Experts Detail How Student Loan Debt Is Strangling Black and Latino Students
Khanna says forgiving college debt would boost economy
(CBM) — Supporters of student loan forgiveness participated in a seminar last week that offered a deep dive into the debt crisis affecting about 30 percent of people who financed their education through federal borrowing programs.
One of the speakers at the seminar was Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive legislator who represents a Congressional district covering parts Silicon Valley. Khanna supports federal legislation that would forgive student debt, which has mushroomed into a more than $1 trillion problem. According to a Student Borrower Protection Center factsheet, student debt holders default at a rate four times higher than mortgage holders.
Ethnic Media Services, a San Francisco-based advocacy organization for minority-owned news publishers, organized the event.
Khanna said, in California, he believes the problem started ballooning during the years after Ronald Reagan’s governorship of California when the former president cut spending on higher education. Before that, state colleges had been practically…
