Education
OPINION: The Student Loan Debt Crisis Is a Civil Rights Issue
Wade Henderson says that student loan debt is a civil rights issue. Loan services, debt collectors and for-profit colleges should be held accountable for the student loan debt crisis.
By Wade Henderson (Founding Board Member, Center for Responsible Lending)
From attacks on voting rights to police killings of unarmed civilians and growing inequities in earnings and wealth, the civil rights gains of the past six decades are facing threat after threat. But one front in the fight for full equality—meaningful access to higher education—is particularly urgent. With 65 percent of jobs soon requiring more than a high school diploma, the need is greater than ever, especially for African Americans and other communities of color.
More than 50 years ago, Congress passed the Higher Education Act (HEA), intending to open the doors to higher education by providing students with financial assistance and low-interest loans. Conventional wisdom has traditionally held two things: 1) Higher education is the great equalizer; 2) It is okay to take out debt for the tickets to upward mobility: a college education and a home mortgage. These life decisions—and the struggles and sacrifices that made them possible—helped to build and grow the Black middle class.
Now, aspirations for advancement are colliding with the discriminatory legacy of the financial crisis. Our country’s student loan bill has skyrocketed. Student debt is now the second-largest source of household debt after housing. Forty-four million Americans have $1.4 trillion in student loan debt. One reason: Since the 1990s, the average tuition and fees at our universities have jumped an average of 157–237 percent depending on the type of institution.
As with the Great Recession, people of color, poor people, and predatory institutions are at the center of this socioeconomic catastrophe. They must also be at the center of the solutions.
We must face up to the fact that students of color are more likely to borrow for their education and, unfortunately, to default on these loans. Even Black college graduates default on their loans at almost four times the rate of their White counterparts and are more likely to default than even White dropouts.
This increased risk of defaulting on student loans is the direct result of inequities in financial resources, as well as discrimination in hiring, salaries and, all too often, social capital. In 2013, the median White family had 13 times more wealth than the median black family and 10 times more wealth than the median Latino family. African American students tend to take out more debt than their White counterparts, and both Blacks and Latinos are more likely to default than Whites. Since Blacks with bachelor’s degrees earn only 79 percent and Latinos only 83 percent of what their White counterparts earn, African American and Hispanic students have a harder time repaying their loans.
Further contributing to the crisis, Blacks and Latinos comprise 41 percent of the students at the high-cost, low-quality, for-profit colleges. These institutions frequently fail to prepare students for high-salary jobs, instead saddling them with exorbitant debts that they can’t repay.
How then can we address these challenges? Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to ease regulations on the loan servicers and for-profit colleges that have gotten us into this mess. U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) of the House Education and Workforce Committee would take this effort even further. Her proposal for reauthorizing the HEA, the “PROSPER Act,” would ensure that students will have to borrow more to get a postsecondary education with the very real likelihood that they will never pay off the debt. This would all but guarantee that predatory, for-profit programs would continue to rise exponentially right alongside our national student debt bill. Efforts to make student aid more costly for students rather than hold institutions accountable for what they do with the aid reflects either a catastrophic misunderstanding of the root causes of this issue or something more disturbing: the blatant effort to recreate the system we had before the HEA was enacted. In this system, traditional college was by and large only accessible to the wealthy, who were usually White.
Fixing our broken student debt system should not mean un-doing years of progress since the HEA or saddling marginalized groups with a lifetime of debt. Instead, we need to hold student loan servicers, debt collectors, and institutions of all kinds accountable for their practices. African Americans, Latinos and low-income students from all backgrounds need more income-based grants, loans, financial assistance, and admissions policies that tear down barriers of color, culture, and class, not support them.
Helping college graduates to repay their loans isn’t the only challenge. The challenge is enabling and empowering all our young people to make their fullest contribution to our country. This is, in the last analysis, a debt that all Americans owe to ourselves and our nation’s future.
Wade Henderson is a founding board member of the Center for Responsible Lending. You can follow Wade on Twitter @Wade4Justice.
#NNPA BlackPress
IN MEMORIAM: John Thompson, Coaching Legend and Unforgettable Mentor, Dies at 78
NNPA NEWSWIRE — John Thompson was a coach who set the bar high for his players on and off the basketball court. He coached Patrick Ewing, Allen Iverson, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutumbo. He became a mentor to many long after they left Georgetown and competitive basketball.
By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor
John Thompson was the first Black coach to win the NCAA Championship. In 1984, he led the Georgetown Hoyas to victory over the Houston Cougars. In 1985 Thompson was named Coach of the Year. He coached at Georgetown University from 1972 to 1999.
Thompson was a coach who set the bar high for his players on and off the basketball court. He coached Patrick Ewing, Allen Iverson, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutumbo. He became a mentor to many long after they left Georgetown and competitive basketball.
Thompson had a preference for players that had a passion for the game on the court. He once said, “you can calm down a fool before you can resurrect a corpse.”
He emphasized the power of habit, attitude and state of mind with his players. “If you think you are beaten you are. If you think you dare not, you won’t,” he once said.
“Big John Thompson is the single most important African American man in the history of D.C. sports,” Sia writer Clinton Yeats. In 1999 he was selected to be in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 27 seasons, Thompson compiled a coaching record of 596-239. Most importantly to Thompson, 97 percent of his players stayed four years and left Georgetown University with a college degree.
Thompson was born in Washington, D.C. and went on to play in the NBA for the Boston Celtics.
Thompson is survived by his three children, John Thompson III, who also coached basketball at Georgetown, Ronny Thompson and Tiffany Thompson. Thompson’s autobiography is due out in January 2021.
Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist for NNPA and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is also a political strategist as Principal of Win Digital Media LLC. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke
#NNPA BlackPress
Virginia High School Students Can Now Take Black History Courses
NNPA NEWSWIRE — “Black history is American history, but for too long, the story we have told was insufficient and inadequate,” Gov. Ralph Northam said in a news release. “The introduction of this groundbreaking course is a first step toward our shared goal of ensuring all Virginia students have a fuller, more accurate understanding of our history, and can draw important connections from those past events to our present day.”
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
Virginia students now can take an elective course focusing on African American history, Gov. Ralph Northam said on Thursday, Aug. 28.
The new courses are available in 16 of the state’s school divisions, including in Arlington and Prince William counties.
“Black history is American history, but for too long, the story we have told was insufficient and inadequate,” Gov. Northam said in a news release. “The introduction of this groundbreaking course is a first step toward our shared goal of ensuring all Virginia students have a fuller, more accurate understanding of our history, and can draw important connections from those past events to our present day.”
The full-credit course surveys African American history from precolonial Africa through the present day. It introduces students to African American history concepts, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and the civil rights era.
Students will also learn about African American voices, including many not traditionally highlighted, and their contributions to Virginia and America’s story.
According to the news release, the course is expected to challenge students to explore primary and secondary sources documenting the African American experience.
It includes a capstone project requiring students to conduct independent research on a question or problem of their choosing and demonstrate a deeper understanding of African American history.
“We can expect young Virginians to understand the enduring impacts of systemic racism only when they fully understand both the oppression experienced by African Americans and their significant contributions to STEM, the arts, education, law, and advocacy,” said Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni.
“As a history teacher, I know that this course is long overdue and is a first step toward telling a more inclusive story about the past and how it has shaped the present.”
In 2019, Gov. Northam signed an executive order to establish the Commission on African American History Education.
The Commission was charged with reviewing Virginia’s history standards, and the instructional practices, content, and resources to teach African American history in the Commonwealth.
The inclusion of African American history in high school classes in Virginia comes as protests continue in the aftermath of the police shootings of George Floyd in Minnesota, Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, and many others.
It also comes at a time when professional athletes and entertainers have stood in force behind the Black Lives Matter Movement in a push for social justice and all to understand the history of African Americans.
“The full history of Virginia is complex, contradictory, and often untold – and we must do a better job of making sure that every Virginia graduate enters adult life with an accurate and thorough understanding of our past, and the pivotal role that African Americans have played in building and perfecting our Commonwealth,” Gov. Northam stated.
“The important work of this Commission will help ensure that Virginia’s standards of learning are inclusive of African American history and allow students to engage deeply, drawing connections between historic racial inequities and their continuous influence on our communities today.”
#FIYAH
WATCH: #FIYAH! LIVESTREAM — 8.6.20 1PM ET — REP. BOBBY SCOTT
#FIYAH! LIVESTREAM — During his tenure in the Virginia General Assembly, Congressman Scott successfully sponsored laws critical to Virginians in education, employment, health care, social services, economic development, crime prevention and consumer protection. His legislative successes in the state legislature included laws that increased Virginia’s minimum wage, created the Governor’s Employment and Training Council and improved health care benefits for women, infants and children.
Congressman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott has represented Virginia’s third congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. Prior to his service in Congress, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1978 to 1983 and in the Senate of Virginia from 1983 to 1993.
During his tenure in the Virginia General Assembly, Congressman Scott successfully sponsored laws critical to Virginians in education, employment, health care, social services, economic development, crime prevention and consumer protection. His legislative successes in the state legislature included laws that increased Virginia’s minimum wage, created the Governor’s Employment and Training Council and improved health care benefits for women, infants and children.
Congressman Scott has the distinction of being the first African-American elected to Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia since Reconstruction and only the second African-American elected to Congress in Virginia’s history. Having a maternal grandfather of Filipino ancestry also gives him the distinction of being the first American with Filipino ancestry to serve as a voting member of Congress.
#NNPA BlackPress
NAACP Sues U.S. Education Secretary Over COVID-19 School Money
NNPA NEWSWIRE — The NAACP formally filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing DeVos of illegally changing the rules for allocating $13.2 billion in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) money to benefit wealthy private k-12 schools.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
The coronavirus pandemic has focused the nation’s attention on the essential role public schools play in families and communities’ lives.
The NAACP said it’s also exposed severe racial inequalities that continue to plague the country’s education system and disadvantaged students of color.
Rather than addressing those problems, NAACP President Derrick Johnson declared that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos “exploited the pandemic to promote her personal agenda of funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools and taking resources away from the schools and the students who need it most.”
“We simply can’t let this happen. So, we’re taking her to court,” Johnson announced.
The NAACP formally filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing DeVos of illegally changing the rules for allocating $13.2 billion in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) money to benefit wealthy private k-12 schools.
“Recently, Secretary DeVos issued regulations that would force public school districts to divert federal emergency relief funds from public schools and send them to private schools. By one estimate, over $1 billion would be lost to private schools under the rule,” Johnson declared.
“So, the NAACP filed a lawsuit along with public school families and school districts across the country, challenging this unfair, unequal, and unjust rule. We’ll fight this as hard as it takes – for as long as it takes – to protect our students, schools, and communities.”
The NAACP’s lawsuit suggests that the CARES Act, which was signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year, says explicitly that local school departments are to distribute the fund based on the number of Title I, or low-wealth students, in a particular school.
Congress allowed CARES funds to go to institutions that depend on tuition and donations because lawmakers said they recognized that some students from low-income families attend private schools.
The lawsuit claims the share going to private schools should have its basis on the number of Title I students attending those schools.
DeVos did not follow that rule, the NAACP contends, spelling out that hundreds of millions of dollars in CARES Act funds would immediately divert from public schools to affluent private schools.
The controversial education secretary reportedly holds a different interpretation of how local school districts should distribute the money.
Her interim final rule allows sharing the money equally with private schools based on the number of students in those schools, regardless of how many are Title I students.
“The Rule is as immoral as it is illegal,” NAACP lawyers argue.
The NAACP filed the lawsuit on behalf of a group of parents and their children, who are enrolled in economically disadvantaged public schools. The Pasadena, California, Unified School District, and Stamford, Connecticut, School District, joined the NAACP in the lawsuit asking for an injunction to prevent DeVos from immediately instituting her change to the rule.
“In this moment of crushing need for America’s public schools, the Rule directs public school districts to divert desperately needed CARES Act 1 funds to affluent students in private schools or face unlawful limitations on the way that those funds can be spent – both in direct contravention of the Act,” the lawsuit reads. “The Rule harms American children and subverts the will of Congress; it cannot stand.”
If allowed to proceed, the DeVos’ rule would change public schools, including some in which “80, 90 and 99 percent” of the students are from low-income families.
“She’s trying to increase allocation disproportionately for private schools over public schools in the midst of the debate over whether or not schools should reopen. It’s horrific what she’s doing,” Johnson told ABC News. “What will happen is you further take money away from children who are financially in need to benefit high-wealth children.”
#NNPA BlackPress
OP-ED: Returning to School in the Fall Isn’t Safe Without a Vaccine
CHICAGO DEFENDER — For CPS employees like myself who work with Preschool children ages 3-5, how are we supposed to ensure they maintain 6 feet from us and one another? How are we supposed to explain a pod to them? Preschool children are explorers, exploring everything and everyone around them. It’s how they learn and develop critical thinking and social-emotional skills. Exactly how does one explore inside a pod? Before the pandemic hit handwashing was a skill most struggled with remembering, so how are we supposed to drive the dire importance of it to them now from inside of a pod? I can tell you now that ten preschoolers kept inside a pod will be utter chaos and a COVID-19 Petri dish filled with sneezes, dirty hands, and soiled masks. If the masks even stay on past the first 5 minutes of class.
Chicago Public Schools proposed a tentative plan for students to return to in-person instruction in the Fall that gives parents an option to opt-out if they have concerns about the spread of COVID-19. Under the framework released by CPS, students would attend classes for two days and remotely the remaining three days. Students would be placed in pods of 10-15 students with assigned arrival and dismissal locations, and eat lunch where permitted inside the classroom. Students would also be assigned which two days they would attend to limit the number of students inside CPS facilities at one time.
This new framework comes as CPS attempts to return its students to some sense of normalcy in the Fall while trying to prevent further spread of the virus. As an employee of Chicago Public Schools, this sounds good in theory. However, is this a genuinely feasible plan? CPS states that they have put stringent cleaning and sanitation measures in place for all of its buildings and that PPE equipment will be available daily for all students, but will that be enough to keep everyone safe?
For CPS employees like myself who work with Preschool children ages 3-5, how are we supposed to ensure they maintain 6 feet from us and one another? How are we supposed to explain a pod to them? Preschool children are explorers, exploring everything and everyone around them. It’s how they learn and develop critical thinking and social-emotional skills. Exactly how does one explore inside a pod? Before the pandemic hit handwashing was a skill most struggled with remembering, so how are we supposed to drive the dire importance of it to them now from inside of a pod? I can tell you now that ten preschoolers kept inside a pod will be utter chaos and a COVID-19 Petri dish filled with sneezes, dirty hands, and soiled masks. If the masks even stay on past the first 5 minutes of class.
The same can be said for Kindergarten and 1st grade. This type of hybrid learning isn’t possible in primary grades and will also be a struggle for intermediate and middle school. I understand that everyone wants things to return to normal, but the normal we once knew is no longer. It is not worth the health of our children and school staff to push some political agenda. If CPS follows this model, there will be a massive spike in new Corona Virus cases, and our children will bear the brunt of it. Please understand that we miss our students. We miss their smiling faces. We miss talking with them face to face every day. We want to return to them, but we want it to be safe to do so. For them, for us, and our country.
Paula J. Shelton is a freelance writer living in Chicago. Follow her on social @beboldshineon.
The post OP-ED: Returning to School in the Fall Isn’t Safe Without a Vaccine. appeared first on Chicago Defender.
#NNPA BlackPress
Voter Suppression Goes to College
NNPA NEWSWIRE — If preliminary data estimates on the recent 2020 primaries in North Carolina are accurate, student voters on HBCU campuses must raise their turnout game come the general election this November.
A GDN Student Engagement Exclusive
By Cash Michaels and Peter Grear, Greater Diversity News
If preliminary data estimates on the recent 2020 primaries in North Carolina are accurate, student voters on HBCU campuses must raise their turnout game come the general election this November.
So says Dr. William Busa, founder of EQV Analytics, a ‘North Carolina-focused campaign consulting firm serving Democratic candidates with advanced campaign analytics.
Dr. Busa served as digital director to NC Associate Justice Anita Earls 2018 campaign to the state’s high court.
Cautioning that his numbers right now are “95% accurate” because all of the 2020 primary data has not been released yet by the NC Board of Elections, Dr. Busa says they are close enough to being conclusive for him to draw worthy conclusions.
Busa analyzed student voter turnout from ten North Carolina campuses, three of them HBCUs – N.C. A&T University, in Greensboro, Winston-Salem State University and North Carolina Central University in Durham. All of the campuses analyzed were in precincts dominated by undergraduate students, generally 18 to 22.
Dr. Busa broke his analysis of college voting into early voting (February 13-29th) and voting on Primary Day (March 3rd). Traditionally, the bulk of college student voting occurs during the two-week early voting period.
According to the data, statewide early voting was at 11.4%. At least seven of the ten NC universities tracked for student early voting did much better, with six of the top schools coming in with two to three times the state’s overall voter turnout (Duke was at 34%, for instance).
Winston-Salem State University yielded only an 11.7 student voter turnout, .3% more than the state turnout.
North Carolina Central University, however, could only muster 7.9% student voter turnout.
When the numbers are crunched for Primary Day, Dr. Busa noted that student voting dramatically drops because college students generally find it more difficult to vote then and prefer the more flexible 15-day early voting period.
As a result, because 66% of North Carolina voters vote on Primary day, and college students don’t, they effectively caught up percentage-wise with the high college voting, leaving only Duke University (34.3%) to exceed both groups (NC was at 30.6%) in total voter turnout percentages, Busa says.
NCCU came in at the end of the university list at just 8%. NC A&T came in fourth overall at 20.6%. WSSU was at 13.4%.
Busa says his analysis proves several things – college students are early voters. Either they vote early, or not at all.
Second, the analysis also shows why Republican lawmakers try to keep polling places off university campuses, hoping that by making getting to a polling place more difficult, it would dissuade students from voting.
“It’s a very potent voter suppression tool,” Dr. Busa says. All ten of the campuses analyzed had a campus polling place.
Busa says ultimately, college and university administrations must put more resources behind their campus GOTV (get out the vote) efforts, like Duke University, to get the same stellar results that Duke is getting.
However, students are not sitting still. They’re fighting back against the agents of voter suppression and they are being helped by the NC NAACP, offering guidance and resources and Greater Diversity News, offering publicity.
The results of Busa’s analysis reveals a failure to effectively mobilize Black students to educate, organized and mobilize as voters. However, blame for this failure must be borne by Black leaders and leadership organizations. The leaders and organizations include HBCU Alumni Associations, elected officials, Divine Nine and the always present Black church community. Also, to be included, are Black civil rights leaders and organizations of the past and present.
Also, we must recognize leaders and organizations that are stepping up and trying to make a difference. There are many that recognize that the failed status quo cannot and must not be accepted.
One response that is in the works, is a series of conference calls with student leaders on HBCU and Primarily White campuses (SGAs and BSUs). This call is being coordinated by the NC NAACP and Greater Diversity News. Its purpose is to give the student leaders an opportunity to discuss voting rights and their efforts to resist voter suppression.
The students at NCCU have developed a voter mobilization model and are offering it as a guide to other campuses, while at the same time seeking feedback and ideas on strategies that other students are using. It is important to note that the efforts of the NCCU students are fully supported by the NCCU National Alumni Association. A student/alumni collaborative is being urged as a consideration for all HBCUs.
Here are the updated college turnout numbers (through election night). Final analysis is due any day now.
TURNOUT (%)
DUKE UNIV 34.3
UNC CHAPEL HILL 24.7
NC STATE UNIV 21.2
NC A&T STATE UNIV 20.6
UNC CHARLOTTE 18.5
APPALACHIAN STATE UNIV 14.9
WINSTON-SALEM STATE UNIV 13.4
UNC GREENSBORO 10.2
EAST CAROLINA UNIV 8.0
NC CENTRAL UNIV 8.0
Follow the growing activism of student leaders and ACTC developments by signing-up for GDN’s free eNews publication at GreaterDiversity.com. For additional information email – colors@greaterdiversity.com.
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