years old.
00;01;17;16 – 00;01;21;07
Sound on Tape
I went to law school, so I have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
00;01;21;13 – 00;01;36;07
Sound on Tape
Working class families. They’re the ones to take out student debt at a higher rate. They’re the ones that are impacted higher. And for the folks that look at us and say we’re in this problem because we live beyond our means, it’s not because we live beyond our means. It’s because we’ve been denied the means to live. We’ve all supported the Paycheck Protection program.
00;01;36;07 – 00;01;56;09
Sound on Tape
Remember, PGP? Several members of Congress got over $1,000,000. All those loans are forgiven. Our kid making 60,000 bucks asking for $10,000 of relief. Come on, man.
00;01;56;12 – 00;02;18;10
Maurice BP-Weeks
Welcome to episode three of Indebted, a podcast about debt and race in America. I’m your host. Morning Speaks a lifelong economic and racial justice organizer. Each episode, we tackle a different aspect of debt, exploring how it works and why it spells bad news for black people in our entire economy. In this episode, we’re taking a look at the over trillion dollar elephant in the room.
00;02;18;13 – 00;02;45;04
Maurice BP-Weeks
Student loans. Let’s get into how they work and the inescapable debt they trap us with. That’s what I do. Student debt is the defining economic reality of a generation. Everyone I know has or until recently had student debt. And it’s not just people who went to expensive colleges. It’s graduates from all schools. It’s people who didn’t graduate. It’s parents.
00;02;45;07 – 00;03;07;28
Maurice BP-Weeks
It’s people who attended trade schools. It’s just it’s just so many people. 45 million plus Americans, in fact. So the chances are quite a few of you listening to this right now have or had student debt. Part of the frustration with student debt is that the value of your education after you leave school is certainly not on par with the negative impact of the debt that you have to deal with.
00;03;08;00 – 00;03;14;05
Maurice BP-Weeks
It actually reminds me of a Seinfeld joke about the dinner, Jack coming at the end of the meal when you’re already full.
00;03;14;07 – 00;03;31;08
Sound on Tape
Then the check comes at that moment. Always upset. You know, they’re mystified by the check to. How can this be? They start passing it around the table is just look right to you.
00;03;31;11 – 00;03;56;29
Maurice BP-Weeks
Like basically everything else. If you break student debt stats down by race, it’s a remarkably different picture for black borrowers than non-black borrowers. Black borrowers average about $23,400 in borrowing for an undergraduate degree, the most of any racial demographic, and $7,400 more than the average white borrower. Black borrowers are three times as likely to default on their loans.
00;03;57;01 – 00;04;19;27
Maurice BP-Weeks
They’re more likely to need income based repayment. The list goes on and on. And the icing on the cake, the average black college grad is three times less wealthy than the average white high school dropout. So the system is clearly broken for black folks. A show about student debt is clearly a big one for this moment in time.
00;04;19;27 – 00;04;42;07
Maurice BP-Weeks
So I thought a lot about how I wanted to approach this episode. When I think about student debt and black people. I really think what a tragedy. Access to education is such a core piece of the fight for black human rights in this historically racist nation. It’s just such a shame that the experience for black families is now one of debt and financial despair.
00;04;42;07 – 00;05;02;07
Maurice BP-Weeks
Without the upside. Going through it all feels like going through the five stages of grief. If you’re among the folks with student debt, you’ll remember that first student loan bill you get isn’t right after you leave school. But a few months later, you’ve had just enough time to celebrate or adjust to this new life and struggle to find work.
00;05;02;07 – 00;05;30;15
Maurice BP-Weeks
And then boom. A bill from Navient or PNC Bank or whoever for 300, 500, $800 and a promise of another one on the way next month. That probably triggers stage one denial. This can’t be real. They must have calculated the number wrong. I told my parents to have these loans. I thought some of this was scholarship money. Sound familiar?
00;05;30;17 – 00;05;52;09
Maurice BP-Weeks
Hey, it’s an expected first stage for a 21 year old staring at a bill they probably can’t pay. That sets you up perfectly for the next stage. Anger. How can a school with this much money in their endowment charge so much if they just send you a fundraising letter? Why am I paying this amount in interest? How is any of this legal?
00;05;52;11 – 00;06;11;12
Maurice BP-Weeks
I know for sure that when sounds familiar, there’s a lot to be angry about with student loans. I wanted to remind myself a little bit about that post-graduation feeling. Let’s face it, it’s been over a decade since I graduated from college, and that be helpful to have a more recent example. So I connected with the recent Howard University grad to hear about how she’s doing.
00;06;11;14 – 00;06;20;29
Shayan McDonald
My name is Shane McDonald and I’m a recent graduate of Harvard University, and I just moved back to D.C. to start my new position. I’m a federal employee in the city.
00;06;21;02 – 00;06;28;11
Maurice BP-Weeks
Can you just tell us a little bit about your family background? Like not super detailed, but like what was life like growing up financially?
00;06;28;13 – 00;06;51;19
Shayan McDonald
My dad is a veteran and he’s now a teacher at a public school. And my mom is an aunt and she just graduated with her master’s in nurse practitioner. So definitely grew up comfortable, but not, you know, not too comfortable. We’re still, you know, kind of just go to Disney every summer. But yeah, I was I was pretty lucky to have a pretty comfortable upbringing, I would say.
00;06;51;22 – 00;06;54;11
Maurice BP-Weeks
And how did you decide to go to Howard?
00;06;54;13 – 00;07;17;09
Shayan McDonald
I was raised pretty conservative. I grew up Catholic, Roman Catholic School my whole life. And the demographics were not exactly what I wanted to be. So Howard was really the ideal place to be around people like me, more black and brown people. So that was really my the first reason I wanted to go to Howard, but also because I am interested in policy.
00;07;17;10 – 00;07;31;24
Shayan McDonald
So being in D.C., a poly sci political science major in D.C., it was the place to be. So Howard was, you know, the place where I could see myself really shining through as a black person and in a city where policy is made.
00;07;31;27 – 00;07;39;05
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, it’s a extremely good school. So congratulations again. How did you like it? Did you have a good time there?
00;07;39;07 – 00;07;53;10
Shayan McDonald
Culturally and academically, I had a great time. But Howard is a very expensive school. I would say I loved Howard generally, but I definitely have a few reservations about it as well.
00;07;53;16 – 00;07;59;02
Maurice BP-Weeks
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That pretty much describes how I feel about my college too, I think. But yeah, pretty normal.
00;07;59;02 – 00;08;00;16
Shayan McDonald
Yeah. Universal.
00;08;00;18 – 00;08;14;02
Maurice BP-Weeks
All right, so let’s let’s talk about Howard and tuition and debt. So first off, like, how conscious were you of the price of Howard when you were there?
00;08;14;05 – 00;08;32;09
Shayan McDonald
When I got my acceptance letter, it was just like a dream come true. But when it came to, like, paying that bill, I just saw the loan that Howard offered me and I was like, okay, this is how I’m going to pay for it. So I just accepted it. But at that time, at 18, it didn’t seem like a real thing.
00;08;32;09 – 00;08;48;00
Shayan McDonald
It seemed like free money at the time. But now, as a 22 year old recent graduate who has to start paying it back in six months, I’m realizing that is real money. But again, at 18 I was like, I got into Howard, This is how I’m going to pay for it. And that was it.
00;08;48;02 – 00;09;08;08
Maurice BP-Weeks
So if you could remember back to when you were after you got the acceptance letter to Howard and were trying to figure out how you were going to pay for it, how did how were you thinking about the difference between loans and scholarships and how did you conceptualize like either of those things working? Was it really clear to you?
00;09;08;10 – 00;09;29;12
Shayan McDonald
A short answer is no. All I saw was subsidized unsubsidized loans and I saw all the scholarships and grants. It was all on the same sheet. There’s a lot more paperwork for the loans, but at 18, I was just, you know, doing the paperwork, putting my signature down, putting my Social Security down. I was just going through the motions.
00;09;29;14 – 00;09;47;11
Shayan McDonald
But I will say it was not very clear at all. Everything was just listed down. They said, we’ll offer you this much in loans. We offer you this much in scholarships, like for you this much in grants, and you just accept it. So yeah, it’s not very clear at all. And now they think about it and it’s very deceptive.
00;09;47;11 – 00;10;04;22
Shayan McDonald
It’s very it seems very predatory when I really think about it and how we ask the question. I wish somebody asked me that at 18. Like, what is the difference between what I’m looking at versus loans and scholarships? But it was not it was not very clear to me at all. I just accepted it and that was it.
00;10;04;27 – 00;10;13;22
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did you even feel like there was a choice to accept it or not? And you’re just like, you got into the school and this is the way to go to school. You have to sign these forms.
00;10;13;24 – 00;10;41;01
Shayan McDonald
Howard gave me the exact amount for cost of attendance and the scholarships. I was just grateful to have free money. And I also saw the loans as free money. But all the numbers exactly. All added up to the exact cost of attendance. So I never thought of negotiating that, which is another thing I wish my 18 year old self would knew, but I just didn’t question it because I knew I balance would be gone once I excepted it.
00;10;41;03 – 00;10;47;27
Maurice BP-Weeks
With this new job, do you feel like you’re in a comfortable position to start your payments when they start?
00;10;48;00 – 00;11;07;15
Shayan McDonald
Yeah, that was one of the main reasons I chose this job, if I’m being honest, is their student loan repayment program as a government employee, or at least in my office, they have a student loan repayment program where they offer, I believe, up to 600 a month to repay loans. So that was a very enticing reason to take this position.
00;11;07;15 – 00;11;12;05
Shayan McDonald
So I would say yes, because I know that they will help me repay it.
00;11;12;12 – 00;11;19;27
Maurice BP-Weeks
That’s an amazing, amazing program. Do you know how much your payments are going to be come January?
00;11;19;29 – 00;11;25;24
Shayan McDonald
I’m not sure, but I believe it’s going to be starting 250 for the next couple of years.
00;11;25;27 – 00;11;26;07
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah.
00;11;26;13 – 00;11;27;17
Shayan McDonald
Yeah.
00;11;27;20 – 00;11;33;06
Maurice BP-Weeks
Did your family help at all with loans or with paying directly, do you know?
00;11;33;09 – 00;11;50;18
Shayan McDonald
My dad took out a parent plus loan for me for the final semester and I’m extremely grateful for that. It ended up being that my mom got to go to parent, plus my sister. My dad got a parent plus for me, which I know it was, it is a luxury, but it’s a huge burden on my parents as well.
00;11;50;20 – 00;11;55;26
Shayan McDonald
But yeah, it did end up having to ask my parents for assistance. Yeah.
00;11;55;28 – 00;12;18;01
Maurice BP-Weeks
So, I mean, as you know, there was there’s a lot of conversation recently about cancellation and student debt and we got really close to canceling about $10,000 of debt for folks that didn’t happen. I’m wondering what that experience was like for you as someone with with recent debt, seeing that play out.
00;12;18;03 – 00;12;42;01
Shayan McDonald
It kind of felt like a tease because I thought I’d be coming out of Howard with, you know, $10,000 less in debt. But it didn’t happen. Howard, most people have student loans. A lot of us have way more than ten K So seeing that opportunity taken away from us given because knowing how much that we had to take out to pay for Howard and even just ten K would have been a gift.
00;12;42;06 – 00;12;58;14
Shayan McDonald
But it seems like such just seems like such a small amount to me given my loans. But seeing how they can even canceled that much for everybody is very disheartening. And it discourages me to imagine how student loans is going to play out in general, like the whole forgiveness.
00;12;58;17 – 00;13;24;17
Maurice BP-Weeks
So if I was to play devil’s advocate and be like, you know, old, crotchety conservative of which I’m I’m not any any of those things, maybe I’m a little bit crotchety, but definitely not old or conservative and say like, well, you know, you were 18 when you signed these documents and Howard publicizes their tuition. Why should we cancel any of your loans?
00;13;24;17 – 00;13;32;08
Maurice BP-Weeks
So I should be canceled. And so people who signed these documents. Well, what would you say as someone who’s staring down repayment starting in January?
00;13;32;10 – 00;13;58;28
Shayan McDonald
I think someone that would say that probably is understand how inaccessible higher education is, especially as a African-American. So Howard is the mecca for black opportunity, black academia. But it’s also extremely expensive, but is also the place for opportunity for black people. So for people like me and a lot of my classmates, we were going to figure out some way to get to Howard if it was a loan or if we had to do for jobs.
00;13;59;04 – 00;14;23;14
Shayan McDonald
So I think I wish they would be more sympathetic to understand that a lot of black people go to college for economic movement, and a lot of people like me see loans as an investment. So I think then letting Go 10-K or even just all loans is just shows that our investment is paying off and it’s not something I want to burden ourselves with for the rest of my life.
00;14;23;20 – 00;14;27;03
Maurice BP-Weeks
Do you think you’ll stay in this job until they’re finished paying off all your loans?
00;14;27;10 – 00;14;36;15
Shayan McDonald
That’s a great question. I was really thinking that I do want to go back and get my master’s, though, so it’s a really, really tough.
00;14;36;19 – 00;14;39;06
Maurice BP-Weeks
That’s more debt. More debt. I know.
00;14;39;09 – 00;15;08;06
Shayan McDonald
I know. But that’s another problem. I love school. I love going to school. The school, it costs so much money and it’s it’s ridiculous. But it’s yeah, I do think I will say until they’re paid off which will take a few years which isn’t part of my five year plan, quote unquote. But it’s such a it’s such a privilege to have the kind of program with a job like this at such an early age that I feel like I should take advantage of it.
00;15;08;06 – 00;15;11;21
Shayan McDonald
So, yeah, I’m a just gonna stay here a few years.
00;15;11;23 – 00;15;23;13
Maurice BP-Weeks
I hear you. I hear you as someone with a with a masters. Yeah, I know that feeling really, really well, if I’m like, I really want to study this, but it’s just so, so expensive.
00;15;23;15 – 00;15;24;11
Shayan McDonald
It’s terrible.
00;15;24;11 – 00;15;42;14
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, Well, I really appreciate you chatting with me. And just, like, the absolute best of luck, I know you’re going to rocket on the Hill and. And. Yeah, let’s hope we can get some of your. Your lungs taken care of as well. That would be great in the future.
00;15;42;16 – 00;15;44;28
Shayan McDonald
A dream. Yes.
00;15;45;00 – 00;15;46;23
Maurice BP-Weeks
All right. And thanks again.
00;15;46;26 – 00;15;48;17
Shayan McDonald
Thank you, Maurice.
00;15;48;20 – 00;15;58;10
Maurice BP-Weeks
I really wish the best of luck to Cheyenne. She has a bright future that I hope includes getting rid of her loan somehow.
00;15;58;12 – 00;16;16;00
Sound on Tape
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00;16;16;03 – 00;16;34;02
Sound on Tape
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00;16;34;04 – 00;16;43;14
Sound on Tape
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00;16;43;16 – 00;17;06;28
Maurice BP-Weeks
So we’re moving on to our final three stages of grief. Up next, bargaining. Maybe there’s a program I can sign up for. Wait, that only reduces my payment by 50 bucks. this other program will cancel my loans if I work in a nonprofit or a school. But I have to do that for ten years and I can call the servicer now for a delay in paying them back.
00;17;07;00 – 00;17;30;10
Maurice BP-Weeks
Maybe I can figure out some side hustle to be able to meet all these bills. I remember this wheeling and dealing very vividly, every harebrained scheme imaginable, and exactly zero of them worked. But hey, stage three is in human nature. Unfortunately, so is stage four depression. No matter what I do, I’m going to be stuck with these loans.
00;17;30;13 – 00;17;53;21
Maurice BP-Weeks
I can’t believe I’m going to be paying these until 2034. It’s going to take me five years to get a job and even come close to getting me enough money to pay for all this. Everyone around me is in the same position. We’re all screwed. All right, You now ready for the final stage? Acceptance. I would say until recently, most of my generation was in the acceptance phase.
00;17;53;23 – 00;18;13;03
Maurice BP-Weeks
Student loans often come up in conversations, and friends would just quip, they’re never getting that money back. Some people figured out a way to make the payments work by delaying buying a house or not having a kid or working in a field that they hated. But others just said, Screw it, who cares? Let them try and get their money anywhere they can.
00;18;13;03 – 00;18;33;29
Maurice BP-Weeks
I’m not paying. But recently some federal action is shaking things up a bit and jumbled all these phases. It made everything a little bit more uncertain to talk about these last three stages of grief and where we go from here and especially what this means for black borrowers. I spoke to an expert on student borrowing and debt.
00;18;34;02 – 00;18;40;29
Persis Yu
Hello, I’m Persis you. I am the deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Fire Protection Center.
00;18;41;01 – 00;18;48;03
Maurice BP-Weeks
Well, welcome, Persis. I’m I’m wondering if we can start off by just you telling folks what the Student Borrower Protection Center does.
00;18;48;10 – 00;19;15;07
Persis Yu
Sure. We are. The Super Protection Center is a nonprofit organization. We’re national advocacy organization focused on alleviating the burdens of student debt for millions of Americans across the country. We do this by engaging in advocacy, policymaking, litigation, and our goal is to rein in both industry abuses, protect borrower rights, and also to advance economic opportunity for the next generation of students.
00;19;15;10 – 00;19;42;12
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, one of my favorite organizations, because of the publications you all put out, which are just so thorough and perfect and cut through a lot of the noise on this issue. So we’re really excited to to chat with you about it. So in general, I think that people know some, some basic stuff about student loans. That’s probably because like 50 million of us have student loans or so that means that basically everyone has one or knows a family member that has one.
00;19;42;14 – 00;19;58;07
Maurice BP-Weeks
It does seem like a problem that has gotten worse in the last 20 years or so, and that could just be my feeling of it. But but A, is that true? And B, if so, can you describe kind of how and why that happened?
00;19;58;08 – 00;20;23;13
Persis Yu
Yeah, no, I mean, it’s not in your head that’s real. You know, the student debt crisis has been growing really what feels like exponentially over the last couple of decades. I started doing this work before student debt hit the 1 trillion mark. And I remember I remember when that happened. Right. There’s an anniversary date. It’s in the spring of student loans hitting the 1 trillion mark.
00;20;23;13 – 00;20;49;27
Persis Yu
And I remember at that time people going, this isn’t really a problem. This was, you know, in the in the late, late aughts, early 20 teens and folks saying like, this is you know, it’s not really a big deal. Student debt is good, right? Student debt is this investment in yourself in your own future potential. And I think what we’ve seen over the last couple decades is a couple key factors happening all at once.
00;20;49;29 – 00;21;10;20
Persis Yu
So the first one being just the rise in the cost of education, the cost of college is going up and it’s been going up at an alarming rate. And this is you know, there’s lots of reasons for why this is happening. I think the largest contributor is our states are investing less in their public education system. The value of the Pell Grant is going down.
00;21;10;24 – 00;21;33;18
Persis Yu
You know, you see colleges with very, you know, top heavy administration. So you have the cost of college going up. At the same time, we, of course, have wage stagnation and we have a student loan system that’s not actually functioning. And I think that has become very apparent as more and more people are relying on debt in order to pay for that very expensive education.
00;21;33;25 – 00;21;49;06
Persis Yu
So both you have the rising cost of college and then a system that is not really functioning in order to get people through that system. And then, of course, you know, we have the economy at large, right? People can’t pay their loans if they’re not making enough money.
00;21;49;09 – 00;22;09;08
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, it feels like there’s the other side of the economy at large is that, you know, that that last 20 years corresponds to with a massive increase in corporate power and corporate influence. I think of financialization as being a part of that. And I yeah, I wonder how that plays into everything as well.
00;22;09;10 – 00;22;36;05
Persis Yu
100%. I mean, I think, you know, student debt is a key component about how we talk about the economy at large. And I think I do think that that financialization, another component when we’re talking about the rising cost of education and people being indebted is, of course, the for profit school industry and the schools that kind of looked at our federal student loan program and saw dollar signs, right?
00;22;36;08 – 00;23;01;21
Persis Yu
They said, all I have to do is get somebody signed up and I get the money and I don’t actually have to care really about what happens to them on the back end. And so we saw a lot of for profit schools sign up, a lot of really frankly, poor black and brown kids to go to get an education with these big promises of these very lucrative shiny jobs that really just didn’t pan out.
00;23;01;28 – 00;23;10;06
Persis Yu
And what happened is, you know, these executives took the money and ran and student loan borrowers are left holding the bag here.
00;23;10;09 – 00;23;29;12
Maurice BP-Weeks
So I you know, I’ve seen tons of information from groups like Student Borrower Protection Center and also Demos and Roosevelt Institute talking about student debt, perpetuating racial inequality, racial and economic inequality. Can you speak to that a bit? Like what? What does that actually look like?
00;23;29;12 – 00;23;57;25
Persis Yu
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s such an important topic and those groups have done such a tremendous and important work in this space, highlighting how how debt has been really harming communities of color. I mean, I think, you know, on the very basic level, students of color typically have less familial wealth, right. And and so in some sense, you know, some sense this is just it’s logical, right?
00;23;57;29 – 00;24;16;20
Persis Yu
If you have less familial wealth, then you’re going to have less resources to go to school, which means that you’re going to have to take on debt in order to kind of make up whatever gap or pay for the entire thing. In many cases, just from the start. You know, you have less resources going in and, you know, and the data supports.
00;24;16;20 – 00;24;33;00
Persis Yu
All right. Both like logical and like what we would expect to have happen with our understanding of the world, but also is supported with data. Right. That we know that students of color have to take on more debt with a greater frequency, and when they borrow, they have to borrow more money. So that’s just the process of like getting the debt.
00;24;33;07 – 00;24;56;21
Persis Yu
And then as we’ve talked about, right, like this is a story about the economy at large, right? And so they graduate or they don’t graduate in many in many cases, because, you know, roughly 40% of our student loan population actually does not have the degree. Right. So let’s set those. So those those folks aside for just a second because they have their own very important narrative to talk about.
00;24;56;23 – 00;25;19;07
Persis Yu
But we do have, again, these folks, they’re graduating from school. Right? And then we have and then you enter into a job economy where you’re then again facing wage discrimination. And so you have the racial wage gap contributing. So you’ve already had to take on more debt. Now you’re in a job market where you’re going to take you’re going to make less money to pay that.
00;25;19;11 – 00;25;38;10
Persis Yu
Right. And of course, now we’ve got to enter, you know, factor gender into the equation as well. So, you know, black women in particular are hit hard by this dynamic because women in general take on more debt, people of color take on more debt. And then women of color especially are hit hard by this problem. And then you have this economy that’s not going to pay is not going to pay you a fair wage.
00;25;38;12 – 00;25;57;07
Persis Yu
And so a lot of folks wind up having to take on graduate degrees. So, again, we’re talking about even more debt and recognizing that, you know, a black woman with a master’s degree still makes less than a white man with just a bachelor’s degree. Right. So you have all this extra debt without the wages to really pay for that debt.
00;25;57;12 – 00;26;18;29
Persis Yu
And it just is a cascading problem. And I think where we really where it really gets us and I think a lot of folks miss kind of how bad it really gets is when we talk about the next generation. Right. So what is debt doing? Right? So you have this debt and the statistics are pretty terrible in terms of repayment outcomes.
00;26;19;05 – 00;26;42;16
Persis Yu
You know, there is there is one study that found that 20 years after taking on debt, the typical black borrower still owes 95% of their original balance, whereas 20 years out, the typical white borrower has paid off 95% of their debt. Right. And so like that is in very real terms, like what this debt looks like two decades after going to school.
00;26;42;17 – 00;27;01;26
Persis Yu
And you think about folks in their lifespan. What are folks doing in those 20 years? Right. Of course they’re working. But, you know, people are trying to start families. They’re trying to start businesses. They’re trying to buy homes. If they have children, they’re hoping in many cases they’re not. But, you know, I think many people feel like they should be saving for their child’s education.
00;27;01;26 – 00;27;25;10
Persis Yu
Right. So you can see how this cycle self perpetuates itself where, you know, the fact that you don’t have resources means you have to go, you know, you have to go into debt and then that debt stays with you for so long. And then we have, I think, what winds up being one of the most tragic consequences we have folks with their own debt still taking on parent plus loans so that their kids can go to school.
00;27;25;14 – 00;27;38;26
Persis Yu
Right. And it’s just a never ending cycle. And it really does create this, you know, this debt trap where folks are just kind of skimming the surface to try to stay afloat here.
00;27;38;29 – 00;28;04;16
Maurice BP-Weeks
And this might be an unfair question or maybe an unanswerable question, but I mean, that that that’s just so unbelievably stark, like the difference between sort of a white graduate’s experience or white college students experience or their family’s experience and want of a person of color, a black person. Why is that not sort of more at the forefront of of of the story, do you think?
00;28;04;16 – 00;28;12;03
Maurice BP-Weeks
I mean, is it. Yeah, I’m curious why why this is not just primarily a story about economic racial inequality.
00;28;12;07 – 00;28;20;05
Persis Yu
Yeah. No, I mean, I think I you’re right. I do not have the answer for that. I would love to solve this problem. Right.
00;28;20;06 – 00;28;23;22
Maurice BP-Weeks
Maybe we’re both just trying to answer that, you know, our life’s work, really.
00;28;23;22 – 00;28;52;18
Persis Yu
But that’s why we’re here, right? Because I think it’s a really important story that people are not listening to. But, you know, I do think it’s an important narrative and it is, you know, it really goes to the heart of this narrative. During the campaign for student debt cancellation, I think one of the things that we’ve tried to fight back on so much is this idea that student debt is this, you know, rich, elite white kid problem.
00;28;52;23 – 00;29;13;05
Persis Yu
Right? You know, rich kids don’t take on debt to go to school. Right? Right. Let’s, you know, like let’s just be honest here, right? Like Harvard, for example, who is, you know, saying, I don’t want to pay for, you know, folks to go to Harvard. Only 3% of their students take on, you know, have federal loans to go to go to Harvard.
00;29;13;07 – 00;29;44;04
Persis Yu
Right. And those 3% are very low income. Right. So, you know, I think there is definitely there’s public perception about who holds student loan debt that is, you know, completely out of balance of reality. And I mean, I think, you know, obviously goes speaks to a much bigger picture about how we’re talking about things in society. But I do think like one of the arguments that, you know, a lot of opponents of student debt cancellation raised during that campaign was this notion that student debt cancellation would be regressive.
00;29;44;07 – 00;30;11;14
Persis Yu
Right. That somehow it would help those people who are better off, which I think on just a factual level is is inaccurate. Right. We know that the biggest beneficiaries of student debt cancellation are folks who are low income, middle income, you know, folks of color, people in default on their loans, the 40% of folks who didn’t complete their degrees, and these folks who they’re you know, they took on this debt and got absolutely no, you know, increase in their earning potential.
00;30;11;20 – 00;30;32;01
Persis Yu
But so, I mean, I think factually that statement was wrong. But just looking at it, I mean, I found it ironic that, you know, some of these opponents who I have not really thought of as the progressive types, you know, arguing for progressive ideals, you know, but the irony is that student loans themselves are regressive, right? That’s right.
00;30;32;01 – 00;30;58;04
Persis Yu
They are regressive because if you have less resource is you have to take on more debt. The more debt you take on, the more expensive it is, the more you have to take on, you know, the less you earn, the longer it’s going to take you to repay, the more you’re going to pay in interest. It is definitionally regressive, and I think this is a conversation that really just isn’t happening enough that I think folks who don’t want to deal with student loans don’t want to deal with this reality.
00;30;58;07 – 00;31;30;02
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, Well, so I’m wondering if we could we could sort of play a hypothetical here. And, you know, let’s say there’s someone who has graduated from college or maybe didn’t graduate at all and is, you know, five years out and they’re struggling to pay their loans back. They had to take out a significant amount of these loans. What what is what are the current options look like for them to, you know, be able to mitigate or reduce the amount at this moment to kind of be able to get by?
00;31;30;04 – 00;31;52;10
Persis Yu
Right. So we’ve we’ve heard a lot about this very recent past about income sharing payments. It’s actually a thing that has been around since 1994 and has been really gone under the radar. And I think purposefully by a lot of servicers because it’s, you know, not the easiest thing for them to administer. But there are programs that are available to I don’t want to say the word.
00;31;52;14 – 00;32;13;20
Persis Yu
Sure. I think that’s a little too strong. But it attempts to make loans, you know, your loan payments more affordable. And the way that they’re supposed to work is, you know, they take your income and then you pay a percentage of your income. And then after a certain amount of time, those loans will be canceled if you’re in public service, ideally, that happens in ten years.
00;32;13;23 – 00;32;32;03
Persis Yu
If you’re not, it’s 20 or 25 years, depending on whether or not you have graduate debt or parent plus loans. So there are some options to try to, you know, mitigate the harsh effects of of this cancellation. I hedged on calling it, you know, ensuring affordability, because I think the reality is, is for a lot of folks it’s still not affordable.
00;32;32;06 – 00;32;42;00
Persis Yu
And, you know, it’s still taking away money that folks need to, you know, pay their child care to pay their rent, that they’d love to save for a down payment, that sort of thing. Yeah.
00;32;42;05 – 00;32;42;16
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah.
00;32;42;18 – 00;33;04;17
Persis Yu
But, you know, this is the system we have there. You know, President Biden is promising to make it more affordable. You know, I think a lot of folks who’ve been a lot been really skeptical about whether or not these programs work and for very good reasons, because they haven’t. And that’s you know, I think that’s one of the realities, is we’ve had this system, like I said in the beginning of it’s not working, it’s not getting people past the place.
00;33;04;17 – 00;33;18;24
Persis Yu
An income drain payment has been one of those kind of pain points where there is a program in theory that if you can jump through all the right hoops, you can get into it. But they do exist. And if you can jump through the hoops, they are there and they can be very helpful.
00;33;18;27 – 00;33;39;11
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember sort of in year I’ve worked at nonprofits basically my whole work career, and I remember in year six or so realizing that I should have been, you know, signing up for public service loan forgiveness. And yeah, we had a little window of time recently where I was able to sort of go back and do it retroactively.
00;33;39;11 – 00;34;14;23
Maurice BP-Weeks
But but I do want to talk about this kind of sliver of hope that we were given recently. And, you know, I started tracking this as a sliver of hope from the beginning of the 2020 Democratic primary season, where there were several leading candidates calling for massive student loan forgiveness, some calling for 50,000, some calling for 100%. Fast forward to 2023 in the summer where the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student forgiveness plan entirely.
00;34;14;25 – 00;34;40;15
Maurice BP-Weeks
I’m imagining, of course, that you, like me, think that the Supreme Court got that ruling wrong and hope that, you know, the administration can figure out other ways to get some cancellation happening. But how did we get from, you know, candidates asking for 100% cancellation to 50000 to 10000 to zero? And why?
00;34;40;18 – 00;34;59;23
Persis Yu
that is? That is a great question. You know, I think it’s helpful to step back and look at this trajectory. And I think there are a couple of different goals that some folks have had in mind as they’ve picked different numbers. You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever had the magic number, like what is the right number?
00;34;59;23 – 00;35;31;18
Persis Yu
I think more is more rate Like the more cancellation you give, the better it will be for folks. But thinking about like where we have the different spreads, you know, I think the total cancellation idea really comes from this notion that student debt is illegitimate. Right. And I think a lot of folks really do believe that student debt is illegitimate, that a higher education is is necessary in this moment, and it should be free, you know, to put people in debt to get a higher education is just illegitimate.
00;35;31;18 – 00;35;35;29
Persis Yu
And so then the only answer once you get to that point, the only answer is to cancel it. All right?
00;35;36;04 – 00;35;37;26
Maurice BP-Weeks
00;35;37;28 – 00;36;20;25
Persis Yu
You know, I think when we talk about the folks who’ve asked for, you know, 50, and I think if the 50, the original folks who were asking for a 50, I think have moved kind of towards 70. But that’s there’s research out there that that shows that that’s kind of the point at which we undo a lot of the racial disparities in the system that like that’s the amount that’s going to be necessary to really make a meaningful difference in the racial wealth gap is, you know, as we’ve articulated before, right, that we know that borrowers of color in particular black borrowers, have to borrow more and have to pay more over the life of
00;36;20;25 – 00;36;38;23
Persis Yu
their loan. And so this is the amount that would be necessary across the portfolio, right. I mean, and we’re, of course, talking in an averages, right? That’s not I guarantee you that as long as it’s not 100%, you’re going to have a person who you say, I think this person should really get it. But they’re going to have above that amount right.
00;36;38;23 – 00;36;57;08
Persis Yu
And and vice versa and that you’re going to have somebody below. But in terms of like across the portfolio where you’re going to like what is going to be the maximum benefit of addressing this particular problem. Right? Because now we’re talking about a different problem. We’re addressing the problem of racial disparities. And so that’s how we got to the $50,000 number.
00;36;57;11 – 00;37;15;11
Persis Yu
You know, I mean, how did how did we land on ten from 50? I yeah, You know, I mean, and I think this is where, you know, we just get we get into politics. That’s right. That’s right. Is that, you know, I mean, a lot of these folks started at zero. So ten slash 20 is a lot higher than zero.
00;37;15;13 – 00;37;34;12
Persis Yu
You know, And I think, you know, I’m sure the administration had, you know, its economic analysis that ran, you know, to come up with ten and 20. I think, you know, I mean, I do think that the additional ten for the Pell Grant was actually a really meaningful boost. And I think a lot of folks were really worried that it was going to land.
00;37;34;14 – 00;37;55;23
Persis Yu
We, of course, have different worries now, but a lot of folks before the announcement were were worried it was going to land at just 10,000. And I think that the boost of the 20,000 or to 20,000 for folks who received a Pell Grant was a pretty meaningful difference. You know, I think, you know, looking at 20 million people, that being debt free is, you know, not an insignificant number of people.
00;37;55;27 – 00;38;06;04
Persis Yu
But but of course, it doesn’t address the other problems that that have been articulated and still leave a lot of folks with a lot of unaffordable debt.
00;38;06;06 – 00;38;25;13
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah. Yeah. And then I mean, now we’re at that, at least for the time being, at zero after the Supreme Court ruling. So I’m wondering, like, what does this mean now for, you know, the 50 million folks with the two plus trillion dollars worth of debt? Like what’s what’s where do we go from here?
00;38;25;17 – 00;39;01;03
Persis Yu
Yeah, I mean, I think I will say, like it’s a really precarious time for borrowers. And I think we have to name the moment of the precarity here. You know, I think we can quibble about that, what the number should have been. But I think the Department of Education had some really solid analysis about the harms of returning to repayment without cancellation and, you know, recognizing that, you know, bills are scheduled to be sent out in about a month for the first time in about three and a half years.
00;39;01;06 – 00;39;23;14
Persis Yu
And, you know, the the administration had promised this right that this cancellation was designed in order to kind of, you know, soften the blow of what it’s going to be to turn these payments back on right. I don’t know a lot of folks who can look at who look at their budget and say, yeah, sure, I have an extra 200, $300 just to spend on my student loans this month.
00;39;23;14 – 00;39;51;12
Persis Yu
Right. And so I think I think it is going it is a pretty rough moment, you know, and the administration is trying other things. Right. We we’ve seen we do have this income driven account which was designed to really remedy the problems of income drained payment and remedy the problems of folks getting steered into very expensive forbearances and that either, you know, reduce their loan balances nor count towards cancellation.
00;39;51;12 – 00;40;10;21
Persis Yu
And so the administration said, like, look, we know that this bad practice has been going on, and so we’re going to recount this time and give you credit for time and repayment, even if it wasn’t the perfect repayment plan. Right. Because one of the things one of the problems with the student loan system is it just it requires perfection to a level that like almost no human being can actually achieve to make your way through it.
00;40;10;28 – 00;40;33;19
Persis Yu
And and so kind of in recognition of that, they had this idea for account adjustment. Of course, we’re hoping to see the first wave of borrowers actually get full cancellation from that program imminently. Of course, the you know, that has now been challenged in court to see what happens there. And what I also think is a frivolous lawsuit we’ve seen where frivolous lawsuits have landed on beforehand.
00;40;33;26 – 00;40;51;21
Persis Yu
And so it is it is a situation of like incredible precarity right now for borrowers, because they’re staring down these bills that Congress and the president mandated through the debt ceiling negotiations and every attempt, you know, to try to give them relief has been stymied.
00;40;51;23 – 00;41;19;20
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, Yeah. You know, this brings me to another perception. No. Where, you know, I feel like when people think of this issue and even think of repayments restarting, you immediately think of sort of a 21 or 22 year old. But there I mean, we briefly touched on it, but this it’s just so much more complicated than that. And the population of who holds these loans is so much more complicated than that.
00;41;19;22 – 00;41;20;26
Maurice BP-Weeks
When you say.
00;41;20;28 – 00;41;46;24
Persis Yu
for sure, I mean, I think that is right. You know, I inadvertently said the word kids earlier and I immediately regretted it. And this is one of my biggest gripes about how people talk about the student loan system is, you know, these kids or it’s it’s this millennial issue or I guess now a Gen Z issue. It just isn’t true that older borrowers is the fastest growing population of borrowers.
00;41;46;27 – 00;42;21;24
Persis Yu
You know, more than 20% of the portfolio is over the age of 50. And a lot of those folks do They have debt for themselves from their own education and they have debt for their kids. And it is most certainly impacting folks ability to retire one of the one of the dire consequences that I think very few people realize when they take on student loan debt is that, for one, it’s one of the few things in our world without a statute of limitations, meaning, you know, like at some point on your credit cards, if you’re you know, you’re you default on your credit cards at some point, the credit card company can’t go after you
00;42;21;24 – 00;43;04;19
Persis Yu
anymore. Right. You know, but not student loans. You know it’s not student loans. They will follow you till you die and they will take your Social Security payments, too. And so it is outrageous. It is so outrageous. And it is it causes a lot of older Americans, a lot of financial distress. The CFP, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, had this really eye opening report back in 2017 on older bar student loan borrowers and the number of borrowers who said they were skipping medications or skipping meals in order to pay their student loans is just it’s just so depressing and devastating like this is this is not how we should be funding education.
00;43;04;21 – 00;43;26;05
Maurice BP-Weeks
Yeah, I mean, I even think of my you know, my my parents took out a significant amount of loans to send me and my siblings to, you know, thankfully, really, really good schools. And they’re both of retirement age right now. And it’s a huge thing that they have to factor into their decisions, like how much Social Security is going to be, what percent of those loans are paid off, etc., etc..
00;43;26;05 – 00;43;32;11
Maurice BP-Weeks
So it really is it just feels incredibly unfair to so many different generations of folks.
00;43;32;16 – 00;44;12;11
Persis Yu
Yeah. And we have a real problem with parent plus loans. You know, I think I think folks don’t recognize that this is an area with with a real racial disparity problem because communities of color are disproportionately low income communities of color disproportionately hold parent plus loans. It’s kind of like a very interesting population curve. It looks differently than as you know, there’s kind of like two two poles of it is that it is either held by, you know, low income folks of color or by wealthy white folks, but not a lot of people in the middle there.
00;44;12;14 – 00;44;29;26
Persis Yu
But I think one of the you know, one of the problems with it is a family without much or any income can take up to the cost of attendance of the school. And I’m a parent. Like if I don’t have the resources to pay for my kid, right. Like that’s what I do.
00;44;29;29 – 00;44;30;21
Maurice BP-Weeks
100%.
00;44;30;26 – 00;44;53;26
Persis Yu
And and unfortunately, you know, policymakers along the way have made them incredibly difficult to pay off. Right. So I talk about these, you know, income drain payment plans, parent plus borrowers are excluded from these. If they jump through some hoops, they can get into the least generous of them. But it’s still unaffordable for a lot of folks. And they follow folks again, just like all the other loans.
00;44;53;26 – 00;45;05;21
Persis Yu
They follow folks for their entire lives. And, you know, we hear from a lot of parent plus borrowers are really struggling just to kind of survive and stay on top of these loans. And, you know, many, frankly, don’t.
00;45;05;23 – 00;45;24;15
Maurice BP-Weeks
All right. Versus where what do we do? Where does this fight go from here? Like, what do I mean? I know a bunch of people listening to this or even before listening to this have thrown up their hands and said, well, I guess they’re never going to get that money because I’m just going to stop paying. Like, should we should we start paying?
00;45;24;15 – 00;45;30;00
Maurice BP-Weeks
Should we be fighting for a different course of action? What what what should we do on the advocacy side?
00;45;30;02 – 00;45;52;01
Persis Yu
Yeah, so I mean, I think so on, you know, the individual borrower side, like I’m never I’m never going to tell somebody that they should pay or they shouldn’t pay. I think it’s about education here. Like, let me just tell you, there are consequences if you don’t pay. Right. And the consequences of student loan nonpayment are unfortunately like worse than most, like going into default.
00;45;52;01 – 00;46;20;22
Persis Yu
It’s very hard to get out of it. You lose access to some of the programs that do exist. The government will just take their money anyway through either, you know, taking wages, taking tax refunds, like I said, taking your Social Security benefits. So, you know, there are there are real consequences that folks should be aware of. You know, at the same time, you know, the system is incredibly broken and we don’t yet see a pathway where it’s going to be not broken any time soon.
00;46;20;25 – 00;46;38;19
Persis Yu
And and, you know, and I think one of the things in terms of an advocacy front, though, is that we have to just keep pushing. You know, I think I think throwing up our hands from an advocacy perspective is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Yes, the lawsuit was filed. That doesn’t mean that they’ve one right. You know, people file lawsuits.
00;46;38;25 – 00;46;59;21
Persis Yu
We have to keep pushing forward. You know, I think there are real problems that we need to keep elevating and we need to keep talking about and keep trying to figure out a solution for, you know, the administration said that they’re going to do, you know, a rulemaking to come up with another way to provide relief. Well, let’s let’s hold them to that right.
00;46;59;24 – 00;47;22;26
Persis Yu
And push them to make that as generous and and, you know, as possible and make it happen as fast as possible. And I think, you know, I think that as a community, we have to be responsible for holding folks to that. One of the things that we do at the state of our protection center is we’ve been polling we’ve been, you know, getting folks attitudes about student debt.
00;47;22;29 – 00;47;50;15
Persis Yu
And and this makes me kind of hopeful because if you look at the data and you look at the polling, you know, yes, this is a very politically polarizing issue, but actually people support student loan relief. They they are supportive of President Biden’s plan. You know, they were supportive of President Biden taking some action, using other legal authority in light of the Supreme Court decision.
00;47;50;18 – 00;48;08;05
Persis Yu
It is, of course, popular amongst younger people and folks to student loans. But in fact, it is not just popular amongst those folks. It is popular amongst folks who have paid off their loans. This is, you know, a common narrative that we hear all the time. Why is this fair to the people who already paid off their loans?
00;48;08;05 – 00;48;29;14
Persis Yu
And it’s like that wasn’t fair, that they had to you know, that they had to suffer through that system. But I aspire to live in a world that is better for my children than the one that I had to suffer through. And I think that, like in general, you have the political messages and then you have what people really think, what real people on the ground really think, and people, you know, are supportive of student loan relief.
00;48;29;18 – 00;49;00;07
Persis Yu
People understand that this is a real problem. And that’s, again, not even just Democrats. So it is also popular amongst independents. It is popular amongst young Republicans, in fact. So, you know, I think if we look at how our country feels about student loan relief, I think that there is reason for hope. You know, it is not the same messages that we hear, the same polarizing political messages that, in fact, folks do support it.
00;49;00;07 – 00;49;07;06
Persis Yu
And I think if folks continue to push for it, that, you know, that’s the only way get it right.
00;49;07;08 – 00;49;32;29
Maurice BP-Weeks
Well, I appreciate you bringing the hope back around. I mean that definitely makes me more hopeful that, you know, we might not have it right now, but we certainly have an appetite for it and the country and, and yeah, I this can be a really depressing and grief inducing issue. So I’m very thankful for bringing the hope back around.
00;49;33;05 – 00;49;35;00
Persis Yu
So I feel that I feel all of that.
00;49;35;04 – 00;49;39;11
Maurice BP-Weeks
So yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. It’s all all mixed in for sure.
00;49;39;11 – 00;49;40;04
Persis Yu
Right.
00;49;40;06 – 00;49;52;18
Maurice BP-Weeks
Well, persis you I thank you so much for chatting with us for this podcast and yeah, just giving us the rundown on on student debt. You’re really such an expert on this as an absolute pleasure to have you on.
00;49;52;22 – 00;50;01;07
Persis Yu
So great to talk to you. Thank you.
00;50;01;09 – 00;50;25;18
Maurice BP-Weeks
Look, the situation is obviously not ideal by the time you’re hearing this, payments will have recently restarted for borrowers after a three year pause because of the COVID 19 pandemic with no forgiveness and definitely no cancellation, Democrats held the line and blocked some things Republicans wanted, like paying back interest. But all in all, it’s not what we asked for or what we need.
00;50;25;20 – 00;50;48;03
Maurice BP-Weeks
But I want to take a moment and offer some hope. You know, change in America is not linear. Our journey does bend towards justice, but it’s not an arc. It’s more like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. We spend a lot of time in the same place. We have some periods of huge progress. Then the cat comes and wrecks the whole thing, so we have to start putting it together again.
00;50;48;03 – 00;51;12;27
Maurice BP-Weeks
But at least this time we remember where some stuff goes. From the time I stepped foot on a college campus until more than a decade after, I didn’t expect the conversation about student debt cancellation, let alone one that was among the leading presidential candidates. And then the president. In the end, our pieces got knocked off of the board and it sucks, but I feel so strongly that this is the time to push forward this step back.
00;51;12;27 – 00;51;33;27
Maurice BP-Weeks
Plus a recent setback in affirmative action are devastating for black people in a way that we shouldn’t be comfortable with, but we absolutely will win. There’s thousands of black children who are right now cultivating a love for learning and exploration, and we have to fight to make sure that they can achieve that.
00;51;33;29 – 00;51;42;28
Sound on Tape
This issue is not just about economic justice, which it is. It’s about racial justice.
00;51;43;01 – 00;52;05;18
Maurice BP-Weeks
But my thanks again to Chaya McDonald and Persis you for joining me this episode. Indebted is produced and published by Convergence Magazine for Radical Insights. You can help support the show and others like it by becoming a patron member of Convergence. For as low as $2 per month at Patriarchy Convergence Bank, you can find a direct link in the show notes.
00;52;05;20 – 00;52;16;15
Maurice BP-Weeks
The show is produced by Josh Electro. It’s written and hosted by me. Mowry Speaks. Until next time, let’s keep fighting for the world we all deserve.