We must have student debt relief
By Randi Weingarten
Editor’s note: This post is adapted from comments AFT President Randi Weingarten submitted to the U.S. Department of Education on student debt relief in June 2023.
On behalf of the 1.7 million members of the American Federation of Teachers, I write in strong support of moving forward with broad-based student loan debt cancellation.
Our union represents workers in all corners of society including teachers, nurses and other healthcare professionals, higher education faculty and staff, and public employees in countless positions. Many of our members’ professions require an advanced degree that is often inaccessible because of the high cost of a college education.
For decades the AFT has been working to combat the student debt crisis and advocate on behalf of our members. Through countless surveys and the facilitation of thousands of student debt clinics, we have seen firsthand the implications that student debt has for the lives of our members. Whether this means postponing the purchase of a home, delaying the age of retirement, or waiting to start a family, one thing is certain: The attainment of a degree should not come with a lifetime “debt sentence.”
Many of our members’ professions require an advanced degree that is often inaccessible because of the high cost of a college education.
Teaching positions in both K-12 and higher education are plagued by low salaries. The burden of student debt on educators and members of other professions exacerbates staffing crises and dissuades individuals from entering these professions. The AFT’s May 2023 report titled “AFT’s Fight for Student Debt Forgiveness” details our members’ struggles to repay their student loans as well as the AFT’s successes in helping members get debt relief.
Furthermore, student debt disproportionately affects women and borrowers of color. Four years after graduation, Black borrowers hold, on average, $25,000 more in student loans than white borrowers. After 12 years, the loans held by Black borrowers increase to 113 percent of the original loan, on average, compared with a 65 percent increase experienced by white borrowers.
Given our decades long fight against the rising costs of the degrees our members need for their jobs, we have cheered the Biden administration’s efforts to lift this burden by any available avenue, including the creation of more-affordable payment plans and common sense improvements to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
The attainment of a degree should not come with a lifetime “debt sentence.”
However not all AFT members qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which is why strongly support President Joe Biden’s efforts to offer broad-based student loan debt cancellation.
Susan Vincent, a retired New York teacher and United Federation of Teachers member, is currently 78. “What’s really scary,” said Susan, “is if I were to have a health challenge and need medicine and have to make a choice between buying medicine and paying my student loan — if I didn’t pay my student loans, they’d garnish my Social Security. As a Pell grant recipient, I could receive a reduction of $20,000 from President Biden’s cancellation program [which was subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court], but if not, I will be 96 years old when I make my last student debt payment.” Borrowers like Susan are not eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness because they are no longer working, but they deserve relief and are relying on the administration to offer alternative pathways to relief.
The burden of student debt on educators and members of other professions exacerbates staffing crises and dissuades individuals from entering these professions.
Nicole Brun-Cottan is a physical therapist who works in the intensive care unit — including with COVID-19 patients at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Nicole is in her mid-40s, educated at the doctoral level required for entry into her field, working, on average, 40 hours a week or more, and living in her mother’s basement — all because of overwhelming student loan debt that holds her back from having her own home or saving for her future.
Susan and Nicole are just two of the more than 40 million student loan borrowers across the country who are drowning in student loan debt because of our broken system for financing higher education. We’re a country that tells people to go to college but has made student loans the only viable way to do that for too many people, and then has made the system for repaying that debt impossibly burdensome.
When student debt cancellation was announced last summer, more than 26 million people applied via the short, easy-to-use online form. The Department of Education moved quickly to data match and approve more than 16 million of those applicants. The enthusiasm for this program is still out there, and we want to help the department regain that momentum. The department must provide this debt cancellation as quickly as possible to as many people as possible, with as automatic a system as possible. This will make an enormous difference in the lives of my members, their families and the communities we serve.
