Student loan debt is swelling for graduates across the country.
But according to a new report, the crisis is hitting students of color the hardest – and widening the racial wealth gap in the process.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) released a report titled “Quicksand: Borrowers Of Color & The Student Debt Crisis” during the NAACP national convention in Detroit this week.
The report is “trying to make the argument that higher education is a public good,” said Julia Barnard, one of the co-authors and a researcher at the Center for Responsible Lending. “College should not be a luxury. Everyone should have a chance to pursue it, and the way it’s going now, not everyone can.”