Talk about a charitable donation. Recently, African-American billionaire Robert F. Smith promised to pay off the student loans of the recent graduates of Morehouse College. The alumni of the historically black college can expect a future not marred by worries of how they will repay Sallie Mae. However, it is a bit odd that we’ve resulted to charity from billionaires to solve a crisis.
Don’t get me wrong: this great act of charity should be lauded; the New York Times reported that African-American students are, on average, $7,400 more in debt compared with their white peers. This donation is life-changing to these graduates. However, it’s a shame that we have to celebrate someone paying student debts, that they can end up crippling us.
If you’re reading this, you probably have plans of going to college. While the City and State University systems of New York are great and affordable systems, the poorest can find it hard to live on campus in Albany or attend a private school in Massachusetts. Perhaps it’s idealistic, but no one should go into decades-long debt to get an education. With a college diploma, a modern prerequisite for social mobility, we shouldn’t let down our working and middle class scholars.
Besides any arguments on behalf of the students, we need to acknowledge that having an educated populace is a social good. We pay taxes to send kids to school and to fund libraries, even if we don’t have children. This is because we, as a society, have acknowledged that a population proficient in Algebra and Literature is one that functions well.
However, as the standards keep getting higher, this shouldn’t be the point where we get up in arms and block people from meeting them.
I congratulate the Morehouse class of 2019, and I hope they appreciate Smith’s efforts. However, this is far from the solution. It’s a bandaid for a bullet hole. We have to question why student debts have reached the point they have, as well as alleviate the issue radically, not incrementally.
