NEW AND MORE FIERCE

Just got finished watching an episode from one of my favorite television series of all time. The Wire. Anyway, there’s this scene where Dennis “Cutty” Wilson and “Slim” Charles are sitting in the back seat of a car, plotting to swoop down on and “teach” a lesson to a “worker” who keeps coming up short on the count to the Barksdale crew. “Cutty,” by the way, is fresh out of the pen, old school, and really not cut out for that life anymore. That he no longer has the heart for hustle becomes apparent in a later episode. Anyway, here’s the quick exchange between “Cutty” and “Slim” that’s got me going this morning:

Cutty: Game done changed.

Slim: Game the same. Just got more fierce.

Gotta to keep it 100%. I'm relishing that little repartee as I ponder the problem of that $1.6 trillion dollars known as "student loan debt." I'm wondering whether that wad is a sign that the game done change? Just more fierce? Or perhaps both.

The STUDENT LOAN GAME

Take, so to speak, the “game” of education. I managed to grab an undergraduate degree, go on to cop a doctorate in economics and, later on, I earned a doctorate in religious ethics. And you know what it cost me? Nothing. Well, that’s not quite true. I came out of the process about $2,000 in the red. Which in most folk’s mind, including mine, is a bargain for all that highfalutin stuff. Paid it off in no time and moved on with my life. In fact, most of the people who graduated high school with me and then went off to college had remarkably similar experiences. Financial Aid Packets (FAB) heavily skewed toward scholarships, grants, and work study. I don’t recall ever hearing much of anything about PLUS loans. Sure, some of us tapped Sallie Mae but, in retrospect, it was for pennies. Nothing major. Nothing that would smoother us in a blanket of debt. Nothing that would impede us from getting on in life, from buying a car, from renting an apartment, from pursuing our own version of the good life. A few of us went on to medical school and became physicians, without becoming saddled down a pile of debt. Sure, they borrowed massive amounts of cash but—get this—there was Federal program, The National Health Services Corp, that wrote off the debt if, upon graduation, the recipient of all that cheddar agreed to practice in a community deemed “underserved,” a community that was characterized by a shortage of physicians and a relative dearth of medical services. Wrote off every single penny. And, after a few years, you could either stay or raise up. Whatever you did, though, you could do it without having a boatload of debt hanging over your head.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that, back in the day, everything was copacetic. There was—and is—racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and so on. As many do today, we knew the pain of busted dreams, the sting of joblessness, the morally odious nature of poverty, the policing and the breaking of black bodies, and the bleakness that invariably accompanies the withering of hope. Things didn’t always pop off for us back in the day. Sometimes, things started, stalled, and then plummeted. Some things just…well… weren’t t really happening. Life in this country has never been a Negro Nirvana.

But what we did not have was a bunch of student loan dollars dangling over our heads.

THAT WAS THEN BUT THIS IS NOW

But that was then, and this is now. Now, there’s 45 million borrowers who, collectively, are on the hook for almost $1.6 trillion dollars, with the typical debtor owing $30,000 and shelling out anywhere between $400 per month, and sometimes as much as $1,000. Paying off the total debt is taking anywhere from 10-30 years. Yeah, I know, a long time! And, as the table below shows, there’s significant differences across racial and ethnic groups. Of all the groups listed in the table, Black debtors carry the highest load, about $34,000. Almost 8.5 out of every ten Black BA recipients were on the hook for a student

AN INTERGENERATIONAL DEBT

But what gets easily lost in the mix, though, is the fact that student loan debt is an intergenerational burden. Granted, the bulk of the burden is on the backs of millennials and generation Xers. But older adults are also catching some of that student loan smoke. People aged 50 and over own 20% of the 1.6 trillion dollars in student loan debt. Who are these folks? The parents who co-signed on a student loan for their kid. The grandparents who signed on the bottom line so that grandchild could take that shot at getting credentialed. The auntie and uncles who had that good credit and the golden heart. The older adults who took on debt to re-skill to catch up with an economy that viewed their labor as increasingly superfluous. Between 2004 and 2018, the amount of student loan debt held by these folks shot up five-fold, from $47.3 billion to $289.5 billion bucks. As noted by a recent AARP report: “While student loan balances have increased across all age groups, growth has been greatest for older borrowers.”

If the gravity of that doesn’t grab you, then try coming it at this way: In 1989, 3.1% of households headed by someone 50+ carried student loan debt, with the average amount clocking in around $10,000. By 2016, 9.6% of such households were on the hook, and the average amount owed had climbed to a whopping $33,000. That’s a three-fold in the amount of money owed. And I don’t care what you call it. Cheddar. Cheese. Clams. Ducats. Moola. Skrilla. Bread. Or Bones. That’s a hefty chunk of change, especially for someone who is in or near retirement.

Make no mistake about it, I’m not downplaying the heavy student loan debt being borne by younger adults. It’s a serious problem. No question about it. What I’m stressing is that the arm of Nelnet and Navient reaches a lot longer than people often realize, touching primarily younger age groups, but also older Americans. What I’m stressing is that the student loan debt is not only impeding one group from getting their lives off, up, and running but that it’s also making the retirement of another group increasingly precarious.

BACK TO CUTTY AND SLIM

You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel like both Cutty and Slim. At least when it comes to education and the student loan debt. Things are not the same as they’ve always been. Sara Goldrick-Rabb, professor of higher education at Temple University, captures this change when she observes:

Just as Americans decided that college was essential, states began spending less on public education and the price of college rose. At the same time, the financial aid system, long intended to make to make college affordable, failed to keep up with the growing student and family need. Student loans became the stopgap. And, to matter worse, for nearly 80 percent of the public, family income has declined.

So, yeah, Cutty:

The game done changed.

But these changes have also brought a heightened level of fierceness to the game. Larger debt loads and increased likelihood of defaults. Wage garnishments and portions of social security security checks snatched. More people with jacked up credit. All of which, by the way, can have ramifications for everything from securing a job to the premiums you pay on your car insurance.

So, yeah, Slim:

Game got more fierce,

The changes are fierce. And that’s what a Cutty/Slim gaze on game of education and student loan debt looks like.

But let’s be clear about this: It doesn’t have to be this way. How we respond—or whether we respond—is a political and ethical issue, not a fate that economics dooms us to bear. This stuff is not sacrosanct and ordained by the economic gods. A newness that is fierce is still a newness that can be fought.

How so? Well, that’s the subject of a follow up post. I’ll show how that fierce newness can firmly fought, and why there’s much at stake in or failure to do so. All of which is to say

Catch you on the flip side

Doc Greene