student loan debt

Laquaysia Anderson-Jenkins walked into the Boston Municipal Court in Roxbury on a recent fall day because a state agency was suing her over a $12,000 student loan.

The Biden administration has touted increased student debt loan forgiveness in recent months, but some advocates say that relief will only go so far.

When the Biden administration announced its latest initiative to reduce the nation’s unsustainable trillion-dollar student debt, both borrowers and advocates rejoiced.

During his campaign for president, Joe Biden promised to alleviate the enormous debt that so many Americans had assumed to finance their college educations. The debt had climbed to about $1.75 trillion, surpassing the nation’s credit card debt.

Last week, President Joe Biden announced an executive order to cancel student debt up to $10,000 for millions of borrowers earning less than $125,000 annually, and up to $20,000 for recipients of need-based federal Pell Grants.

With every passing day, urgency grows to cancel the nation’s $1.7 trillion student loan debt. The current federal pause on payments and interest rates will expire on Aug. 31.

In recent weeks, student loans and other higher education programs have been the focus of multiple initiatives. On April 6, President Biden extended the current pause on federal loan repayment through Aug. 31. That announcement had obvious appeal to the 44 million consumers who together owe an estimated $1.7 trillion. 

A broad coalition of state attorneys general recently secured student loan debt cancellation and restitution against Navient, the nation’s largest student loan servicer.

The inequalities that have led to Black people, communities of color and poor people suffering the greatest effects of the ongoing crisis are the very same as those which make those same groups the most vulnerable to the effects of the student debt crisis.