The Numbers Tell

 An article at FiveThirtyEight examines the issues around Biden's proposal to cancel $10,000 of student higher education debt ($20,000 for Pell Grant recipients).  Debt cancellation clearly has the potential to alleviate the disparities in wealth and income between the white and non-white populations of the U.S.  As the article points out, however, it would require a cancellation of debt five times greater than what Biden has proposed to have a real impact on the equity problem.

The most shocking revelation in the FiveThirtyEight article was the long-term outlook comparing black and white borrowers:

“Twenty years into repayment, the median black borrowers owe 95 percent of what they borrowed, while the median white person has almost fully repaid their loan,” 

So, tuition loans which saddle  some (mostly black) students with decades of crushing debt can hardly be considered a gateway to prosperity.

One bright spot not dealt with in the FiveThirtyEight article is the opportunities for intervention in the debt problem at the State level.  Amazingly, New Mexico -- usually at the bottom of most measures of well-being -- is at the forefront of higher education debt reduction as noted in a New York Times article:

A new state law approved in a rare show of bipartisanship allocates almost 1 percent of the state’s budget toward covering tuition and fees at public colleges and universities, community colleges and tribal colleges. All state residents from new high school graduates to adults enrolling part-time will be eligible regardless of family income. The program is also open to immigrants regardless of their immigration status.

Even though I came from  family with modest means I was able to leave college with no debt at all, thanks to a WWII death benefit from my father, and my family's determination to hold onto the $10,000 until I needed it.  As the numbers show,  the families of KIA black soldiers seldom enjoyed the option of postponing the use of death benefits far down the line toward higher education.

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Update:

An article in The Intercept by Jon Schwarz provides some historical perspective on the educational debt dilemma kicked off by Ronald Reagan in 1970.

John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after the unarmed student was fatally shot by an Ohio National Guardsman. (from Wikipedia)