Nia Mirza, an international student from Pakistan, organized a petition earlier this year demanding NYU lower the cost of attendance after the annual price tag of attending the school suddenly rose from $64,000 to $71,000.
Advocates of automatic voter registration won two legislative battles in Oregon and California this year, and lost another in New Jersey when GOP Governor Chris Christie vetoed automatic registration legislation last month.
The state of North Carolina is being sued over state’s violations of Sections V and VII of the National Voter Registration Act
GREENSBORO, N.C.–Widespread disenfranchisement and a steep decline in voter registration activity have led a coalition of civic organizations and voters to file a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina for violation of an important federal voting rights law.
The elections board said registration activity is back to levels from previous odd-numbered years. Part of the issue, the board said, was local social service agencies had been printing registration forms that were not coded as coming from these agencies. Issues related to DMV's online address updates also are being addressed, Strach said.
Unfortunately, more and more retirees are falling into debt at the exact point in their lives when they should be free from financial worries. Whereas older people paid off their mortgages in generations past, now nearly half of all senior citizens still owe a house note.
But for many, even landing a job was not enough to make ends meet: of those 5 million job openings, nearly half paid less than $15 per hour, leaving only 2.7 million that paid $15 or more per hour. And for workers able to secure only part-time employment, wages were even more inadequate: in 2014, more than one in five part-time workers wanted full-time employment but were unable to find it.
The core finding: there are not enough living wage jobs to go around. And women and people of color are especially impacted by low wages and part-time work.
Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst for the liberal think tank Demos, which is pushing for debt-free college, said the state efforts are important because much of the rise of undergraduate student debt is a result of state budget cuts. And, he said, "We know big policy change in every arena requires good, smart and bold state policy, either to provide an example for the federal government or in partnership with the federal government."
The IWPR study also offers a window into the way race affects a borrower’s’ experience with student debt. Studies show that black students are more likely to borrow for school and tend to borrow more than their white counterparts, likely because the gap in wealth between black and white Americans means black students have fewer resources to draw from to pay for college.
“Alabama’s recent settlement with the Department of Justice doesn’t address the state’s photo ID law,” Lisa Danetz, the legal director for Demos, which before the deal played a leading role in raising concerns about Alabama’s compliance with Motor Voter, confirmed. “Instead, it relates to the federal requirement that the state must provide voter registration during driver’s license transactions.”
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that in most cases, a college degree helps to boost employment and earning potential -- the underemployment rate of those with just a high school diploma is 12.9%, the analysis found. But for many Americans, a college degree is out of reach without taking on debt. That’s particularly true for African-Americans. More than half of young black households hold student debt, according to a recent analysis from Demos, a left-leaning think tank, and Brandeis University’s Institute on Assets and Social Policy.
Attaining a higher education in the U.S. has long been seen as the great equalizer. "We see education as a way to level the playing field among low-income families, low-income communities and communities of color," Mark Huelsman, the report's lead author, told NBC News.
But the current education system is rife with racial and class disparities contributing to an expanding wealth gap between whites and people of color, according to the "Less Debt, More Equity" report.
As Black Friday approaches, retailers nationwide are waiting anxiously to see whether the nation’s busiest shopping day will deliver a boost in profits. But perhaps no company has more at stake than Walmart, the shopping behemoth that was the world’s largest retailer until Amazon supplanted it in that role this summer.
Despite its reputation as an antidote to inequality, the U.S. higher education system has reinforced and even exacerbated racial wealth inequality, by preventing many students of color from accessing college and loading black students with debt when they do attend.
Late Monday night, while protesting the recent police killing of Jamar Clark, a 24-year old Black man, in Minneapolis, 5 people were shot. They were just a block away from the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct, where protesters have held daily demonstrations for the past nine days. Demos President Heather McGhee:
”Protesters represent the very best of our democracy and every candidate for president should denounce last night’s shooting in the strongest possible terms."
However generous paid leave benefits are, whether employees actually use those benefits will depend a lot on the culture they work in and the social pressures they face.
Amazon, for instance, is "notorious for its competitive work environment, and simply having access to leave may not be enough if workers feel they will be penalized in their careers for taking it," said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos.
This is doubly true for fathers, who are especially unlikely to take leave no matter where they wo
Eliminating student debt for low- to middle-income families could dramatically narrow the racial wealth gap between black and white households, according to a joint study by liberal think tank Demos and the Institute for Assets & Social Policy at Brandeis University.
Though 43 million Americans across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum have nearly $1.3 trillion in college loans, black households are far more likely to have student debt at all income levels.
All in, 401(k) fees can range from 50 basis points up to 3 percent, said David Walters, a CPA and certified financial planner with Palisades Hudson Financial Group. Any plan charging more than 1 percent, Walters insisted, should be seen as suspect.
"Taken over an employee's lifetime, that can make a huge difference in what [workers] get to spend in retirement," Walters said.
In addition, federal student loans — which usually cap at $27,000 over four years — don’t always cover the full cost of a higher education, and many students are forced to secure private loans or work jobs to pay for their degree.
“Student debt is not the same to every borrower,” Mark Huelsman, a senior analyst at public policy nonprofit Demos, said in a statement. “It can look a lot different to a first-generation student from a very modest economic background than to someone going to graduate school getting a law degree.”