Introduction
Student loan forgiveness programs are intended to partly or fully alleviate the current and past students’ financial burden of pursuing certain education degrees. They include but are not limited to Teacher Loan Forgiveness, Closed School Discharge, Perkins Loan Cancellation and Discharge, Discharge in Bankruptcy, and Unpaid Refund Discharge (Student Loan Forgiveness). However, the most famous program is Public Service Loan Forgiveness which was introduced in 2007 and was specifically directed at those who work in the public sphere or for non-profit organizations (Lieber). Nevertheless, despite the existing opportunities for students with loans, there may be a need to create special programs that would target the reduction of racial inequalities.
Indeed, the financial burden from the loan is not distributed equally among the people of various ethnical origins. Especially, that difference is evident in African American population. As such, black students on average graduate from college with $52,726 in debt, whereas their white classmates owe around $28,000 (Scott-Clayton and Li 2). Moreover, it is found that having a college degree is associated with wealth accumulation significantly less for African Americans than for other groups (Meschede et al. 121). Thus, the necessity for a targeted student loan forgiveness program is evident. In this regard, the current research seeks to answer two questions. Firstly, it is necessary to study the public sentiments toward the potential student loan forgiveness initiative for African Americans. Secondly, it is crucial to investigate to what extent such programs would benefit the latter group.
The Research Significance and Design
The research into this topic seems highly significant as the reduction of racial inequality was one of the most debated topics in the U.S. for the last several decades. Therefore, in my opinion, the research on targeted student loan forgiveness programs can provide another perspective on the solution to the issue mentioned above. For this reason, it is important to understand what other people think concerning this initiative. For example, the opinion poll may entail such topics as the fairness of providing benefits to certain groups based on ethnic origin. Furthermore, another topic may include the fear of possible moral hazards. As a result, this research’s contribution to scientific knowledge would be twofold. On the one hand, it will help to evaluate the overall support for these types of programs. On the other hand, it will allow determining the weak and controversial parts of this issue that could be further improved.
Additionally, the potential benefits of such programs for the material well-being of African Americans are important to evaluate as the final aim of targeted programs is reducing inequality. For example, the research can follow a similar logic as Mezza et al., who found that the $1000 increase in student debt reduces homeownership by 1.5 percent (245). However, this research necessitates the extension by considering the debt increase or reduction effect on homeownership for different minority groups, especially African Americans.
Personal Motivation
I have chosen to pursue this topic because I have been interested in how American society can address the problem of inequality for quite a long time now. Therefore, when I saw the news that senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren were asking Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt, I had the idea of this research (Cooper). I wanted to know whether targeted student loan forgiveness programs could help our society solve historical injustice. Thus, this research will primarily satisfy my curiosity.
Conclusion
Finally, I wanted to briefly discuss the methodology of the study and the schedule for completing the project. Firstly, I plan to conduct a focus group study concerning the topic with two groups – college students and non-college students. It will help me to collect first-hand opinions from the people. Then, the received information can be used to create an online survey and collect more representative data. For the second part, I will need to analyze statistical data from such platforms as U.S. Census Bureau. Finishing all the steps would require from two to three months.
Works Cited
Cooper, Preston. “The Case Against Student Loan Forgiveness”.Forbes, 2020, Web.
Lieber, Ron. “A Guide to Big Changes for Public Service Loan Forgiveness”. The New York Times, 2021, Web.
Meschede, Tatjana, et al. “”Family Achievements?”: How a College Degree Accumulates Wealth for Whites and Not For Blacks.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, vol. 99, no. 1, 2017, pp. 121-137.
Mezza, Alvaro, et al. “Student loans and homeownership.” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 38, no. 1, 2020, pp. 215-260.
Scott-Clayton, Judith, and Jing Li. “Black-White Disparity in Student Loan Debt More Than Triples After Graduation.”Economic Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 2016, pp. 1-9, Web.
“Student Loan Forgiveness.”Federal Student Aid, Web.