As a first-generation student, Brittani Williams relied on loans to fund her college education. After she had her degree in hand, it was time to start paying. The reality of her debt finally hit her.

Williams, a higher education senior policy analyst at The Education Trust, is studying the way people like her—Black women borrowers—are burdened by college debt more profoundly than any other demographic group.

The cost of college continues to be a hurdle for many students, but this reality doesn’t make a college degree less valuable. Policy changes, such as free community college, could make a difference by lowering the risk for low-income students to pursue higher education. 

In the meantime, we should encourage more people to go to college while arming them with the information they need to plan for their futures, writes Anthony Carnevale of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce in this essay.