Student debt in the United States is a heavily racialized issue. Minoritized students borrow more money and have a harder time repaying it. More than half of Black students have student debt balances that exceed their net worth, and nearly half owe more money than they initially borrowed four years after their graduation.
“Debt works differently for Black and white families, period,” said Dr. Louise Seamster, assistant professor in sociology and criminology and African American studies at The University of Iowa. “How much money you borrow and then what happens to that debt after you leave school is strongly structured by racial inequality.”
But at the highest levels of power, where decisions about student loan policy are made, race is barely discussed at all. That’s the finding of a new study, “'All Students Matter': The Place of Race in Discourse on Student Debt in a Federal Higher Education Policymaking Process," that analyzes the transcript of a Congressional markup session about a possible reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Although the policies that the lawmakers discussed had significant potential impacts on different racial groups, the topic of race was often avoided or evaded.
Dr. Eric Felix
The tenor of the session was set in the opening statement by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA): “We’re here to mark up the College Affordability Act, a comprehensive reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that will lower the cost of college, improve the quality of higher education, and expand opportunity for students of all backgrounds to succeed.”
The focus on “all students” was typical. During the markup, most of the discussion ignored racial dynamics entirely, the study found. Democrats and Republicans alike used phrases like “all backgrounds,” “all stations,” and “Americans from all corners,” eliminating the possibility of discourse about racial disparities.
Although concepts like “discrimination” and “inequity” were sometimes discussed, discussion was often without specific mention of minoritized students, which the study’s authors termed “race evasive discourse.” Lawmakers used labels like “some students,” “students truly in need,” and “underserved students” to refer to minoritized groups while avoiding the proposal of amendments that would explicitly benefit them.
