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Date: 11/3/2022
SPRINGFIELD – A crowd of students, educators and supporters of student debt forgiveness packed the Learning Commons Building at Springfield Technical Community College on Oct. 25 as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley promoted the Biden administration’s student debt relief program.
The packed but still intimate gathering was the anchor leg of a four-stop tour through the state, designed to encourage student borrowers to make use of the new student debt relief option.
After stops in Boston, Brockton and Worcester, the senator and the congresswoman met the crowd in Springfield, which included a team of volunteers ready to help borrowers’ access and navigate the federal website.
“Student loan debt is about a response to a problem,” Warren began as she addressed the crowd, reminding them that she had graduated from a public university costing her $50 a semester, “that option is not out there” she said.
Both Warren and Pressley spoke to the potential of “widespread student debt cancellation” to an assembly of many with personal stories to tell of their own pursuits and the debt that follows them.
Both women attested to the racial disparity in those owing for their education, with people of color on average, owing more than white students. Women sitting in the classroom or at the laptop also carry more debt than men.
The current program offers up to $10,000 in relief and up to $20,000 for those students receiving Pell Grants. Last month, Warren and Pressley joined Biden administration officials in unveiling new state-by-state estimates that indicated more than 813,000 Massachusetts borrowers stand to benefit, including over 400,000 Pell Grant recipients.
Some in the crowd offered some pushback to the numbers involved in the program. A woman asking Warren directly about the $10,000 cap on the debt relief said, “I’m 60 years old, a late bloomer and I’ve got undergraduate and graduate loans to the tune of $80 or $90,000.”
She added, “$10,000 is nothing.”
Warren was quick to respond, “$10,000 ain’t nothing,” continuing, “20 million Americans will see all their student debt wiped out”.
The senator was also quick to reference the significant number of older borrowers that would potentially benefit from the plan.
Pressley drew attention to the current 800,000 eligible borrowers in the commonwealth alone, urging them to take advantage of the federal program. “It’s not just the heavy load of the economic hardship, it’s also the shame the borrowers carry … and it’s the reason we’re not calling this ‘debt forgiveness’ and that’s because you’ve done nothing wrong.”