The Debt Collective, which the country’s first union for debtors, is calling out President Joe Biden as the union just erased $1.7 million of unpaid tuition and debt for nearly 500 Black women who attended North Carolina HBCU Bennett College.
The Occupy Wall Street activists said, “This is something the government should be doing, not a group of activists from Occupy Wall Street.”
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The Debt Collective Erase $1.7M In Unpaid Tuition For 500 Black Women
It’s reported that the president of Bennett College, Suzanne Walsh, initially ignored the email from The Debt Collective, which claimed to cancel nearly 500 overdue bills at her college. She figured, “People just don’t reach out and say we can help your students pay off their debts.”
However, that is exactly what the union of debtors rallying against consumer debt did. After a few conversations, the collective arranged for the purchases of $1.7 million in unpaid student balances.
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The Debt Collective Partners with NC HBCU Bennett College To Erase $1.7M In Unpaid Tuition
The collective, which has been active for nearly 10 years, decided to partner with Bennett College in hopes of “calling attention to the disproportionate impact the student debt crisis is having on Black women and to push President Joe Biden to keep his campaign promise on student debt elimination for the country’s 45 million borrowers.”
While many student loan holders patiently wait for relief from Biden, who’s promised to wipe out federal student loans through an executive order, The Debt Collective stepped up to the plate to show him easily it is done.
RELATED: White House Press Secretary Says Canceling Student Loan Debt Is “Still On The Table”
The Debt Collective Co-Founder Calls Out President Joe Biden
Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective, says “[Biden] could send letters like the one we just sent to former Bennett students, only to every single borrower in the country, lifting a crushing weight from their shoulders.”
Taylor adds, “Most people seem to have forgotten that the president pledged as a candidate to eliminate a ‘minimum’ of $10,000 for every single borrower, in addition to vowing to cancel all undergraduate federal loans for people who attended public colleges and universities as well as private HBCUs and minority serving institutions for people who earn less than $125,000 a year.”
Taylor continues to call out the White House. “Unfortunately, the White House seems determined to move the goalposts. This month, in speaking about loan cancellation, Biden said perhaps $10,000 tied to an individual’s income would be forgiven for those who earn less than $125,000. Debt cancellation is the right thing to do. But $10,000 is nowhere near enough, and it should not be means-tested in any way. In fact, these provisions are recipes for disaster.”
“There are simply no convincing reasons to limit relief to $10,000 or to exclude borrowers over an arbitrary income threshold. Research shows that maximum economic and social benefits flow from canceling all student debt and to making that cancellation universal: The boost for the economy will be bigger, the racial wealth gap will correspondingly narrow, and more lives will be dramatically improved. For millions of borrowers, $10,000 will not make a dent in the enormous interest that has accrued on their balances.”
NEW: We just purchased $1.7M of unpaid tuition bills that Black women previously owed to Bennett College — and canceled it all.
“This is something the government should be doing, not a group of activists from Occupy Wall Street,” the Debt Collective said.https://t.co/1jucEc9amA pic.twitter.com/UJvgEBpR9C
— The Debt Collective 🟥 (@StrikeDebt) May 21, 2022
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