Today, roughly 46 million Americans are suffocating under a burden of $1.6 trillion of student debt. The US Federal Government holds the overwhelming majority of this debt, and can arrange for its full cancellation. Doing so would produce an unprecedented economic boost, as the current debtors will be free to be active participants in the economy.

From 1945 through the mid 1980s, generations of Americans attended colleges across the country without accumulating significant amounts of student debt. Following that era, the burden of the cost of education fell on students instead of being shared by society. The decisions to shift that burden were not made by the students. Rather, they were promised that the investment they placed in their education would readily be returned many times over on account of their education. Clearly, this has not happened. Instead, generations of students are now burdened with an overwhelming debt load, which severely limits their life opportunities. This systemic injustice must be rectified.

Therefore, we call for universal debt cancellation as modeled by The Student Debt Cancellation Act of 2019 (H.R.3448) and The College For All Act of 2019 (S.1947)