The global Covid-19 pandemic, which in the United States has so far infected 70 million Americans and claimed 900,000 lives, has also caused dramatic economic upheaval. Statistics showing the biggest contraction in US GDP since 1946 underscore the direct impact on people’s lives: lost income, food shortages, delays in getting medical care and housing insecurity. These conditions are greatly exacerbated for the more than 45 million Americans burdened with onerous student debt totaling $1.7 trillion, the second largest debt in the United States after mortgages and the only debt in the United States that does not cannot be discharged in the event of bankruptcy. A former corrupt higher education financial complex that 20 years ago consolidated the power of the federal government, the college and university lobby and the student loan manager/collector to pass on the cost of higher education on your families in the form of loans with the promise of higher mobility rarely realized for black, brown and low-income communities.

In the case of Massachusetts, our state has let many students and families fund, de facto, Massachusetts’ divestment from post-secondary education over the past 20 years.

Today at 4 p.m., hundreds of Massachusetts youth, families, community organizations, activists and allies will gather on the steps of the State House to join thousands of people in Washington D.C. and throughout the country to ask President Biden to cancel student debt.

Coincidentally, also today, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education will decide whether or not to vote in favor of the committee on the Debt-Free Act (Bill H.1339, S.829), which would create an education system tuition-free public post-secondary education for all, with a scholarship program to cover other costs for low-income students – as determined by Pell Scholarship income eligibility – such as room and board, food, transportation, books and supplies.

Our Massachusetts legislators have an opportunity today to take bold, courageous steps and do the right thing. The same goes for President Joe Bident and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The current student debt crisis is not the product of chance or the unfortunate unfolding of 45 million bad financial decisions, but rather the serious consequence of policy decisions made at the state and national level, including a decrease funding public universities and offering student loans instead of scholarships previously available to middle- and low-income students. Not surprisingly, many predatory and for-profit financial institutions have taken the opportunity to invest in the unregulated higher education market. Since the 1980s, the cost of an undergraduate degree has risen a shocking 213% in public schools and 129% in private schools.

Additionally, many college foundations and endowments have benefited enormously from their investments in the “Wall Street student loan windfall” of the past 20 years. Interestingly, foundations, colleges and universities, influential members of the business community, and the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education have been fairly silent on the student debt crisis and offered little support for students. students, families and communities who are organizing for the cancellation of studies. debt and a quality, debt-free public higher education system worthy of Massachusetts.

In recognition of the student debt crisis, candidate Biden promised relief for those burdened with federal student debt and proposed to waive $10,000 per borrower and remove the total burden from those attending college and public and historically black universities. Unfortunately, as president, he only managed to follow his predecessor’s lead and, under pressure, suspend student loan repayments until May 1, 2022.

There are, however, pressures from many places to provide an appropriate response to the national student debt crisis. First is the demand, from borrowers’ unions and advocates, to cancel all student debt. And last December, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Senator Warren and Chuck Schumer sent a letter to President Biden encouraging him to use an executive order to forgive up to $50,000 in federal student debt.

More recently, Representative Pressley spoke in the House to draw attention to how the student debt crisis, like many other challenges facing our society, is not evenly distributed but has affected disproportionately the black community. In fact, the impact of the debt crisis has been felt distinctly by gender and ethnicity: two-thirds of student debt is owed by women, and black women bear the heaviest burden. student debt of all demographic groups.

It is because of this understanding of how the student debt crisis affects minority communities that Rep. Pressley and the many organizations advocating for full debt forgiveness view this as a matter of racial and economic justice. . And canceling the debt could have an immediate impact: according to the Roosevelt Institute, this action would immediately increase the wealth of black Americans by 40%.

Debt cancellation could be a boost not just for black graduates, but for the economy as a whole. Research by the Federal Reserve and the Levy Economics Institute shows that removing these finance charges would increase local purchasing power and help spur an economic recovery, eventually increasing GDP by more than $86 billion and creating more than one million new jobs per year.

The obvious benefits that canceling student debt could bring to our struggling US economy suggests that it should be an easy choice for a Democratic president facing declining approval ratings and for a party facing difficulties during the upcoming midterm elections. It is, in fact, so much the case, that a recent Boston Globe opinion piece poignantly asked, “What is Biden waiting for?”

By all measures, then, it is clear that canceling the national student debt is the right thing to do. However, simply canceling the debt leaves the underlying causes of the current crisis intact, at a time when borrowers and their advocates are realizing the systemic nature of the problem. Just as a holistic response to the pandemic may require rethinking our national healthcare system, an appropriate response to the student debt crisis would require rethinking our education system and pushing for comprehensive education reform.

As a society, we must consider education as a collective good and a good social investment. According to Dr. Beth Akers, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, as a nation we have decided to socialize public education through K-12. “Ultimately it comes down to when we move from a socialized system to a market-based system,” Akers said.

And the change couldn’t be more dramatic: according to the Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of all college students are now taking out loans to meet rising tuition fees. Education data revealed that the average loan size has tripled since 1993, to more than $30,000. And, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the wage gap between blacks and whites is widening.

As a society, we must understand that the burden of educating its members must be borne by society as a whole and not on the shoulders of the most vulnerable among us. This reorientation of priorities would necessitate not only returning to the system of financing education dependent on grants, as opposed to loans, but permanently eliminating the financing of education by loans.

To be sure, the Debt Relief Act isn’t the only pending piece of legislation that aims to address the current crisis, and there are more than a few bright new ideas that may point to a few more creative solutions. What is clear is that now seems like a good time to cancel the National Student Debt and pass the Massachusetts debt relief bill, Bill H.1339/S.829 favorably out of committee today!