Back in 2019, Freddie Williams Jr. had a lot on his mind at his college graduation: 'That's when, you know, it started really kicking in – hey, this is how much you owe, you're gonna have to start paying this back,' he said.Growing up on the south side of Chicago, he had dreamed of going to Morehouse, the historically Black college in Atlanta that counts Martin Luther King Jr. among its distinguished alumni.
Mitchell says those levels of student debt are negatively affecting the economy: 'The U.S. economy is the world's biggest, most dynamic, in large part because of higher education,' he said. 'But you also have a lot of students who are – not in default in their loans, but are devoting more and more of their paychecks to paying off debt. That's money that they could have been using to save for retirement, or buy a house, or to even start a business.