- President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded
student loans to give everyone equal access to education. - Instead,
student debt ended up disproportionately impacting minority communities. - Without reform or loan forgiveness, many Americans will be shut out of Johnson's vision.
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson had a vision for America: equal access to higher education.
Known primarily for his "war on poverty," Johnson was aware of the inequities in education, and how at the time, only the wealthy were getting degrees. So he decided to build on his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower's, work by further expanding access to student loans beyond scientists and mathematicians, hoping to give everyone who wanted to go to college the financial means to do so.
He did that by signing into law the Higher Education Act of 1965, which he said in a speech at the time would give scholarships and loans to 1 million people who dropped out, or never started, college.
"So to thousands of young people education will be available," Johnson said in a speech. "And it is a truism that education is no longer a luxury. Education in this day and age is a necessity."
With that notion in mind, Johnson expanded the government's role in higher education by allowing it to disburse federal student loans, and he needed the help of big banks to fulfill his goal. But shortly after the Act's passage, banks began raising the interest rates on loans, and contrary to Johnson's mission, the student-loan industry began to profit lenders at the expense of borrowers, leaving many with big debt loads they could not afford to pay off.
Decades later, that structure is continuing to shut out many hoping to pursue a higher education — a core pillar of the
Minority student-loan borrowers are bearing the brunt of the crisis
Last year, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge put it plainly: "Who has student debt? Poor people, Black people, brown people. We're the people who carry the most debt. And so the system's already skewed toward us not being creditworthy."
Dozens of organizations, led by the NAACP, wrote last year that Black borrowers typically owe 50% more student debt than white borrowers, and four years later, Black borrowers owe 100% more. And that's not all. The Education Trust, a nonprofit, launched the National Black Student Loan Debt Study last year and found that 51% of Black borrowers have yet to see positive returns on their debt, and 66% of them regret ever taking out loans, deeming them "unpayable," "not worth it," and a "lifetime sentence."
Lawmakers have been outspoken on the disproportionate impact student debt has on minority borrowers. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez wrote in a December statement that the student debt "financial nightmare existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the deep disparities that exist for communities of color and low-income communities," and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter that women owe over two-thirds of student debt.
"Canceling student debt would help give millions of women a fair shot at starting a business, saving for a home, and pursuing their dreams," she said. "Student debt is a gender justice issue."
The economic burden of student debt is clear — and without relief, it will continue to shut many borrowers out of the higher education pursuit.
'It's the price I had to pay to achieve the American Dream'
Take Juan Antonio Sorto. Sorto, 36, is a first-generation college student who moved to the US from El Salvador at the age of six, and he previously told Insider that he was raised thinking high school was "the end goal to your education."
But in America, he saw that things were different. Most people in his high school graduating class were going to college, and he did not see why he couldn't, either. He now has $250,000 in student debt to show for it.
"I had to continue to provide for my mother and my grandmother, and so I had no choice but to start accumulating debt," Sorto said. "It's the price I had to pay to achieve the American Dream."
Sorto said he knew he was taking on the debt voluntarily, and he's happy he could break the chain of not getting a higher education in his family. But he wishes there was more information and aid for people like him, who had never stepped foot in the higher education sphere. According to the Student Borrower Protection Center, 72% of Latino students take out loans for their education, compared with 66% of white borrowers. And twelve years after starting college, the median Latino borrower still owes 83% of their initial loan balance, compared with 65% for white borrowers.
Growing student debt is a cycle that will take serious reforms, or loan forgiveness, to break, and only after might Americans see the higher education vision President Johnson intended.