Joe Biden campaign ad featuring Barack Obama - America: Anything is Possible

[PatrickforO]

39. Maybe, but in my state we can hear the sucking sound as

over 632,000 people, who an average of $32K in student debt remit an average payment of $315 per month to the federal government or private banks.

That means that each year, in my state, the local economy is losing about $2.7 billion in foregone demand for local goods and services.

Student debt is a drag on this nation's economy, and has a whole generation of our children and grandchildren between a rock and a hard place. They have to go to college and get some kind of training to even hope to compete in the modern, global economy, but the costs of college have become astronomical. These are our children and grandchildren being victimized by this disgusting, predatory system, made into debt slaves.

Especially African American kids. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, in two longitudinal studies of student debt outcomes over a 12-year period, researchers found that the MEDIAN student debt principal balance for African-American students was OVER 100% of the original amount they borrowed when measured 12 years after their initial enrollment in the postsecondary program.

That is unconscionable, and the 2005 bankruptcy law did much to create this debt trap for our kids. Oh, they can alleviate student debt if they can prove 'undue hardship,' but the onus is on them - kids so squeezed by debt that they aren't starting new businesses, are delaying marriage, are delaying home ownership.

No, the fact Biden was one of four Democratic US Senators who supported this stinker of a law, and the fact he opposed several amendments that would have made things a little easier for borrowers...well, he has to answer for that. Because it was a bad move. It is bad policy.

Ideally, I'd like to see Biden repudiate it.