“I had exhausted my savings, lost my house, lost everything,”

-Kendra Brooks, a black single mother 4, was dealing with tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt with the thought in her mind that working hard and getting a degree would lead to success. Sadly, she isn’t the only person in America struggling with the same problem.

The total student loan debt in America amasses to a whopping 1.8 trillion dollars, with over 40 million Americans suffering with it. That’s more than double the amount of credit card debt in America. College and university students often keep this burden for most of their lives, many only paying their debt off decades after graduating. While there are a few programs to help lift debt, there aren’t nearly enough to help everyone suffering. While the rich and upper class can afford to pay for the most prestigious schools, minorities and the lower class are often left with crippling debt that can remain till the release of death. 

From the outside, it seems as if the only problem with having student loan debt is the debt itself. Unfortunately, dozens of other factors make the lives of those suffering a living hell. For the millions of people with student loan debt, there has to be some sort of system to help them manage it. To everyone’s surprise, the way companies manage student loan debt is horrendous. After the government completely cut out commercially operated banks from the federal student loan operation, the Department of Education (DOE) was “transformed” into a bank to manage loans. From just this, the DOE became the biggest bank in America in terms of loans. While this was done with relatively good intentions, the DOE was not structured neither to be a large bank nor to manage that much debt. The lack of preparedness created the need to outsource to loan servicers, which are private companies that are supposed to help individuals understand and manage their debt while also collecting payments. Yet, loan servicing corporations have continuously proven to be terrible for their clients. For example, a large loan servicer company by the name of Navient has been involved with numerous scandals, like overcharging troops and veterans, misleading people with disabilities, and intentionally telling their employees to keep calls very short just to maximize profit.

But hey, if the DOE (a government organization) controls which loan servicers get to be in contact with debtors, that means that bad companies can be regulated, right? Unfortunately, wrong in most cases. Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education in the US, fully supported private companies rather than the individuals attending schools. She made it extremely hard for students by making it more difficult to place regulations on loan servicers. Rather than protecting the vulnerable population of debtors, she protected private institutions and corporations.

Loan servicers are not the only painful setback given to people with student loan debt. Programs created by the government, like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness act, were enacted to try and encourage people to work in the public sector by saying they had a chance of paying their student loan debt off. This program also failed people. Of the 30,000 people that applied for that program, only 96 were accepted. This is much less than even one percent of those that applied. People worked in the public sector for a majority of their lives with the promise of loan forgiveness just to be ignored.

As usual, this crisis is an intersectional problem. Black debtors are systematically disadvantaged in regards to student loan debt. Black Americans hold less wealth in comparison to white Americans which is a clear pipeline to holding more debt. African Americans disproportionately enroll at for-profit educational institutions while also having lower graduation rates and higher debt-yet another burden that affects black Americans at a more severe level than the rest. 

The student loan debt crisis in America is only fueled by greedy corporations that turn a blind eye to the people they are supposed to help and the lack of action by the government that is supposed to protect them. This crisis prevents people from living their lives and entraps them in a prison of debt that continuously pushes them down. The government and public universities need to do better at helping their students and alumni.

Berman, Jillian. “’I Can’t Imagine the Day When I’m Not Paying.’ Black Women Are Being Crushed by the Student Debt Crisis – and Demanding Action.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 3 Nov. 2021, www.marketwatch.com/story/i-cant-imagine-the-day-when-im-not-paying-black-women-are-being-crushed-by-the-student-debt-crisis-and-demanding-action-11635948623.

Flannery, Mary Ellen. “The Making of the Student Debt Crisis, Explained.” NEA, 25 Oct. 2021, www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/making-student-debt-crisis-explained.

“Student Loans.” Patriot Act, created by Hasan Minhaj and Prasanth Venkataramanujam, Volume 2, Episode 4, Netflix, 2019.