Higher Education & Education Policy

Rethinking Student Debt for Fairer Futures

Experts discuss barriers in student debt relief and what paths toward equitable change might look like.

Millions of Americans carry student loan debt in pursuit of a college degree, yet the programs meant to ease that burden often fall short—especially for those who need support most. Marginalized borrowers typically assume higher levels of debt and face lasting financial and even health consequences as a result. Despite their intent, many state loan forgiveness programs create hurdles that end up excluding the very communities most harmed by the student debt system.

For this Conversations with the Dean, Dean Penny Bishop is joined by BU Wheelock’s Jerry Whitmore, Jr., assistant professor of higher education administration, and Nina Cesare, research scientist in the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Data Analytics Center at BU’s School of Public Health. Whitmore and Cesare lead the Fair Student Loans project, which works on fostering accessibility and inclusive reform in student loan forgiveness. Their discussion explores the barriers built into current programs, the systemic inequities that perpetuate them, and the policy changes needed to better support historically marginalized borrowers—offering timely guidance for families, educators, and policymakers navigating the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis.

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Highlights from the conversation

The national student loan debt picture

“Over 40 million Americans are affected by student loan debt. We understand that the average debt for undergraduate degrees is now upwards of over $30,000. This is a steady growth that we have seen since the 1990s.”

Jerry Whitmore, Jr.

How student loan debt affects health

“The debt that you carry, the impact it has on your long-term financial well-being—that all in some way affects your health. These are, in essence, social determinants of health that we’re exploring.”

Nina Cesare

The disproportionate impact on students of color

“Among all borrowers, minoritized or minority borrowers carry the biggest burden. Among those with bachelor’s degrees, Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loans—on average, Black students owe $3,000, almost $4,000, more than their white counterparts. Black borrowers are oftentimes going to have a much larger long-term impact that can turn into financial insecurity due to student loans. And this plays out in how they also enter into the workforce, the jobs that they get—and we start seeing this in home ownership as well. . . . Half of Black borrowers are also shown to have default on loans, while a third of Black and Hispanic borrowers do, compared to 20 percent of Asian [borrowers]. . . . The impact and that burden is specifically on our vulnerable populations.”

Jerry Whitmore, Jr.

The importance of studying state-level student loan policies

“There is increasing higher education enrollment. There’s increasing, ever-accumulated debt. There are these widening disparities in terms of who is benefiting from the system. . . . So our goal in building this tracker was to create a very digestible, high-level summary of the current state student loan policy landscape. We’ve focused on state policy specifically because this adds a layer to the student loan forgiveness conversation that we think is understudied and under acknowledged.”

Nina Cesare

Conversations with the Dean are a series of webinars hosted by Dean Bishop that explore some of the most pressing topics in education and human development. Learn more about Conversations with the Dean.