National Leader of #CancelStudentDebt Campaign Spoke with Members During Equity Conference

Hundreds of student debt cancellation activists protested in the nation’s capital on Monday, demanding that the Biden Administration cancel all federal student loan debt, which equates to about $1.6 trillion.

The Debt Collective, the country’s first union for debtors, organized the demonstration.

In March, Astra Taylor, the co-founder of The Debt Collective, joined CFA members at Equity Conference 2022 to talk about how our debts are sources of wealth and power, in which debt is “a form of social control and a tool of white supremacy.”

“The federal government does not even know how much of that (student loan debt) is interest. It doesn’t keep track,” said Taylor at Equity Conference 2022. She is also a writer, documentarian, and organizer. “The ideal system is very different than the one we have, but the one we have is structured very intentionally as a form of wealth transfer, because the payments of debtors are going into the pockets of investors and creditors.

“This is by design. We are indebted by design.”

The video is available here.

Once it is uploaded, the full Equity Conference library can be viewed on CFA’s YouTube channel or on the Equity Conference page of our website.

After the day of action, President Biden announced plans to pause federal student debt collection through August 31.

“Pausing a crisis doesn’t end it,” wrote The Debt Collective (@StrikeDebt) on Twitter after news broke of the extension.

To stay informed and/or get involved with The Debt Collective, click here.