When I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013, my outstanding loans totaled $75,000. This month, I will be debt-free, having paid a total of $102,000.
But this isn’t about me. I didn’t share how much I owed and the interest I have paid for pity or for praise. I shared it because I’m one of the 45 million Americans directly impacted by this $1.4 trillion loan crisis, and we’re ready for it to be taken seriously. We know that loan forgiveness is a great start, but it’s not the whole answer. The question is: Do the 2020 candidates?
Based on the plans they debated this week, I’m not so sure.
ADVERTISEMENT
Let’s start with Kamala Harris, who I’d assumed had an understanding of the issue as a declared champion of the everyday American before she announced her plan Sunday for helping to tackle student debt. The 2020 hopeful tweeted that as president, she’d forgive the debt of “Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities.”
Wait, what? Adriana Lacy, an audience engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, summed up the confusion in a tweet: “Just trying to understand who these people are who were granted pell grants but also have the capital to start a business in a disadvantaged area and can ensure it is successful for at least three years.”
I don’t mean to pick on Harris, but her plan captured how Democratic politicians either don’t understand the problem or aren’t up to the task of digging into solving it. That includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who at least get points for trying.
Warren, who comes from a working class background, has put the student loan crisis at the forefront of her campaign proposals and drafted a loan forgiveness bill. Sanders, whose 2016 campaign stood on a platform of free college for all, still stands by that as well as debt relief.
Loan forgiveness would likely help free the hundreds of thousands of people who are struggling to survive as their loan bills compete with their rents or mortgages—that is, if they even can afford a mortgage. It would help close inequality gaps between the poor 22-year-old who can’t start saving for a future family or house because they’re working three jobs just to make ends meet while their debt-free peers start that process the minute they graduate. A legacy of free or affordable college will even help kids gain access to institutions that they couldn’t previously afford to take a chance on.
But while forgiveness would take the lid off of the pressure cooker that is the debt crisis, it won’t stop it from building back up.
Pete Buttigieg summed it up nicely on Tuesday night: “[Forgiveness] would be great for us. And then the next day, there would be a student loan program and people would be out taking student loans wondering they weren’t—why they weren't lucky enough in timing to get theirs wiped away completely, too.”
The Indiana mayor, who also happens to be the only person running currently paying six figures in student debt, also brought up the epidemic of pro-profit colleges taking advantage of people (particularly service people), and his plans for making college more affordable for low-and-middle income students. Amy Klobuchar brought up an idea to refinance loans to lower interest rates.
These ideas inch closer to a more well-rounded plan to fight the student loan crisis, yet they still fail to hold accountable some of its most prolific enablers.
Where are the plans to lower the subjective interest rates created by a sector of the government that’s reported to be in complete disarray and “really been given a pass by the Betsy DeVos administration?” Where is the regulation of the private borrowers who assign borrowers interest rates double or triple that of mortgage rates?
The lawsuit against private loan company Navient, formerly Sallie Mae—for allegedly misleading borrowers on their options and employing tactics that made them pay more money over time or go into default—is the first time, and only time so far, that anyone has paid an inkling of attention to these kinds of predatory practices.
Where will the regulation be for schools in states and districts that try to increase their tuition costs year after year? Does anyone in or around the White House know that lobbying against tuition hikes in our state’s capital has become part of my school’s and other schools’ tradition just as much as tailgates before big football games?
Debt forgiveness is necessary, but it’s not sufficient if interest rates remain the same. If private borrowers keep running the same scams. If the federal government keeps assigning rates that will still set back the next crop of Americans looking to follow their dreams and make something of themselves.
I want Democrats who can name and deal with the crisis we face now, and who can also offer changes to ensure we’re not repeating it a decade or two from now.
