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“There’s an assumption out there that because community and technical colleges and workforce retraining programs are lower cost than elite Ivy League institutions that borrowing isn’t an issue for those students, but it’s precisely the opposite,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at think tank Demos, who studies student debt. “These are students who have fewer financial means to begin with, they’re more likely to borrow, and if they borrow it’s just a fundamentally different prospect.”
Donovan X. Ramsey, fellow at Demos, contributor to the New York Times, GQ, the Atlantic
"The stories I've cared about for as long as I can remember are suddenly interesting to the vast majority of new consumers. The race beat is hot again, so to speak... Earlier this year, I was working with a white editor on a piece of reported analysis about mass incarceration. She decided halfway through the process to kill the piece and later emailed me to say that it would be really 'powerful' if I wrote a 'personal reflection' on incarceration.
In the midst of a terse national conversation about police violence against Black Americans came news that Morehouse College, my alma mater and the nation’s only all-male historically Black college, welcomed one of its largest freshman classes.
Almost everyone agrees that education, innovation and human capital are critical to economic growth and security. And anyone who can’t find a job or is stuck with a low-paying job is told to acquire the skills necessary to succeed in today’s economy.
Unfortunately, the results of believing in that myth have been catastrophic. Earnings have stagnated or declined for everyone except the very top earners, even for those who have educational qualifications, and jobs that didn’t previously require credentials now do.
Those orders represent a victory for unions, particularly the labor federation Change to Win, which has been organizing workers at federally contracted businesses through the campaign Good Jobs Nation. Low-wage workers affiliated with Good Jobs Nation — including food service and janitorial workers in federal buildings — have spent the past two years engaging in protests and other labor actions to pressure the federal government to improve contractor standards.
Consumer advocacy groups have long complained that there is no link between bad credit and job performance. They argue that such checks lead to discriminatory hiring.