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Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and

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Speaker 1: Kurtur Latino USC Left Latino USA. I'm Maria Inosa. We

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Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,

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Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media. And while the

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Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to

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Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino Studios United, Latino Front,

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Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.

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Speaker 1: I'm Maria Ino Jossa.

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Speaker 2: The way we got to debt cancelation was not because

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Speaker 2: of researchers. It was not because of policy makers, and

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Speaker 2: it sure was not because of elective officials. It was

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Speaker 2: because of borrowers coming together and really organizing and really

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Speaker 2: small numbers at first to show the absurdity of the

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Speaker 2: student loan system, and through their organizing, it's the only

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Speaker 2: reason we even know the phrase debt cancelation, and it's

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Speaker 2: the only reason now that millions of people have experienced

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Speaker 2: the filling of debt cancelation and is the reason why

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Speaker 2: we're in the moment where debt cancelation is feeling more

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Speaker 2: real than it ever has before.

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Speaker 1: From FUTU media and PRX, It's Latino USA like Maria

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Speaker 1: no Josa today the growing call to abolish student debt.

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Speaker 1: So I'm in the studio today with producer Julia Rocha.

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Speaker 3: Hey.

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Speaker 4: Who Hey Maria. So, I don't know if you remember

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Speaker 4: this media, but when I joined the team as a

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Speaker 4: little intern at Latino USA back in January of twenty twenty,

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Speaker 4: I was still in school at our shared alma mater,

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Speaker 4: Barnard College, and as a child of immigrants and first

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Speaker 4: generation college student, higher education was always framed to me

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Speaker 4: as like the avenue for upward mobility.

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Speaker 1: It's always framed that way, especially for children of immigrants.

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Speaker 1: It's like, got to go to school, No ifs, answer

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Speaker 1: butts for sure.

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Speaker 4: So I graduated the spring that the pandemic hit, and

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Speaker 4: as I tuned into my YouTube live broadcast virtual graduation.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so sad.

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Speaker 4: In my parents' living room in California, Oh god, I

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Speaker 4: was already thinking about the nineteen thousand dollars I had

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Speaker 4: taken out in federal student loans in order to attend

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Speaker 4: school and how I was going to pay that money back.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of money for a young person. So

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Speaker 1: it's like you can't really celebrate because you're like celebrating,

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Speaker 1: but you're also like, oh my god, I've got to

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Speaker 1: start paying this back right right.

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Speaker 4: And compared to some of my peers, it wasn't even

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Speaker 4: that much. I had a lot of friends graduate with

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Speaker 4: six figures of student loan debt. It's just a wild feeling,

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Speaker 4: like an anxiety that starts to overshadow everything else. The

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Speaker 4: main question on your mind isn't what am I going

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Speaker 4: to do to build a fulfilling life or make a

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Speaker 4: positive impact on my community. For many people, it starts

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Speaker 4: to become how on earth am I going to pay

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Speaker 4: this back? And of course this is an issue that

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Speaker 4: disproportionately impacts black and brown communities. Some studies show almost

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Speaker 4: ninety percent of black students have to take out loans,

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Speaker 4: and around seventy three percent of LATINX students takeout loans,

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Speaker 4: compared to sixty six percent of white students. Studies also

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Speaker 4: show that LATINX students who grew up in economically vulnerable

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Speaker 4: communities might see student loans as a financial burden that

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Speaker 4: can affect their families financial stability, choosing to drop out

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Speaker 4: of school or skip college altogether. But because of the pandemic,

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Speaker 4: I actually haven't had to pay back a cent of

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Speaker 4: my student loan so far, because in March of twenty twenty,

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Speaker 4: the Department of Education issued a moratorium on student loan

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Speaker 4: payments and interest. To help our students and their families,

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Speaker 4: I've waived interest in all student loans held by federal

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Speaker 4: government agencies and that will be until further notice.

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Speaker 1: Right, I remember that. I mean it was a big deal. Also,

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Speaker 1: of course, twenty twenty was a presidential election year, so

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of motivation politically to do this

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Speaker 1: because student debt cancelation was a big talking point. Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden running on a platform basically of at least partial

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Speaker 1: student debt cancelation, and if you look back at the

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Speaker 1: ads from his campaign, you can see it was definitely

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Speaker 1: appealing to bring out young voters.

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Speaker 5: I was really terrified of going into debt after I

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Speaker 5: graduated high school. The fact that Joe Biden wants to

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Speaker 5: forgive student debts is something I'm excited about voting for me.

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Speaker 4: So I started to get interested in the issue, and

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Speaker 4: I wanted to know how we got to this moment.

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Speaker 4: My first question was, how on earth did we get

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Speaker 4: to a place where the US government holds around one

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Speaker 4: point six trillion dollars in student loan debt. As I

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Speaker 4: did more research, I found that just a few decades ago,

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Speaker 4: public college used to mean free college. I spoke with

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Speaker 4: doctor j Leo Mustapha Bishop. He's a leading researcher on

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Speaker 4: anti racism, racism and higher education and student loan policy.

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Speaker 2: We switched to student loans of the exact moment that

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Speaker 2: low income people, black and brown communities were enrolling.

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Speaker 6: Right into the buildings as a mass people to come

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Speaker 6: out of class.

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Speaker 2: You also have the sixties and the seventies being not

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Speaker 2: only a time of social movements and social unrest in

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Speaker 2: the country, but particularly on college campuses. You are seeing

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Speaker 2: everything from free speech to racial justice movements to apart

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Speaker 2: time battles, all planning out on college campuses.

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Speaker 4: Julil says that in the wake of student organizing, there

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Speaker 4: was a backlash, and a vocal figure in that opposition

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Speaker 4: was California Governor and then President of the United States

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Speaker 4: Ronald Reagan.

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Speaker 5: Plain truth of the matter is this has to stop,

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Speaker 5: and it has to stop like the day before yesterday,

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Speaker 5: and it's going to be stopped whatever it takes.

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Speaker 4: During his time as governor of California, Reagan called for

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Speaker 4: an end to free state college tuition, and then when

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Speaker 4: he was elected President, Reagan continued to cut the education

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Speaker 4: budget as well as spending for other social programs, and

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Speaker 4: instead of government funding, student loans became the norm in

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Speaker 4: the decades to come, and I.

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Speaker 2: Think a lot of that was because student loans were

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Speaker 2: imagined as this way to kind of discipline this new

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Speaker 2: wave of students who didn't fit the former profile of advantage,

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Speaker 2: of privilege, of coming from the elite backgrounds.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I think what I'm understanding is that as

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Speaker 1: student debt essentially becomes a bigger part of how we

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Speaker 1: pay for higher education, that meant that there were now

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Speaker 1: other actors who were in the picture, Like, for example,

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Speaker 1: loan companies started popping up, and like debt collectors, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So, student loan companies like sally May signed multi

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Speaker 4: million dollar contracts with the federal government, and in these agreements,

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Speaker 4: if a borrower couldn't pay the loan back, the government

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Speaker 4: would step in and cover the cost. So not only

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Speaker 4: would the loan company not lose money, they were also

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Speaker 4: guaranteed a profit on each loan, which gave many of

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Speaker 4: these companies a reason to give out large sums of

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Speaker 4: money regardless of whether a borrower could actually pay it back.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm sorry, but this sounds like a crisis

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Speaker 1: just waiting to explode.

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Speaker 3: Yep.

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Speaker 4: When the two thousand and eight recession hit, it became

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Speaker 4: clear that many of these loans would never be repaid,

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Speaker 4: and the student loan industry received one of the first

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Speaker 4: big bailouts.

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Speaker 1: It was the worst day on Wall Street since the

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Speaker 1: crash of nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 7: The height and financial turmoil that we have experienced of

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Speaker 7: late may well lengthen the period of week economic performance

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Speaker 7: and further increase the risk to growth.

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Speaker 4: So after the recession, the government made some adjustments. The

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Speaker 4: government now gives out loans directly, but long companies still

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Speaker 4: profit from servicing the loans. Here's Julie Bishop again.

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Speaker 2: Loan servicers. They don't own your loan, lie that they

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Speaker 2: get paid to service it. So they get paid to

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Speaker 2: call you, to call you again, to enroll you in

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Speaker 2: programs to make sure you're making your payments. We paid

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Speaker 2: debt collectors when you aren't making your payments to come

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Speaker 2: after you, paid private law firms to come after you.

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Speaker 1: You know, so you realize that there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of players. That there's a lot of money at stake

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Speaker 1: in the student debt industry now, and it's so big

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Speaker 1: that it's almost as if a lot of people have

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Speaker 1: just accepted that this is the way it's going to

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Speaker 1: be right, that it's a part of everyday life in

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Speaker 1: the United States of America. But there's been a lot

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Speaker 1: of demand for.

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Speaker 4: Change, definitely, So as I started digging into the issue,

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Speaker 4: I also wanted to know the story behind the call

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Speaker 4: for student debt abolition and how it's become a part

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Speaker 4: of our mainstream conversation.

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Speaker 8: Today marks what activists are calling one T Day, the

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Speaker 8: day US student debt reaches one trillion dollars.

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Speaker 4: In twenty twelve, just a bit over a decade ago,

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Speaker 4: people came out to protests that federal student loans hit

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Speaker 4: one trillion dollars. The demand from protesters was the same

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Speaker 4: demand as many advocates today, cancel all student debt and

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Speaker 4: make college tuition free. But at the time the demand

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Speaker 4: was unheard of, and coverage of the protest from across

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Speaker 4: the political spectrum framed the demand as lofty and naive.

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Speaker 1: So I'm wondering what did happen after that protest ten

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Speaker 1: years ago. And what did in fact help to move

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Speaker 1: the needle on the conversation? Was it the activism?

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Speaker 4: Student activism has been key in changing the conversation. And

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Speaker 4: today we're going to hear the stories of students who've

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Speaker 4: been speaking openly about their debt and demanding change. And

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Speaker 4: we're going to start with the story of Nathan Horns,

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Speaker 4: who was part of what some say is the first

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Speaker 4: student debt strike in US history, which happened back in

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Speaker 4: twenty fifteen. Nathan went to a for profit college which

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Speaker 4: was notorious for putting profit over student but what he

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Speaker 4: discovered through his activism was that the problem was deeper

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Speaker 4: than the school itself. It was the student loan system

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Speaker 4: that allowed it to thrive. And as students realized that

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Speaker 4: their debt was not a personal problem but a systemic issue,

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Speaker 4: they began to demand systemic change.

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Speaker 1: Who I'm sorry that you have debt, but on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, as a journalist, I'm really glad that you're

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Speaker 1: doing this story, so I want to hear it. Let's

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Speaker 1: take a listen.

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Speaker 9: My name is Nathan Horns. I am from Columbia, Missouri.

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Speaker 4: In two thousand and eight, just as the nation was

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Speaker 4: plunged into an economic recession. Nathan Horns, an African American

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Speaker 4: eighteen year old, had recently graduated from high school in Missouri.

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Speaker 4: He moved to California to pursue his dream of becoming

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Speaker 4: a pop star.

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Speaker 9: I just wanted to be a member of a boy band,

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Speaker 9: Like I thought I was going to be like the

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Speaker 9: next member of like Endsye or Backstreet Boys. Those are

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Speaker 9: my boys. Love them seeing them live like one hundred times.

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Speaker 4: His mom gave him a clear ultimatum. Nathan had two

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Speaker 4: years to make it in the music industry with his parents'

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Speaker 4: financial support.

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Speaker 9: After the two years was up, she's like, hey, you're

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Speaker 9: not financially stable. We need you to go to school.

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Speaker 9: Both of my parents went to state schools, so my

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Speaker 9: parents didn't take out any loans. My mother and my

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Speaker 9: father are both college graduates, and it was very important

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Speaker 9: to them that their children went to college.

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Speaker 4: Nathan was feeling the pressure from his parents, and then

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Speaker 4: one day while he was watching TV, he saw a

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Speaker 4: commercial for Everest College.

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Speaker 10: I was looking for work and for six months, I

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Speaker 10: still can't find a job.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know what else did at high ChEls.

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Speaker 11: Everest, your commercials are actually real, I'm not an actor.

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Speaker 3: You have to call try it out. That never's theirs

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Speaker 3: for you.

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Speaker 4: Everst College was a for profit college. It was owned

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Speaker 4: by Corinthian Colleges, Incorporated, a massive corporation based in California.

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Speaker 4: A for profit college is a college owned and operated

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Speaker 4: by a private company or business. They're often managed by

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Speaker 4: investors and stakeholders, and the profit they make is often

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Speaker 4: used for non educational purposes, like paying shareholders and executives

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Speaker 4: lucrative salaries. Coming out of the recession, the labor market

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Speaker 4: was in shambles and more and more people were looking

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Speaker 4: to hire education to better their situation. Companies like Corinthian

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Speaker 4: saw this as an opportunity, advertising aggressively in black and

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Speaker 4: brown communities and making the dream of a college degree

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Speaker 4: feel accessible.

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Speaker 9: I just was like, Hey, these are colleges that are

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Speaker 9: near where I live. Let me try to enroll.

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Speaker 4: Even though Nathan thought he was enrolling in a local school,

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Speaker 4: Corinthian had one hundred and five campuses across the country

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Speaker 4: and online with over one hundred thousand students. So Nathan

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Speaker 4: called the number on the screen that day a hold

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Speaker 4: of a recruiter. Then, for weeks on end, his phone

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Speaker 4: wouldn't stop ringing with calls from the recruiters at.

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Speaker 9: Everest, and they were saying like, Hey, Nathan, we really

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Speaker 9: want you to come and check the school out. There's

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Speaker 9: no pressure, just come in. We'll show you the school,

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Speaker 9: you know, see if it's a good fit for you.

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Speaker 4: Finally, Nathan, along with his older sister Natasha, decided to

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Speaker 4: get on the bus and check the school out, not

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Speaker 4: far from where they were living in Los Angeles at

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Speaker 4: the time. Nathan and Natasha's dream was to start a

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Speaker 4: recording label in music camp for kids.

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Speaker 9: When we finally get there, we sit down with the

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Speaker 9: recruiter and she basically says, Hey, if you don't sign

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Speaker 9: up today, you're going to have to wait six months

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Speaker 9: to enroll in school. She knew exactly what to say.

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Speaker 9: I just felt nervous.

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Speaker 4: So Nathan filled out the paperwork right there on the spot,

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Speaker 4: enrolling in Everest. At the time, Everest had one of

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Speaker 4: the highest for profit tuition rates in the country. For example,

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Speaker 4: a two year degree in paralegal studies at the campus

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Speaker 4: that Nathan went to cost about forty one thousand dollars

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Speaker 4: compared to twenty four hundred dollars at the nearby community college.

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Speaker 9: Going into Everest, it was not like your normal state school.

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Speaker 9: There's not all these extracurricular activities. There's not a sports team,

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Speaker 9: there's not a mask on. You're just kind of here

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Speaker 9: to do the work.

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Speaker 4: In twenty eleven, when Nathan was enrolled at Everest, twenty

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Speaker 4: six percent of undergraduates at for profit schools were black,

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Speaker 4: compared to sixteen percent at public and private colleges. There

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Speaker 4: were similar trends in LATINX student enrollment.

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Speaker 9: You could definitely tell that they were targeting African American

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Speaker 9: and Latino men and women, black and brown mothers.

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Speaker 4: Even though for profit schools aren't public institutions, they still

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Speaker 4: get the vast majority of their revenue from federal funding.

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Speaker 4: How federal student loans for profit colleges like Everest explicitly

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Speaker 4: targeted low income and military students who qualified for federal

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Speaker 4: financial aid and student loans, so even though most students

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Speaker 4: couldn't pay the high tuition price upfront, they could take

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Speaker 4: out a loan from the federal government. In the case

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Speaker 4: of Corinthian, over eighty percent of their total revenue was

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Speaker 4: covered by these federal funds, and to cover the rest,

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Speaker 4: Corinthian turned to private loans with incredibly high interest rates.

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Speaker 4: Nathan remembers going to the financial aid office where he

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Speaker 4: was given a mountain of paperwork.

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Speaker 9: They don't give you time to read any documents or

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Speaker 9: anything like that. They're just like, Hey, don't worry about that,

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Speaker 9: We're going to get you scholarships. Where are the scholarships. Oh,

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Speaker 9: they came in the form of a student loan that

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Speaker 9: we never told you about. Congratulations, you're in debt.

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Speaker 4: Although the financial aid staff spoke about these loans as

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Speaker 4: quote unquote scholarships, Nathan says the school pulled out both

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Speaker 4: federal student loans as well as private loans, all without

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Speaker 4: his informed consent, and he would soon find out his

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Speaker 4: story was not unique.

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino, USA, Nathan embarks on a journey

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Speaker 1: to hold fraudulent for profit schools accountable, but what he

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Speaker 1: encounters is much bigger than he could have imagined. Stay

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Speaker 1: with us, not yes, Hey, we're back. So when we

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Speaker 1: left off, we were hearing the story of Nathan Horns.

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Speaker 1: He attended Everest College, which is a for profit school

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Speaker 1: owned by Corinthian College's Inc. It's a company that targets

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Speaker 1: low income and vulnerable students of color and brings them

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Speaker 1: into expensive college programs. Producer Juyiro Chai is going to

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Speaker 1: pick up the story from here.

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Speaker 4: In twenty ten, Nathan had enrolled in Everest College to

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Speaker 4: study business management with the hopes of starting a recording

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Speaker 4: label in music camp for kids with his sister. Although

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Speaker 4: Nathan couldn't afford the school's tuition, he says, the financial

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Speaker 4: aid officer assured him that his tuition would be covered

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Speaker 4: through grants, But Nathan soon found out he was actually

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Speaker 4: expected to pay this money back because these so called

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Speaker 4: grants were actually student loans taken out without his consent.

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Speaker 9: No one knew about the loans. We didn't know about

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Speaker 9: the loans until six months before the loans were due.

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Speaker 4: And it's not like the federal government was unaware that

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Speaker 4: for profit schools like Everest were doing this. In twenty twelve,

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Speaker 4: while Nathan was in his second year of school, the

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Speaker 4: US Senate published a one thousand page report outlining the

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Speaker 4: many ways students were being misled and taken advantage of,

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Speaker 4: and the way federal money was funding these institutions. It stated,

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Speaker 4: federal taxpayers are investing billions of dollars a year in

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Speaker 4: companies that operate for profit colleges. The report also pointed

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Speaker 4: out that the vast majority of students left with student

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Speaker 4: loan debt that would follow them throughout their lives, and

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Speaker 4: although some elected officials began to take note, the school

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Speaker 4: stayed open for several more years.

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Speaker 12: This morning, my office filed suit against Corinthian Colleges in

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Speaker 12: what can only be described as a for profit college

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Speaker 12: predatory scheme.

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Speaker 4: Then, in twenty thirteen, Kamala Harris, who was Attorney General

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Speaker 4: of California at the time, sued Corinthian.

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Speaker 12: Essentially, we are talking about Corinthian colleges taking advantage of

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Speaker 12: Californians who simply aspire to achieve the American dream.

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Speaker 4: All of this was going on just as Nathan was

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Speaker 4: getting ready to graduate from Everest in May of twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 4: Nathan arrived at the church where his graduation was taking place.

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Speaker 4: Nathan remembers Everest officials guided excited graduates into one room

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Speaker 4: while family and friends filtered into the auditorium.

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Speaker 9: As we're in this room putting on our caps and gaps,

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Speaker 9: incomes the president of our location and he tells us, hey,

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Speaker 9: we need you to sign this form that says you

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Speaker 9: won't try to sue the school if you don't get

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Speaker 9: a job. They then tell us, if you don't sign

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Speaker 9: this paper, we will then make it so that you

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Speaker 9: don't walk today. So I just was like confused, and

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Speaker 9: other people were crying and signing the paper.

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Speaker 4: It was only after graduation that Nathan learned he owed

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Speaker 4: sixty eight thousand dollars plus interest in student loans. Nathan

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Speaker 4: was twenty four years old, unemployed, and expected to start

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Speaker 4: paying back over six hundred dollars a month for his

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Speaker 4: student loans.

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Speaker 9: Immediately after graduation, We're all like, what did we just sign?

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Speaker 9: What did we just do? Did we just sign our

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Speaker 9: rights away? We need to figure something out.

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Speaker 4: Unsure what to do next, Nathan and a few friends

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Speaker 4: from Everest began a Facebook group for other Everest students

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Speaker 4: to connect and share experiences. He called the group the

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Speaker 4: Everest Avengers.

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Speaker 9: It's so true because you know, avengers assemble. We got together,

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Speaker 9: we created the change we wanted to see.

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Speaker 4: Nathan and his friends started calling an emailing former students,

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Speaker 4: and when they had enough people together, they gathered at

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Speaker 4: a local coffee shop a few blocks away from the

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Speaker 4: Everest campus they'd attended.

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Speaker 9: When we first started having our meetings at Clatch Coffee.

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Speaker 9: We were just sitting there telling our stories.

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Speaker 4: Although the meeting started small with just over a dozen students,

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Speaker 4: by the summer after graduation, Nathan says they were gathering

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Speaker 4: upwards of one hundred students at each meeting.

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Speaker 9: Of course, this is a very small coffee shop, so

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Speaker 9: they had this nice patio area and once a week

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Speaker 9: we just go out there and just get with our

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Speaker 9: laptops and do research.

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Speaker 4: Then, in late May of twenty fourteen, a librarian at

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Speaker 4: Everest Campus Nathan went to abruptly resigned and started talking

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Speaker 4: to the media about Everest predatory recruitment tactics. At the

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Speaker 4: time that this librarian was blowing the whistle on Everest,

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Speaker 4: a group of organizers calling themselves Strike Debt reached out

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Speaker 4: to her. Strike Debt got its start in twenty twelve,

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Speaker 4: forming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In twenty eleven,

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Speaker 4: they were exploring the relationship between household debt and racial

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Speaker 4: capitalism and asking themselves what a debt strike could look like.

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Speaker 4: Hannah Appel, a graduate student at Columbia University at the time,

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Speaker 4: was organizing with Strike Debt.

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Speaker 13: What is withholding our payments look like, who would that

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Speaker 13: give us power over? How could that potentially change our

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Speaker 13: material conditions? And of course when we hear the language

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Speaker 13: of strike, the place that we're most familiar with that

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Speaker 13: language is in a labor union, as in a workers union,

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Speaker 13: and wright workers alone or vulnerable, but together workers have

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Speaker 13: the power to withhold their labor to make demands.

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Speaker 4: Strike Debt got in touch with the librarian and asked

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Speaker 4: if she knew of any students organizing around their debt.

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Speaker 4: The librarian, who had seen Nathan's Facebook group, reached out

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Speaker 4: to him.

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Speaker 9: She found me on Facebook and was like, Hey, there's

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Speaker 9: this group. She explained what Occupy Wall Street was. Because

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Speaker 9: I'm like, I'm just trying to be a pop star.

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Speaker 9: I have no idea what any of that even means,

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Speaker 9: Like I've never even been to Wall Street.

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Speaker 4: Nathan passed on his contact info. Hannah and the other

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Speaker 4: Strike Debt members reached out to Nathan and organized a

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Speaker 4: meeting between the Strike Debt crew and the group of

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Speaker 4: students Nathan had been organizing.

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Speaker 9: And that was the first time many of us discovered

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Speaker 9: about the Department of Education what student loans actually are,

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Speaker 9: and it was such an eye opening experience.

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Speaker 4: As Nathan met with the members of Strike Debt in

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Speaker 4: the twenty fourteen and began to learn about the government's

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Speaker 4: involvement in Corinthian's predatory lending. The US Department of Education

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Speaker 4: started looking closely into Corinthian Colleges in July of twenty fourteen. Then,

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Speaker 4: under an agreement with the Department of Education, Corinthian Colleges

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Speaker 4: announced it would put eighty five of its US campuses

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Speaker 4: up for sale and close the remaining dozen.

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Speaker 1: School is over for thousands of Southern California students. They've

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Speaker 1: just learned their for profit colleges are suddenly closed. While

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Speaker 1: students were blindsided this morning when they opened an email

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Speaker 1: that said that their campus is closed starting now indefinitely.

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Speaker 4: Strike Debt, now named Debt Collective, brought together a group

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Speaker 4: of fifteen Corinthian College students from across the country to

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Speaker 4: spend a weekend together in San Francisco.

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Speaker 9: Being in that room was super powerful with all these

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Speaker 9: other students who share different backgrounds but very similar stories.

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Speaker 4: As students shared their stories, they realized they had a

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Speaker 4: lot in common. They all had a debt they couldn't pay,

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Speaker 4: but they were suffering the consequences alone. Here's Hannah Appel

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Speaker 4: of the Debt Collective again.

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Speaker 13: So what if they all said, not only could we

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Speaker 13: not pay as individuals, but we affirmatively collectively assert that

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Speaker 13: we won't pay because this debt is fraudulent.

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Speaker 4: So the fifteen students decided to go on strike.

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Speaker 9: We won't pay.

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Speaker 3: We are agrediancy.

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Speaker 9: By the time we announced the Corinthian fifteen, we had

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Speaker 9: already become the Corinthian one hundred.

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Speaker 7: Fifteen former students of the former for profit Corinthian Colleges

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Speaker 7: system have launched what they say is a nation's first

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Speaker 7: student debt strike.

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Speaker 13: Thousands of college students striking.

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Speaker 14: That now a group known as a Corinthian one hundred

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Speaker 14: has gone on strike.

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Speaker 9: It's all over news stations all over the world. We

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Speaker 9: were in the Washington Post, the Times, it was everywhere.

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Speaker 4: Nathan was fired up seeing the strike build momentum.

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Speaker 9: I'm going to Quarius, so you know, things like this

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Speaker 9: really kind of resonate. We're going to be the grinth

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Speaker 9: in fifteen. We're going to get out there. We're pounding

442
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 9: the pavement. Somebody gave me a bullhorn.

443
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 3: I'm ready.

444
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 4: As the Decollective was helping to organize the students. They

445
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 4: also reached out to Luke Heron a student at NYU law.

446
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 15: If we're organizing around their debt, who do they primarily

447
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 15: owe the debt to that we're talking about, Well, it's

448
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 15: to the federal government.

449
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 4: Luke realized that the legal document that ruled their debt

450
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 4: was the Higher Education Act of nineteen sixty five.

451
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 15: And so what I did is I literally printed out

452
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 15: the Higher Education Act. And it is not an easy read,

453
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 15: and at least it's very long and complicated statutory scheme.

454
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,959
Speaker 4: As Luke looked through the long document, he found a

455
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 4: clause that made him pause. It's called borrower defense to repayment,

456
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 4: which states that borrowers have a right to defend themselves

457
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 4: against the collection of a debt if the debt was

458
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:11,719
Speaker 4: issued in a fraudulent manner.

459
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 15: And so it occurred to me that that seemed pretty

460
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 15: directly on point to the situation here. It was almost

461
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 15: suspicious at first, Why isn't something happening about this? It

462
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 15: seemed a little too perfect.

463
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 4: Even though the law was technically there, there was no

464
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 4: form you could fill out, and the Department of Education

465
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 4: didn't have any type of infrastructure to address these claims.

466
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 15: It became obvious to us. They have a strong institutional

467
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 15: bias against doing this because the Department of Education with

468
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 15: respect to higher education is primarily set up to collect debts,

469
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 15: and so this is a way to stop itself from collecting.

470
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 4: But Luke saw this lack of infrastructure as a possibility.

471
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 15: There was no legal process in place to make that happen,

472
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 15: so we could make it up. So my thought was,

473
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 15: let's design a way. I'm applying to have your debt canceled.

474
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 15: That's as easy as possible, but that also speaks the

475
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 15: language of the Department of Education.

476
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 4: Lucan other collaborators created an online form that asked students

477
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 4: simple questions about their experience at Corinthian colleges. The resulting

478
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 4: PDF was a legal argument ready to present to the

479
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 4: Department of Education.

480
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 15: So if you say, you know, the loan officer lied

481
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 15: to me about you know, whether I was taken on

482
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 15: loans they said it was going to be grants, then

483
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 15: we plugged that into a claim about misstatements about financial aid,

484
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:35,199
Speaker 15: and then the resulting PDF document is a legal pleading.

485
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 15: Therefore Department of Education cancel this debt.

486
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 4: Nathan and the other Corinthian fifteen students were some of

487
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 4: the first to use the tool. The Debt Collective then

488
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 4: published the tool on their website and circulated the link

489
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 4: on Facebook groups like the one Nathan had created. Hundreds

490
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 4: of students began filling out the form.

491
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 15: You have to remember that when people are filling these out,

492
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 15: there's no way to submit them to the Department of Education.

493
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 15: So we're just like seeing them fill them out and

494
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 15: then we have them right and we developed all of

495
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 15: these information security procedures. We're very serious about protecting people's privacy,

496
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 15: but we were like, well, what do we do? How

497
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 15: do we submit them?

498
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 4: Then in March of twenty fifteen, just a month after

499
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 4: the Corinthian fifteen had gone public with their dead strike,

500
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 4: they met with several government officials, including representatives from the

501
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 4: Department of Education and Consumer Financial Protection in Washington, DC.

502
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 3: So we're here at the state blog.

503
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 4: Nathan was excited to go to Washington, DC and capture

504
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 4: the moment for his YouTube blogubal.

505
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:38,719
Speaker 3: Meetings and things like that. It's going to be super awesome.

506
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 9: We're doing things that has actually never been done before.

507
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 3: It has We're changing the way that people think.

508
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 9: About student debt, and that's what is super important.

509
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 4: As they prepared for the meeting, Luke decided to print

510
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 4: out the over two hundred borrower defense claims the Corinthian

511
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 4: students had filled out.

512
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 15: And I got a paper box and I spray painted

513
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 15: it read and I put the applications in it, and

514
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 15: then brought it to DC with me and we literally

515
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 15: plopped it on the desk in front of the Undersecretary

516
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 15: for Higher Education in the Department of Education. And that

517
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 15: was how we submitted the first applications. And our argument

518
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 15: at every point was don't look at these applications individually,

519
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 15: look at them as evidence of a systemic problem, and

520
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 15: deal with the problem systemically.

521
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 4: By creating this online tool and generating hundreds of legal pleadings,

522
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 4: the Department of Education was forced to create a way

523
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 4: to deal with these claims. Eventually, the department created their

524
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 4: own online tool, which looked a lot like the one

525
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 4: the Deck Collective had created.

526
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 15: It was a victory in a certain way, because if

527
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 15: we hadn't designed our own application that's like the easiest

528
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 15: possible way to apply, they would have made some ridiculous

529
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 15: document that would have required all these affidavits and a notary.

530
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 4: Although the effort had started by focusing only on Corinthian Colleges,

531
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 4: it soon expanded to other for profit schools like itt

532
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 4: Tech and the Art Institutes. In just over a year

533
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 4: and a half, the Department of Education reports over eighty

534
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 4: two thousand students use their website to file their claims. Then,

535
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 4: in May of twenty fifteen, two months after the Corinthian

536
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 4: fifteen members met with government officials, Corinthian Colleges Incorporated shut

537
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 4: down and filed for bankruptcy, reporting less than twenty million

538
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 4: dollars in assets and one hundred and forty three million

539
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 4: dollars in debt. As the for profit giant finally collapsed,

540
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 4: students waited to see what this would mean for the

541
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 4: thousands of dollars they had taken out in loans to

542
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 4: attend these schools.

543
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 9: That's when we first started seeing people get their debt discharged.

544
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 9: And I'm like, okay, but I was one of the

545
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 9: first people to fill this form out. I am trying

546
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 9: to figure out why my debt has not been discharged.

547
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 9: What's happening, Obama? Question mark exclamation point start?

548
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 3: What's going on?

549
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 9: You need to call me some any email, whatever it takes,

550
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 9: I'm available.

551
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 4: It would be over a year of uncertainty before Nathan

552
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 4: received any information about the sixty eight thousand dollars in

553
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 4: loans he had dangling over his head.

554
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 9: I was living from pillar to post, as my mom

555
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 9: would say, sleeping on couches with friends, family members, things

556
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 9: like that. I got an email on February seventeenth, twoenty seventeen,

557
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 9: my birthday, from the Department of Education telling me that

558
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 9: I owed zero dollars. I was just mind blown. I

559
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 9: started crying.

560
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 4: Nathan was hopeful that maybe this strike would lead to

561
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 4: massive debt cancelation for everyone.

562
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 9: I'm like, maybe they'll get rid of all of it

563
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 9: and none of us will have to worry about it.

564
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 9: That has yet to happen, however, I thought, and I

565
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 9: was hopeful that that could happen because I just wanted

566
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 9: everyone to feel the same joy that I felt.

567
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 4: Nathan was surprised to learn that not even all Corinthian

568
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 4: students had their debts discharged, as the Department of Education

569
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 4: processed each claim one by one.

570
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 9: My debt has been discharged, but my sister, who went

571
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 9: to the school at the exact same time as me,

572
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 9: her debt has yet to be discharged. I'm fighting for

573
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 9: my older sister. I'm fighting for my younger sister. I'm

574
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 9: fighting for the other students in Corinthian. I'm fighting for

575
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 9: everyone because until all student loans have been discharged, I'm

576
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 9: not gonna stop.

577
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 4: For nearly seven years, since twenty fifteen, Nathan remained involved

578
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 4: with the Debt Collective, advocating for the cancelation of all

579
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 4: student debt. Then, in June of twenty twenty two, the

580
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 4: Biden administration announced that they would cancel all federal student

581
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 4: debt of former Corinthian College students. That's nearly five hundred

582
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 4: and sixty thousand borrowers. It's the largest one time discharge

583
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 4: of debt ever made by the Department of Education. As

584
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 4: soon as he heard the news, Nathan says he texted

585
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 4: his older sister, Natasha, who had also gone to Everest.

586
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,439
Speaker 4: Then a few days later, he gave her a call.

587
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:41,879
Speaker 3: Hey, Tod, how are you doing?

588
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 11: Hello Nathan. I'm doing good.

589
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 3: How are you. I'm doing well.

590
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 9: It's so good to hear from you.

591
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 4: Natasha recalls what she felt when she read Nathan's message.

592
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 11: I actually got a text from you, and I cried.

593
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 11: I'm not gonna lie. I was just so happy and

594
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 11: I was never disappointed or upset that you had got

595
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 11: your loans forgiven and I hadn't gotten mine forgiven, because

596
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 11: the whole point of the fight was to not just

597
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 11: fight for ourselves, but to fight for everybody and for

598
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 11: the people who couldn't get up and fight for themselves.

599
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 4: Natasha had remained on debt strike since twenty fifteen, and

600
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 4: that meant debt collectors wouldn't stop calling her.

601
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 11: Anytime a debt collector tried to call me, I'd tell

602
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 11: them it was a fraudulent call, and I would hang

603
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 11: up the phone. I decided to be in the red.

604
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 11: You know, it messes up your credit score when you're

605
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 11: in debt. So I'm not able to get a car,

606
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 11: I can't buy a house, I can't get property, I

607
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 11: can't do things to own a business. It did stop me,

608
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 11: but it also just made me fight harder.

609
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 4: Now, with her loans finally off her shoulders, Natasha has

610
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 4: big plans.

611
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 11: I want land, I want a property. I want my

612
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 11: mom to have a business. I want my brother to

613
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 11: have a business. You know, I can finally set forth

614
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,240
Speaker 11: my actual life. And it took most of my twenties,

615
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 11: if not all of my twenties, to get here because

616
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,399
Speaker 11: I'm now almost thirty four years old.

617
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 4: The victory was not only for all Corinthian students. It

618
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 4: also proved that the government does have the authority to

619
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 4: cancel student debt, Whereas just ten years ago, any form

620
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 4: of debt cancelation seemed out of reach. The strike showed

621
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 4: activists they could demand an education system completely free of debt.

622
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 9: And the only way we can do that is if

623
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 9: we continue to stick together. So I'm really excited to

624
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 9: see what's next.

625
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA. As the call for the

626
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 1: abolition of all student debt intensifies, we look at the

627
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: way this debt impacts Black and Latino families across generations.

628
00:36:45,920 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: Stay with us, not bye, yes, hey, We're back. And

629
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 1: before the break, we heard the story of a group

630
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: of former Corinthian College students who launched what some say

631
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: is the first student debt strike in the US. It

632
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: lasted for eight years. Finally, in June of this year,

633
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: the federal government erased all their debt. It's pretty historic.

634
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: It's considered to be the largest one time discharge of

635
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 1: debt ever made by the Department of Education. The strike

636
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: showed the power of students banding together over the issue

637
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,400
Speaker 1: of their debt, but there's still more debt that remains

638
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: for thousands of others, especially black and brown students. Producer

639
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: Julia Rochak takes us now to that fight and asks

640
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 1: why canceling all student debt is an issue of racial

641
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: justice across generations.

642
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 4: It's a crisp sunny day in April twenty twenty two,

643
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of movement at the Eisenhower Memorial

644
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 4: in front of the Department of Education in Washington, d C.

645
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 4: Dozens of greyhound buses arrive, carrying hundreds of people from

646
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 4: all over the country. A brass band keeps everyone dancing.

647
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 4: There's a table with bottled water and granola bars where

648
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 4: people are picking up small red pins with black sharpies.

649
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 4: They write down the amount of student debt they have

650
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 4: and wear it on their chest ten thousand dollars, fifty

651
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, two hundred thousand dollars. Although debt is by

652
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 4: no means an uplifting subject, the energy is joyful, a

653
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 4: reminder that the number on your pin is not yours

654
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 4: to carry alone. The action was organized by the Debt Collective,

655
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 4: with support from seventy other organizations and people are here

656
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 4: demanding that President Joe Biden cancel all student debt. There

657
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 4: are students who, like Nathan, were scammed by for profit schools.

658
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 4: I also met many students and graduates of public and

659
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 4: private universities. The black, Brown, and Indigenous people at the

660
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 4: rally spoke about student debt as an intergenerational issue, one

661
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 4: that has ties to both the past and the future.

662
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 16: My name is doctor Sophia Mayanovich. I am from the

663
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 16: Fort peck Ochetti, Shakawi and the Sitaboyne tribes up in Montana.

664
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 16: My sign says why do I have student debt when

665
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 16: the eighteen sixty eight Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteed me free

666
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 16: education for colonial occupation.

667
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 4: People also spoke about how debt keeps them from building

668
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 4: wealth across generations over.

669
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 17: Time, and debt andness growth over generation, and black family

670
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 17: it's a system where black families pass on inter generational

671
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 17: debt and the name of the American dreams.

672
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 4: The large crowd marched until they reached the entrance of

673
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 4: the Department of Education buildings, blocking the traffic on the street.

674
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 4: Students took the megaphone and began to share their stories.

675
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 18: Hey, I'm Caroline with a K. I go by the

676
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 18: AH pronouns. I'm first generation in college.

677
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,320
Speaker 4: That's Caroline Nova, a twenty year old Dominican American university

678
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 4: student and organizer with Dream Defenders, a group of black

679
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 4: and brown youth organizing against incarceration, police violence, and corporate greed.

680
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 4: In one hand, and Caroline holds a piece of paper

681
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 4: with the amount of debt their family has.

682
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 18: My mom took out over one hundred thousand dollars in

683
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 18: loans and now she's in debt because of it. And

684
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 18: I'm grateful for her because she took it out so

685
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:12,760
Speaker 18: I could.

686
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 3: Get a degree that she couldn't get.

687
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,479
Speaker 18: This is for the black mothers out here.

688
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 4: Taking a lighter, Caroline burns the piece of paper as

689
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 4: the crowd cheers. Caroline is currently a student at the

690
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 4: University of West Florida, a public state school, where they're

691
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 4: studying psychology. They dream of starting their own private practice

692
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 4: to support other non binary and AFROLATINX youth like them.

693
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 4: Since Caroline can remember, college was always important.

694
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 19: My mom never really got to finish college. She came

695
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 19: out here and it was more of a survival tactic

696
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,399
Speaker 19: where it was just like I have to work.

697
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 4: I don't have time to go to school.

698
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 19: She came here to give me and my sister a

699
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 19: better education.

700
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 4: But even though it was important to their mom, Lucy

701
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 4: that Caroline go to schools of actually applying to college

702
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 4: felt foreign to both of them.

703
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,720
Speaker 19: Since my mom didn't really go to college, she didn't

704
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 19: have the knowledge as to what I should do. I

705
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 19: didn't know whether or not to take out loans. I

706
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 19: didn't know what the pilgrant was like. I literally had

707
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:15,959
Speaker 19: to learn it all my own.

708
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 4: Feeling lost in the process is common, says Julia Bishop,

709
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 4: the expert on anti racism and student loan policy who

710
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 4: we heard from earlier, and he says black and brown

711
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 4: students are already at a disadvantage even before they signed

712
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 4: any student loan paperwork.

713
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 2: I always like to start with the context. Before a

714
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,879
Speaker 2: black or brown student ever signs for a loan, they

715
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 2: are first living in a history and ongoing reality where

716
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 2: the United States as a country and government has worked

717
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 2: extra hard to extract both wealth and income from black

718
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 2: and LATINX communities.

719
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 9: We know a lot of.

720
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:56,320
Speaker 2: Wealth is generating this country through generations of only homes

721
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 2: and only land, and while those generations were only their

722
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 2: homes and own land. Black and brown people were working

723
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 2: that land and being exploited in our land. If black

724
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 2: people were picking in crops in the South, we know

725
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 2: out west that the LATINX community was being exploited in

726
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 2: similar ways.

727
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 4: Although the University of West Florida is a public university,

728
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 4: Caroline and their mom still had to take out nineteen

729
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 4: thousand dollars in federal student loans in order to afford

730
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 4: the cost of tuition, room and board. Caroline's mom had

731
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 4: to take out additional private loans to pay for her

732
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 4: house and car while sending Caroline to college. For Caroline

733
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 4: and their family, this debt is not only about accessing

734
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 4: higher education. It threatens their ability to generate intergenerational wealth.

735
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 4: In this case, Caroline's mom might not be able to

736
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 4: leave behind a house or car for her children.

737
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 19: She's the first one in her family to own a

738
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 19: house and own her own car, so she wanted to

739
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 19: make sure that she kept the house in car, so

740
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 19: she took out that big loan to help her pay

741
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 19: for all of that. Took that out. I didn't really care.

742
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 19: I didn't think anything of it, and I was just like, yeah, whatever,

743
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 19: you got a wrong, Okay, congratulations until she was like

744
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 19: telling me her experience, and she was like, I don't

745
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 19: have the money to pay it back, Like you're gonna

746
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 19: have to help me pay it back. And I was

747
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 19: getting stressed because I was like, I don't even have

748
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 19: thebody to pay it back, Like, how are we gonna

749
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 19: pay this back right now?

750
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 4: Right as Caroline was finishing their sophomore year of school,

751
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 4: they called their mom, Lucy in Tallahassee, Florida.

752
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 8: Hey, mommy, hi baby.

753
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 19: How does student loan impact your like day to day basis?

754
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 8: As a parent, you go ahead and you take that

755
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 8: loan for your child because you want to help them

756
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 8: be successful. Always say that takes money out of the household.

757
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:46,240
Speaker 8: We have to retire if we're gonna eat meat today

758
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 8: or if we're just gonna eat plain white rise. And

759
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 8: that's said to be able to afford going to school.

760
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 8: It affects you every single day, get bigger and beer

761
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 8: and beer, and it doesn't stuff.

762
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 4: Caroline's mom worries about how she'll pay it all back,

763
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 4: especially with the high interest rates. This means that unless

764
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 4: Caroline's family is able to pay back the full amount

765
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 4: right away, their balance will continue to grow every month.

766
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 4: This is why the push to abolish student debt is

767
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 4: not only about education. Here's Julie Bishop again.

768
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 2: So we should be able to get the things that

769
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 2: we need without having to go into debt. And that's

770
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 2: not just education. That's for healthcare, that is for housing,

771
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 2: that is for us to just make it through our

772
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 2: day to day living expenses without having to take on

773
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 2: a payday loan or use credit cards or have medical debt.

774
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 4: Then on April twenty eighth, just a few weeks after

775
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 4: the rally where I met Caroline, President Biden made this announcement.

776
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 6: I am considering dealing with some debt reductions. I am

777
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 6: not considering fifty thousand dollars debt reduction, but I'm in

778
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 6: the process of taking hard to look at whether or

779
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 6: not there are going to there will be additional debt forgiveness,

780
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 6: and I'll have an answer on that in the next

781
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 6: couple of weeks.

782
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 4: The number that's been thrown around most often is ten

783
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 4: thousand dollars of debt cancelation, but many advocates and researchers

784
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 4: like Julio, say this figure doesn't go far enough. In

785
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 4: early May, Julie testified on the Senate floor, so.

786
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 2: Let's make it clear. Ten thousand dollars is not enough.

787
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 2: Even fifty thousand dollars is not enough for economic and

788
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 2: racial justice.

789
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 7: Black people, my family, my community are more likely to

790
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 7: owe over fifty thousand just for undergrad have parents who

791
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 7: brought onto the six figures, rely on private student loans,

792
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 7: and if we ever make six figure income, we often

793
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 7: have six figure loan debt.

794
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 2: So you cannot limit student debt cancelation and also claim

795
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: to care about racial justice. The data is now on

796
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,800
Speaker 2: your side. People's life stories are now on your side,

797
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 2: and history will not be on your side. We need

798
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 2: full debt cancelation and we need it yesterday. Thank you

799
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 2: to the committee, and I look forward.

800
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 3: To your questions.

801
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 4: So I reached out to the Department of Education and

802
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 4: spoke with Ashley Harrington, senior advisor in Federal Student Aid,

803
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 4: about the student debt crisis and how it impacts black

804
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 4: and brown borrowers in particular.

805
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 10: Anything that we do on student loans has a disproportionate

806
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 10: impact on black and brown borrowers because these are the

807
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 10: bars that are struggling the most. We have changes and

808
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 10: improvements that we need to make, and this is an

809
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 10: effort that is not just the work of the Department

810
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 10: or the administration, but the work of lawmakers and policymakers

811
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 10: at all levels of government.

812
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 4: Although Ashley says the Department of Education is focused on

813
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 4: making improvements to the student loan system with regards to

814
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 4: student debt abolition, she says the hands of the Department

815
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 4: are tied until the President announces his decision.

816
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 10: So without any decisions on braaba's cancelation and what that

817
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:53,399
Speaker 10: will look like and what it will encompass, I will

818
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 10: just say we implement the policy decisions that are made.

819
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 10: Higher education isn't going away. Bluetoo loan program isn't going away,

820
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 10: and so there is definitely always going to be a

821
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 10: need to support students and to manage the system, and

822
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,720
Speaker 10: so we are concentrating on continuing to do that better

823
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:08,399
Speaker 10: every day.

824
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 4: Ashley says the Department is focused on programs that help

825
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 4: borrowers manage their debt, such as income based repayment programs

826
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 4: and public service loan forgiveness, But many advocates that I

827
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 4: spoke to say these measures are not only ineffective and

828
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 4: difficult to enroll in, they also don't prevent students from

829
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:26,240
Speaker 4: going into.

830
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 10: Debt The concern about the higher skis funding model and

831
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 10: how it's primarily a debt finance model is absolute something

832
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 10: that we hear all the time. But we at the

833
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 10: Department Education are just focused on this is how students

834
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 10: pay for college. How can we make it so that

835
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 10: these loans are not a burden for the rest of

836
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 10: their lives and that higher education is actually that step

837
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 10: up instead of that huge burden.

838
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 3: That holds them back.

839
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 4: But Jalil says he believes the government does have the

840
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,879
Speaker 4: power and the resources to restructure the system.

841
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 2: The government's already spending eighty to one hundred billion dollars

842
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 2: a year issuing student loans. What happens is they just

843
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 2: issued it as a grant and then we start to

844
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 2: realize so it's not a question of where do we

845
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 2: get the money from. The money is already here. We

846
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 2: just have to stop decided to also throw on top

847
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 2: of that money money for the loan servicers and the

848
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 2: debt collectors and the private law firms. That the money

849
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 2: is already being spent, it can just be spent in

850
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 2: a way that prioritizes the everyday person over corporations.

851
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 4: I asked Caroline if they think about their debt. Often.

852
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 4: They mentioned the piece of paper they burned at the

853
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 4: rally in DC, the one with their debt written on it.

854
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 19: It felt great to burn that paper and let it go.

855
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 19: I'm not thinking about it at all because I'm expecting

856
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 19: it to be canceled. I am manifesting it to be

857
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 19: canceled by not expecting it. That's what I'm doing. Like

858
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 19: they better know by the time I graduate soon, a

859
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 19: debt better be canceled, like I'm not paying it back.

860
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 19: I will personally go up to Joe Biden and tell him,

861
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 19: like I'm not paying it back.

862
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 4: Even though partial debt cancelation could come as a relief

863
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 4: for many, it still wouldn't get at the root of

864
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 4: the issue that financing education through debt keeps people, particularly

865
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 4: black and brown students, from seeking the education they want

866
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 4: and ultimately from living the life they want. Caroline believes

867
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 4: in the power of imagining a future beyond debt. They

868
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 4: brought this up with their mom Lucy on their phone call.

869
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 19: Imagine your life without student.

870
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:34,759
Speaker 8: Loans or any loans. How would your life be? Oh

871
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 8: my gosh, absolutely fantastic. There is nothing more stressful saying

872
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 8: all in money, because when You're removing that much debt

873
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 8: out of your system, and you can yet concentrate on

874
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 8: what your next set will be, or how you furnish

875
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 8: your dreams.

876
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 4: Reaching those dreams, dreams that have been generations in the making,

877
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 4: Caroline's mom says, would be priceless.

878
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Julia Rocha and edited by

879
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 1: Daisy Contreras. It was mixed by gabriell Abiez and JJ Carubin.

880
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: Fact checking for this episode by Monica Moreles Garcia. Special

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Speaker 1: thanks to Braxton Bruington and The Debt Collective. The Latino

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Speaker 1: USA team includes Andrea Lopez Grusavo, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,

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Speaker 1: Victoria Strada, and Rinaldo Leanos Junior, with help from Jodi

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Speaker 1: mar Marquez. Our director of engineering is Stephanie Lebau. Our

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Speaker 1: senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is Los Luna.

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Speaker 1: Our theme music was composed by Janie Renos. I'm your

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Speaker 1: host and executive producer Maria Josa. Join us again on

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Speaker 1: our next episode. Remember you can always find us on

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Speaker 1: social media and not tevayas Chow.

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Speaker 14: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie

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Speaker 14: Casey Foundation creates a brighter future for the nation's children

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Speaker 14: by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity, and transforming communities.

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Speaker 14: California Endowment building a strong state by improving the health

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Speaker 14: of all Californians. And the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity,

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Speaker 14: and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org.

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Speaker 3: You know we're here together, here for you, racist day.

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Speaker 3: You always gonna come through.