In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson vowed that no student wishing to attend college would "be turned away because his family is poor."
Half a century later, a shift in the way college is funded and the declining fortunes of minorities and poor families since the recession have created a college-debt system that the left-leaning think tank Demos calls "deeply biased along class and racial lines."
Because college is increasingly financed by debt taken on by students, it's creating a system that's impacting different socio-economic communities in unique ways, Demos senior policy analyst Mark Huelsman writes in the report. Black, Latino and low-income students are not only taking on higher loan balances to finance their college educations, but they are more likely to drop out before receiving a degree, creating a worst-of-both worlds situation: student debt without a credential that will help earn higher income.
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