From Fringe to Mainstream in Just 363 Days.

While it may have only been one rhetorical step in the right direction with no immediate consequences for the plight of the educated poor in America, let me be clear: last night's State of the Union Address by President Obama was, in fact, a hugely significant moment in the one year history of the student loan forgiveness movement. 
 
Think back to President Bush's last State of the Union Address, exactly two years ago today.  Prior to the near-collapse of the global economy, the effects of the middle-class squeeze were already being felt, but barely being acknowledged.  Said Bush, just 2 short years ago: "In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth. But in the short run, we can all see that growth is slowing." Talk about an understatement! 
 
Granted, President Bush could not have possibly forseen the full impact of what was about to come just 7 or 8 short months later, but anyone who considered themselves middle-class at that time already knew that the economy wasn't working for them.  Real wages had shrunk during the previous decade, the costs of health care, child care and tuition were increasing dramatically, people were starting to lose their jobs and, of course, we were all drowning in debt.
 
There was no mention of overwhelming student loan debt and the economic growth it inhibits.  Nobody in government viewed the student loan system in America as anything other than a resounding success because of the access to higher education such loans provided to millions of Americans who would otherwise never have had such opportunities.  While millions of student loan borrowers continued to struggle to make ends meet, our leaders in Washington remained blind to the crisis that was developing right before their very eyes. 
 
Flash forward one year, to just 9 days after the innauguration of President Obama.  As most of you familiar with my efforts already know, I was closely following the debate over the administration's proposed stimulus package, growing more and more disillusioned with the notions of "Hope and Change" as the debate centered mostly on tax breaks that would have little effect on the average American's bottom line and which seemed to continue the nearly 30 year history of "trickle-down economics."  This debate, of course, came on the heels of the unprecedented bank bailouts and $700 Billion TARP program of late 2008 and I, like so many other Americans, simply grew fed up with throwing trillions of dollars at the very institutions of greed that had gotten us into the mess in the first place.
 
It seemed to me that if our leaders in Washington were truly interested in revitalizing our economy, forgiving the student loan debt of each and every American would be a much faster, cheaper and more effective way of achieving that goal while, at the same time, doing so would signal a firm commitment to promoting and supporting higher education.  I believed then, just as I do today, that the 21st Century economy must be rebuilt from the bottom-up, not the other way around.  After all, what good is an expensive education if obtaining one leaves you in a far worse economic position than if you had never chosen to go to school at all?
 
With a little extra time on my hands and a great deal of frustration built up that needed to be released in a productive way, I authored an essay entitled "Forgive Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy," posted it to a new group on Facebook, then spent the next year watching my simple essay morph into a true viral/grassroots movement that took on a life of its own. 
 
All of a sudden, through no affirmative steps of my own, reporters from the Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Washington Times, BusinessWeek, The Economist, U.S. News & World Report, PBS, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today and many others began to take an interest in the idea as membership in the Facebook group skyrocketed.
 
As of today, just one day shy of the 1 year anniversary of the Facebook group that I started, membership is over 260,000 strong and growing every day.  Thousands more created profiles on this upstart website and countless people from all walks of life began to share their stories of hardship and banded together to effect real change.
 
Letter writing campaigns to elected officials were initiated and members of the Facebook group were encouraged to comment on the various student loan-themed articles that were being written with increasing regularity, shining a light on the problem for what seemed to be the very first time. 
 
A full year of active engagement by thousands of similarly-situated Americans culminated in President Obama's proclamation last night that:

. . In the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.
 
Before a joint session of Congress, the President of the United States outlined his plan to cap student loan repayments to 10% of a person's income above a livable wage with forgiveness of loans after 20 years of repayment or 10 years of repayment while serving in a public interest job.  While the proposal was admittedly short on detail, it has provided a glimmer of hope for millions of Americans who are struggling simply because they sought to better themselves through higher education.
 
I anxiously await the details of the president's proposal - will it include private loans or just federal loans?  Will the forgiven amount be treated as taxable income?  What exactly is a "livable wage?"  What about restoring basic consumer protections to student loans?  Will interest rates be capped as well?  The list goes on and on.
 
Nonetheless, despite all of these unanswered questions, there's one thing about which I'm absolutely certain: but for the collective action of over a quarter million of my fellow citizens, there would have been no mention of the enormous burdens posed by student loan repayment obligations whatsoever, much less by the President at his first State of the Union Address. 
 
This fight is by no means over, in fact, it's only just begun, however; make no mistake - last night was a major victory for all proponents of this budding movement.  Not only will the President's mentioning of the student loan crisis and his proposed solution to it help raise awareness about the incredible burdens imposed by student loans, it will undoubtedly lend a great deal of legitimacy to the plight of the educated poor simply by acknowledging that there's a problem in the first place.  This, in itself, is a major step forward - one we can and will build upon as our movement continues to grow by leaps and bounds and our collective voices grow louder with each passing day.