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How would your life be different if you were free from the financial suffocation of student loan debt?

This is the question we asked our Color Of Change members. Almost 85% of Black voters support eliminating student debt and creating the possibility of life without these financial restraints. Many reported the dreams they hoped to embark on if they didn’t have student debt payments: saving for retirement, buying a home instead of renting, leaving a job where they face discrimination or starting their own small business. Instead, they are crumbling under the weight of their student loan debt.

As the Class of 2025 announced their college commitments on College Decision Day this past Saturday, the time to address student debt is now. In February, President Biden said that student debt forgiveness will only benefit “people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn,” but he’s leaving out the stories and experiences of Black and other marginalized communities — who already face racial discrimination at multiple levels within society — and would absolutely benefit from not having student debt.

Tell President Biden To Advance Racial Equity And Eliminate Student Loan Debt!

Choosing a college is a time we’re supposed to be celebrating taking that next step in our lives. Yet, for many of us, the excitement of college is clouded by another financial burden, another hurdle we have to overcome and another reminder of the gross inequalities forced on our communities.

“I’m one of the 150,000 Black and brown women who lost their jobs during the COVID pandemic,” says Amber, who recently moved from New York City to Tucson, Arizona, to help raise her niece and support her mother. “Now we’re pretty much in downward mobility.”

Years ago when Amber was deciding where to go to college and how to pay for it, she had been told that college was the ticket to upward mobility. A college diploma, she had learned, promised middle-class savings, homeownership and steady access to quality health care. So, like millions of other almost-college students her age, she took out substantial student loans. Now, almost 20 years later, she’s still paying them off.

Amber’s story is not unique, and when we look at the data closer it’s even more clear that eliminating student debt is a racial justice issue. Student loan debt haunts almost 50 million people across the country, and significantly impacts Black and brown students who are hindered by racist financial institutions, outlandish costs of higher education and racial wealth gaps. This national, human-made crisis has grown steadily over time; In fact, the $1.7 trillion student loan debt has now surpassed the entire 2021 Fiscal Federal Discretionary Spending Budget, which includes budgets for the U.S. Departments of Defense, Education, Homeland Security, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined, plus more.

“For all the people who say, “Well, I paid mine back.” That’s fantastic,” says Carla, from Agoura Hills, California. “But at the end of the day many of us have lived our lives in the right way, we've done what it is that we need to do and it simply hasn’t worked out for us to be able to pay this debt without living in a severely disadvantaged life.”

For Carla, if her student loans were forgiven and eliminated she shared, “The things I want to do, first of all, is be able to breathe, just breathe and continue to live my life in a way that makes other lives a little easier.”

While the consequences of this crisis are currently dire, they don’t have to stay that way. President Biden has already made small strides — we have the power to ensure he actually advances his racial equity policies to the fullest extent.

Join Color Of Change and take action by signing this petition telling President Biden to eliminate student loan debt.