Build Black Better Pt. 2: Lift as We Climb

In the wake of the hate-filled massacre in Buffalo and after the two-year milestone of George Floyd’s murder, Parts 1 and 2 of “Build Black Better” explore possibilities for what the historic public, corporate, and philanthropic promises made two years ago towards investment in the Black community could produce.

1865 words - a ~six-minute read. Hyperlinks used in lieu of footnotes.?

Introduction

Inflation levels sit at a near 40-year high in the United States, political divisiveness is at a similar high, and COVID rates just hit another surge again. The White House has its hands full trying to buoy a nation in need. One part of its relief plan is to announce (eventually) more federal support for a popular-by-demand economic intervention: a new round of student debt forgiveness .?

In response to horrific gun-related tragedies in Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX, the White House changed the timing of the announcement. President Biden currently has a pause on federal student loan payments until August 2022, but in an election year where young voters, Black voters, and Hispanic voters have declining approval rates for Uncle Joe, this summer will be a critical window of time to figure out a way to bring relief to the future generations of Americans.

With so many social ailments plaguing the public at the same time, where do we even start?

We need some hope as the summer heats up. Right now, it looks like the best place for us to hope is in our dreams. I’d like to pick up Part 2 of this “Build Black Better” post with a specific dream concept that could help resurface the student debt conversation in a way that mobilizes an intersectional set of stakeholders: prioritized student loan forgiveness for Historically Black College and University (HBCU) graduates who commit to becoming public school teachers over the next four years.

Putting an Equity Lens on Debt

Former President George W. Bush signed the Public Loan Forgiveness Program into law in 2007, creating an amazing opportunity for nonprofits and the government to attract talent by making federal student loans eligible for full cancellation after 10 years of service and 120 qualified payments. President Biden’s administration enacted temporary reforms to the program to help streamline the forgiveness process for more borrowers. While the changes are slated to expire on October 31, 2022, the intended announcements around student debt forgiveness show the President’s desire to do more in this area.

The current Biden proposal is a $10,000 relief for individuals making less than $150,000 a year or couples making less than $300,000. Under these guidelines, 97% of student debt holders would be eligible. Critics say this strategy lacks equitable precision, triggering pushback from marginalized communities who claim this option looks more like a political stunt than a step toward equity.

To understand what an equitable student loan forgiveness program would look like, we first need to understand that we’re talking about more than just debt. We need to open up this conversation to include topics like financial wisdom, generational wealth, and inheritance.

Today, the average white family has approximately 10 times the amount of wealth as the average Black family. It’s not hard to understand how this impacts future-focused decisions around graduating high school, pursuing advanced education, investing, and purchasing real estate; your options are scarce when your first step into adulthood has to be made to support your family rather than be invested in a wealth-building asset.

How can education be the great equalizer when too many of us can’t afford it?

Reports of students and graduates drowning in debt are published regularly. High-interest rates and low job placement contribute to more and more borrowers falling into default. Others find themselves owing more than they borrowed, some suffering even after two decades of making on-time minimum payments .

We must address both student loan debt and racial inequity, in ways that have compounding effects for the future.

Betting on Black

Urban Ed Academy presents a Black Pay it Forward model , where new Black teachers create change and inspiration for younger students to do the same later in life, with the hope of interrupting the cyclical dynamic of students growing up and accumulating more debt while reaching towards the same debt-freedom their white peers inherit.

In Build Black Better Part I , we took a look at how Urban Ed Academy strategically attacks the gaps in inheritance and job placement by arranging to fund professional development and mentorship, housing, and stipends for living expenses in the Bay Area. While the model has been effective, UEA’s reach is limited as one organization.

The country’s demographic is shifting and the financial standing should also reflect it. Generations later, centuries of oppression maintain a fierce economic hold on non-white citizens. We need to level the playing field and one major step in that direction is to manufacture an overrepresentation of BIPOC students pursuing roles in education.

There are over 3.3 million public school teachers in the US, but only 7% of those teachers identify as Black . To double that representation to match the 12-13% that Black people represent of the nation’s population, we need to aim for dramatic overrepresentation of Black talent for recruitment into the field; a task easily managed for HBCUs with a carefully mapped campaign.?

The country is facing a daunting teacher shortage. In our dream scenario, we set a goal to flood the education space with 100,000 Black teachers over the next 5 years, with each of the approximately 100 HBCUs committing to graduating 200 new teachers each year. Stipends, student loan forgiveness - or better yet - scholarships for teachers, are all reasonable incentives to turn this dream into a sustainable campaign.

Dream Investment Focus: HBCUs

Society has taken the stance that education is the surefire path to social mobility. HBCUs have supported increased economic mobility in black communities by graduating 40% of all Black engineers, 40% of all Black US Congress members, 50% of all Black lawyers, and 80% of all Black judges. By investing in those infrastructures to increase our pool of educators, allocating funding here is almost poetic.?

HBCUs exist because of the country’s history of inequitable allocation of resources and discriminatory practices. Where land and money once determined a person’s status, education took its place. The one constant is that access to such power and position relies on the fairness of one’s complexion. Never to give in, HBCUs were born, allowing Black people to pursue education with as much vigor and curiosity as their white counterparts. Inclusion in the American dream required HBCUs.

Today, most HBCUs are struggling financially . The most impactful step forward is investing in black institutions and organizations and bringing them to the table for those funding decisions. So what could a big dream look like to develop a partnership between HBCUs, philanthropists, and public investments around Black educators?

Dream Investment Partners: Californian Individual Donors x State of California x HBCUs

We can Build Black Better with focused investments in future Black educators. Partners that have supported Urban Ed Academy work with us to invest over $100,000 over four years per Black male teacher in our Man the Bay fellowship. Currently, California has a massive budget surplus that it needs to utilize wisely in the face of a pending recession. Thankfully, wise and willing leadership in Governor Newsom and the California Legislature also placed historic amounts of one-time funding in the budget during the pandemic to kickstart a new wave of workforce development in the state.

This is the perfect dream project to garner support from both the public and private sectors. While our schools need government support in California, we also need the support of the state’s wealthy corporations and philanthropists. Although she is not based in California, Mackenzie Scott recently dove into philanthropy, giving approximately $12 billion to over 1,200 organizations to date . Imagine the impact if we could activate the 186 billionaires living in California for this type of focused support?

What type of change could happen if each of the state’s billionaire residents or billion-dollar corporations donated 1% of a billion dollars each year for four years? Well, 100,000 teachers could be freed from their student loan debt, or 100,000 new teachers could enter the field with zero dollars in student loan debt.

Scott, who should officially be known as a radical philanthropist, is one example of the power one billionaire can yield. She’s living out her pledge to donate half of her fortune to service-oriented organizations.

She’s not alone. The tragedy of George Floyd’s death, coupled with the devastation of COVID-19 has served as a unique catalyst for immense philanthropic giving to the Black community. Benefactors like Mr. Robert Smith, who paid $34 million of Morehouse College’s class of 2019 student loan debt, has been tipping the scales year by year.

If the State of California, its billionaire residents, and corporations based there each adopted an HBCU or a Black-led foundation, we could do this. Donating just one percent of $1 billion would support a Build Black Better dream coming to fruition:?

• 1% of $1 billion is $10 million;
• Multiply that by the 186 billionaires in the Golden State and an astronomical, $1.86 billion would be rerouted to level the playing field for Black citizens across the nation in one year;
• Add in unfilled corporate promises post-George Floyd, and the possibilities get closer;
• Add in the state of California’s investment power, and the dream could really become reality;
• Pour these resources directly into HBCUs developing new teachers, and a new cycle can begin:

Conclusion?

How do we make it happen? We need to find ways to remove the pressure of student loan debt for teachers so they can focus on teaching students to the best of their abilities instead of worrying about how many side jobs they need to keep up with their bills. Without mountains of debt, people can afford to choose career paths based on passion rather than income bracket. When the need to juggle multiple side jobs to pay off creditors dissipates, those hours and expendable income can be allocated to higher education, entrepreneurship opportunities, and philanthropic ventures.

The reality is we have the power to start right now. The legend Pharrell Williams gave us a recent example of the power of “right now”: via his Something in the Water Festival in Washington, D.C., he paid off the student loans of five HBCU graduates . There is room for everyone to invest their time, talent, or treasure in our historic institutions and the future teachers they can produce.

If we all lift as we climb, we have a chance to effect change exponentially in this country. Building Black Better for the next generation will require a collective effort from us all. No matter where we choose to invest, if we make that investment together, any result is possible–even the ones we dream about.