This group is working to cancel student debt — and the shame associated with it
Cole took out student loans for his degree in urban planning from Cornell University. In 2020, he left his job in social services to look for another position. The plan had been to live off his savings until he found a new job — but a month later, the pandemic hit, and suddenly, jobs were scarce. Cole's monthly payments began to feel crushing.
“I felt really overwhelmed and isolated,” says Cole, 27. “I was like, ‘I can’t be the only person who feels like this is insane.’”
Cole went searching for people in similar situations to his own. Online, he discovered Debt Collective, a self-described “debtor’s union.” Since 2012, the group has been advocating for borrowers and campaigning for student debt cancellation.
The Debt Collective has helped student loan borrowers cancel $5 billion in debt, through advocacy, helping members legally contest loans and organizing what they call “debt strikes.” While the group has had a sizable political impact, press secretary Braxton Brewington considers one of their biggest accomplishments to be their success in fighting the shame, stigma and “phony morality” of student debt.
There’s a spectrum of consequences of student debt. Those who can pay their loans may have to pinch pennies into old age, stay at toxic or unsatisfying jobs or delay starting a family or buying a house. Those who struggle with payments — which are disproportionately low-income borrowers, first-generation college grads and students of color — risk defaulting. That can mean having your wages garnished and your credit score damaged.
81% of people with student loans say they’ve had to delay important life milestones, including the events listed here.
“A failed social experiment”
On top of financial stress, borrowers face the reality that debt is considered by many to be a shameful personal failing instead of a structural reality of America’s education, medical and housing systems. This stigma exists despite the fact that most student borrowers are simply people without class privilege, who had no choice but to take out loans to get the education required to work in most middle-class fields, as automation continues to eliminate good-paying jobs for those without college degrees.
How Americans really feel about student loans
Some experts have gone so far as to call the student loan industry “a failed social experiment,” but the stigma persists — and it has serious consequences. More than 60% of borrowers say student loan debt has negatively affected their mental health, according to a survey conducted by CNBC.
“As long as we believe the lie that we are in debt because we personally have made a mistake or are not doing enough to earn our way out of debt, there will be a toll on our mental health. Because you're criticizing yourself for systemic outcomes beyond your control.”
Additionally, research from Katrina Walsemann, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina, found a strong correlation specifically between loans and anxiety and depression. In South Korea, the debt crisis — which was depicted in the Netflix show Squid Game — weighs heavily on the population, where financial stress is the leading cause of suicide, according to Nodutdol, a U.S.-based South Korean research and political group.
Millennials are most likely to say their loans affect their mental health.
“You are not a loan”
While Debt Collective proudly protects students and graduates from a financial system they see as corrupt, the group is equally focused on shielding them from debt’s emotional toll.
“The very existence of a union of debtors breaks that stigma,” says Brewington. The Debt Collective utilizes many of the tactics of labor unions: building solidarity, organizing workers so they can collectively bargain with their bosses and, if need be, striking. But debtors face a unique challenge. “Workers have a factory floor. They see each other every day, whereas debtors go through this alone. We’re told not to talk about it, not to say how much we have.” The Debt Collective helps break this cycle, and this silence, with practices like having members share how much debt they have aloud in group meetings.
Cole found the experience of speaking openly about debt and repayment to be transformative. After making an account on the Debt Collective’s website, he started joining virtual weekly meetings. “Debt is such a taboo topic. It was so refreshing to be in a space where people talked openly about debt and how it affects your life,” Cole says. He quickly learned how so many different groups of people are affected, including both Ivy League graduates and community college students. “Just hearing people tell their stories, realizing how many people are in the same situation, was really galvanizing.”
Cole found community, and he also gained perspective. Soon after joining, he attended a month-long political education course about the history and politics of debt. “There is an inherent mental health benefit to working with other people and understanding how student debt operates broadly, because it's not just an issue of personal responsibility,” he says. “As long as we believe the lie that we are in debt because we personally have made a mistake or are not doing enough to earn our way out of debt, there will be a toll on our mental health. Because you're criticizing yourself for systemic outcomes beyond your control.”
“People say, ‘Oh, but you made a choice to go to college so these are the consequences.’ But I didn't choose to not have a grandparent who could pay for the whole thing; that wasn't a choice.”
The Debt Collective is one of many groups changing the conversation around student debt. Brewington says the Debt Collective often collaborates with the Student Debt Borrower Protection Center, Student Debt Crisis Center, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, ACLU and Democratic Socialists United, which provide similar forums for people to discuss debt.
These groups have won major victories over the past several years, including getting federal student loan payments paused — three times, so far — since March 2020. As borrowers witness that it’s possible for the government to simply stop collecting payments, and feel what life is like without loans, there’s been a shift in both the conversation and the awareness around debt.
“I've just seen this issue completely explode over the past two, three years,” Cole says. “I hear about it when I listen to the radio. I see it in the newspaper. Everyone is talking about it.” In this sense, Cole says, “We've already won the shift in public consciousness, and now, it's just a matter of leveraging that to make the political change.”
A future without student debt — in the near future?
A future without student loan debt — and the anxiety and loneliness that comes with it — could be closer than people think, according to Brewington. Loan payments are currently set to resume on May 1. But Americans are watching closely, and clearly, Congress and the Biden administration know it.
Gen Z is the most supportive of forgiving all student loans.
Recently, the president signaled he’s set to extend the pause again. In early March, the Department of Education asked loan companies to cease sending out notices about payments starting up again.
“There’s a lot of people saying ‘We’re never gonna get student debt canceled’ — but three years ago, the idea of pausing interest or pausing payments was ridiculous,” Brewington says. “We have this saying. ‘First, they laugh at you. Then they ignore you. Then they fight you, and then you win. We’re three-quarters of the way there. The next step is to win.”
Data for graphs from CNBC/Momentive
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