The Higher Cost of Higher Ed for Americans of Color

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Higher education has traditionally been a pathway to achieving the American Dream for people of color and immigrants, but the high cost of tuition has resulted in a deepening of the wealth divide as student debt continues to create an economic crisis. Borrowers, including show producer Rahima Nasa, share their stories of how student loan repayment drastically changed their financial picture. Plus, policy expert Heather McGhee, author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” joins host Kai Wright to discuss federal forgiveness efforts and what else the U.S. government could do to promote economic equality with respect to racial justice.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you take out any student loans?
0:04.8	Was it worth it?
0:05.8	Well, I mean, I was already poor before I took out the student loans, so there's not
0:09.8	anything I could have changed.
0:10.8	I still needed the money.
0:11.8	I think at the time I didn't really have a big understanding of loans and how it was
0:16.9	going to affect me later on, especially if I did not finish school.
0:21.8	I should've just did more research, parents didn't help me, so it was all on my own.
0:26.3	I wanted to go to college, I applied, and I've gotten into Queens College, but then I realized
0:32.1	it just wasn't for me, especially since I knew.
0:34.3	Obviously, you have to pay the student loans back because it could be expensive.
0:37.3	I would've needed to take out student loans at most schools that I would've gone to,
0:42.3	and I really did want to come to New York and experience a different walk of life.
0:47.3	So yeah, I regret it and don't regret it at the same time.
0:56.3	It's a note from America, I'm Kai Wright, and welcome to the show.
1:13.3	We're going to talk this week about the American Dream, the truly material version of it.
1:19.3	The idea that in this country you can earn your way into a secure, stable, middle-class life,
1:27.3	which is an idea that economic policy afterward were to made manifest.
1:32.3	The GI Bill of Rights is not a reward or a handout or a gravy train,
1:37.3	but rather an American way to make it easier for each man to take his place once again in the community
1:44.3	and get some of those things for which he went to war.
1:47.3	A job, a business, an education, a home.
	...

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