Student Debt is a Civil Rights Issue

Today's guest hosts are Brent J. Cohen and Charlotte Hancock, Executive Director and Communications Director for Generation Progress.

On today’s show, they come back to a conversation from one of their first shows after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the resulting economic crisis took hold in the U.S. The student debt crisis has been a crisis long before the pandemic started, but it has long been clear that COVID-19 was going to make the crisis even worse for many student borrowers—especially for student borrowers of color and student borrowers working in the service industry. Since we covered the subject on our last show, the limited relief provided by the CARES Act, which included suspending loan payments and stopping collections on defaulted loans, has expired—which has left many borrowers in a very precarious position.

To talk with Brent and Charlotte more about how student borrowers are being affected by the pandemic, what the government can do to provide real relief, and why student debt is a civil rights issue, they are joined by Natalia Abrams, the Executive Director at Student Debt Crisis.  They’re also joined by Mike Pierce, Policy Director at the Student Borrowers Protection Center.

Here are the Twitter handles for today's guests and their organizations: Natalia Abrams - @nataliaabrams, Student Debt Crisis - @DebtCrisisOrg, Mike Pierce - @millennial_debt, Student Borrower Protection Center - @theSBPC.

The website for Generation Progress is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress.
Brent J. Cohen's Twitter handle is @BrentJCohen and Charlotte Hancock's handle is @CharlatAnne.