Education
Rich Johnson and Tonya Haase, Co-Facilitators
Vision: Enshrined as one of the fundamental tenets (Article 26) of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Education is a cornerstone of our democracy. With its appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, it is clear that the Trump administration intends to dismantle the public education system by introducing neoliberal schemes to privatize public education. These policies will only exacerbate the harmful disparities of the current education system. The Education Team will strive to protect an available (free), accessible (non-discriminatory), acceptable (relevant), and adaptable (responsive) broad-based public education system that aims to produce active, informed citizens, and who behave in socially, politically, environmentally, and economically conscious ways.
FIVE REASONS CONGRESS MUST CANCEL STUDENT DEBT
1. Canceling student debt would provide much-needed relief for millions. Temporary student loan forbearance, passed by Congress in response to the pandemic, is only a short-term bandaid on a much larger problem. Canceling student debt fully would relieve 45 million Americans who are burdened with debt during this turbulent time.
2. Boost the economy. Eliminating student debt could bolster the economy by generating more than a trillion dollars over ten years and creating up to 1.5 million jobs each year, according to an analysis by the Levy Institute.
3. Improving racial equity. Black and Latino borrowers are more likely than their white counterparts to default on their student loan payments, and are less likely to finish their degree. Black students graduate with higher debt, and due to income disparities, take longer to pay off the loans and end up paying more interest. Twenty years after beginning college, the average Black borrower still owes 95% of their original debt while white counterparts owe only 6%.
4. Student debt burdens Americans of all ages. Around 20% of all student loan debt is owed by borrowers over the age of 50 and the debt total is ballooning -- in 2004 it totaled $47 billion growing to $289.5 billion by 2019. Thousands of senior borrowers have had their Social Security benefits partially seized to repay defaulted federal loans. And the burden of student debt has become intergenerational, as older Americans take out loans on behalf of, or co-sign loans for their children and grandchildren, while grappling with their own debt.
5. It is much more difficult to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy, than other forms of debt, so many don’t even try. Student loan debt, unlike credit card and medical debt, is treated differently in bankruptcy, in that vaguely defined “undue hardship” must be proven by the borrower through a formal legal proceeding, in order for the debt to be discharged. And while federal student loans are forgiven upon death, private loans are not necessarily.