The Biden administration’s student debt relief announcement is incredibly welcome news: Millions of people, of all ages, will have substantial portions of their debt erased overnight, preventing financial hardship, lifting people out of poverty, and opening up new futures for those who have been crushed by mounting debt and economic precarity. This move will change lives. It is one of the most significant policy victories of recent memory.
None of this would have been possible without organizing. Countless activists spent more than a decade making a single, clear-eyed demand: cancel student debt. The demand was consistent, even when Democrats and Republicans alike scoffed at the notion as little more than a pipedream. Yet today, this debt relief stands to become one of the most important legacies of the Biden administration, a victory borne on the back of that organizing.
And that organizing will continue: we join the student debt movement in calling for the elimination of all student debt, which has burdened generations of Americans with mounting bills and clouded their futures, all in the service of a predatory finance industry that has caused repeated and grave crises for our society in the 21st century. The Biden administration must heed those calls and take bigger, bolder actions to alleviate the financial burdens that student debt has created for Americans, especially in communities of color.
We are incredibly grateful to the student debt movement for leading such an inspired and sustained fight over the years. This is their victory. Millions of Americans owe their brighter futures to these organizers.