Y’all ever get too afraid to look at your bank account, especially after buying something you had no business purchasing?
That fear is kind of crippling because you have all your banking apps on your phone, but you know the remaining balance left in your account is so questionable that you avoid opening them.
Once you do check your banking apps and realize the only way to make it through the week is by dipping into your savings or using the credit card you told yourself you were paying off – defeat starts to take over your thoughts.
We’ve all been there and it’s not as much of your fault as you think. Persistently high inflation and spiking interest rates are weighing us all down and bringing Americans to a record-breaking collective credit card debt crisis of more than $1 trillion.
Credit card debt sucks as much as student loan debt. Keep reading as I dive into a group supporting Black women on their journey to financial freedom from student loan debt and how you can help the Debt Collective take legal action against the Department of Education.
The Big Payback
Black women are drowning in a collective $35 billion of student loan debt. And the problem only grows larger everyday.
This debt can make financial freedom seem like an illusion, especially since the average debt burden is almost $32,000. But Bri Franklin, the founder of The Prosp(a)rity Project, a nonprofit working to improve the financial and economic mobility of Black women, is driven by her own experience to combat the debt crisis impacting Black women.
“I lived through the brutality of taking on student loans that I was not prepared to pay back, that experience really soured my early adult years and when I came out of college it was a very challenging, confusing time for me financially,” Franklin told Reckon.
Franklin, like many other Black women across the country, is among the highest-educated female demographic, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but continues to be vastly underpaid as gender and racial wealth gaps make it harder for Black women to pay down their debts and build wealth.
“Black women are already coming to the situation at a disadvantage, we come out with families who have a lot less generational wealth and disposable resources to go around. So we’re up against basically having to borrow in order to break into those higher education doors,” Franklin said.
Read more here about The Prosp(a)rity Project here.
I Ain’t Got It
I ain’t got it.
When student loan debt payments resume, for a lot of people it will mean their lives are turned upside down and inside out. Understanding the weight of this debt, Reckon asked readers like you who are worried about their finances, future, family and more to tell us what debt relief would mean for them. Each week, we’ll share a story that provides a glimpse into a borrower’s life.
Name: Tori
Student loan debt: $60,000
Location: Maine
Age: 30
If debt payments resume: When loans payments are reinstated, I’ll go back to living paycheck to paycheck, which really means skipping preventative care and living in a generally unsafe way.
“[Saving about $100 every month for emergencies] is the difference between me breaking into tears every time I have to talk to a doctor or living off the same prescription for glasses for three years at a time, or driving a car that feels like it might break on me. It’s also just a general loss of future. Right now I can see a world in which I can buy a home or start making money from my art, but those things seem so unlikely.”
A movement for your money
One thing the Debt Collective won’t do is rest until we borrowers are free from the burden of this debt. If you aren’t sure who they are, they’re the nation’s first debtor’s union.
They know how millions of Americans made significant financial decisions on the expectation that this relief was coming through Biden’s forgiveness plan. Some purchased homes, had children, started a small business or got divorced/married.
The Debt Collective is currently exploring potential litigation against the Department of Education, but to make their case stronger they want to hear from borrowers like us to pressure the department for student debt relief—and on a quicker timeline.
If you agree, you can help them by filling out this form (don’t worry; doing so won’t automatically sign you up to be a plaintiff or make you part of a lawsuit).
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Borrowers are worried about the future of affording and paying back their student loans. Are you one of them? Share your story and thoughts here with Reckon.
