The City University of New York announced last week that it would temporarily stop withholding transcripts from students with unpaid bills, reversing a long-held policy that prevented thousands from transferring between schools or entering the careers of their choice. 

CUNY students are among the millions across the country hit hard by the pandemic and left struggling to finance their education. But the problem of transcript withholding long predates COVID, as The Hechinger Report’s Jon Marcus found when he began investigating this issue as part of a Hidden Debt Trap project. 

A new report from the Brookings Institution calls for a major infusion of federal money into an overlooked group of schools: regional colleges in economically challenged areas. 

In this interview, one of the report's authors talks about his vision for the proposal, the barriers still facing regional colleges, and how to sell the idea of new federal support to policymakers.

Photo: Marcus Ingram

The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, gave $1 billion to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions. More than 20 of the roughly 100 HBCUs around the country have been using these funds to help their students pay off debts owed to the school.

Research shows that Black students often shoulder larger amounts of student debt; they are also more likely to struggle to repay their loans after graduation. Additionally, Black graduates, on average, make less money than their white peers, even with a college degree. Canceling student debt, many advocates argue, is one of the fastest ways to close the Black-white wealth gap.