Debt relief should be assessed by wealth instead of income, and there is a direct relationship between student debt cancellation and minimizing the racial wealth gap. That was the sentiments expressed during a panel discussion held on Monday by The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.
Panelists discussed the disproportionate burden of student debt on low-income, minority, and Black student families.
“One of the most repeated mistakes is the assumption that all people within an income stratum have the same ability to pay back their loans. Color-blind income analyses miss the mark,” said Dr. Andre M. Perry, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and the author of Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities.
“Most student debt is held in houses with zero to negative wealth,” said Perry. “The more debt is cancelled,” he added, “the greater the wealth gap is reduced.”
Student debt grows fastest in lower-income areas, impacting not only students but “entire neighborhoods too,” said Perry.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., opened the discussion addressing his partnership with Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and their legislative push to eliminate upwards of $50,000 of student debt per borrower.
“Higher education is a ladder up, but for too many of today’s students, debt has become the anchor weighing them down,” Schumer said.
