AEA Papers and Proceedings
ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)
Student Debt Relief and Racial Wealth Gaps
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 114,
May 2024
(pp. 535–39)
Abstract
The Biden-Harris Administration released a plan to cancel federal student loans for 43 million borrowers on August 24, 2022. While the Supreme Court struck down the Biden-Harris student debt relief plan on June 30, 2023, the White House is now planning to use the Higher Education Act of 1965, a federal law that governs the student loan program, to bring about relief for student borrowers. This article estimates the potential impact of broad-based student debt relief on racial and ethnic wealth gaps. On average, federal student debt potentially eligible for relief explains 3 percent of the White-Black wealth gaps, suggesting that broad-based student debt relief could significantly mitigate racial wealth inequities.Citation
Daniels, Gerald E. Jr., Jeffrey Galloway, and Venoo Kakar. 2024. "Student Debt Relief and Racial Wealth Gaps." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114: 535–39. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20241130Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- G51 Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
- I22 Educational Finance; Financial Aid
- I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination