Politicians argue that canceling student debt will mainly benefit doctors and lawyers. But it is first-generation graduates of color who are struggling to make payments
My sister’s partner was murdered in St Louis in the summer of 2017. She was heartbroken, pregnant and facing a sheriff who was enforcing an eviction due to nonpayment of rent. Ghosts don’t send checks from the grave to pay for the living. Not for poor people anyway. There are very little inheritances, wills, and dollars under mattresses to go around.
I had just graduated from Harvard Law School and was studying to take the bar exam to accomplish my childhood dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. I was also near rock bottom. My marriage was ending and I had two kids under four. I’d been awarded the most prestigious law fellowship in the country and, with a pending income of $60,000, I was prepared to become the highest earner in my entire family. I knew that was insufficient for me, my two toddlers, my sister, a newborn nephew, Washington DC’s rising rent, and more than $100,000 of student debt.
Four years after earning a bachelor’s degree, Black graduates have nearly $25,000 more student loan debt than their white peers: $52,726 on average, compared with $28,006 for the typical white bachelor’s graduate. This total debt gap is more than triple the previously documented Black–white gap in undergraduate borrowing, which is “only” about $7,400 ($23,400 versus $16,000). Black college graduates are also three times more likely to default on their debt within four years of graduation.
Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist