This was probably very obvious to younger people and African-Americans but I'm just hitting this one now.

Okay, so when you look at when people really start having BS/BA degrees, when an undergrad degree really becomes necessary to get a job, that's about 1980-1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

The rate of college loans increases gets steeper after 1992 and 2002. https://usstudentloancenter.org/how-much-do-i-owe-in-student-loans/

That's independent of ethnicity, but the timing on Civil Rights is such that Black Greatest Generation/Silent Generation misses out on a lot of prosperity they could pass down, Black Boomers are able to tap into it a little. There are other things (and not just sudden costs from outright racism, I'm also thinking house loans became more of a possibility after the 60s even if you're not stuck with steeper rates) which mean a Black family might be dinged more by expenses, and that in turn makes Xers and younger more likely to be dependent on loans.

Black Xers start being the generation that really gets to/has to go to college, and might have gotten get lucky with rates - but as a community African Americans are largely going after degrees during the 2+ decades it's become steadily more prohibitive for *everyone*. The timing on this kicks feet out from a minority just beginning to get back on their feet again.

(Two more impacts; I think this probably solves towards Black students going for degrees with a better ROI, which is a real loss to palaeontology/ecology/physics/history/who knows how many other fields. And, any employee paying off student loans has a lot less leeway to get involved with politics, especially if they have a higher chance of getting dragged away from any protest in cuffs.)

So I don't think college loans are necessarily intended to be racist (they're intended to be predatory) but their effect is definitely racist.

I felt sort of like college loans should be forgiven and some sort of college should be free of charge before I thought about this, but now I very much think this.

That's all I wanted to say.