This is EU data, but speaking of math: US people, don't do the math on being a poor Black girl with straight As, who takes out loans for 4 years of undergraduate tuition + 5 years of grad school tuition to get a PhD, and then only being able to use it for under 9 years. 🤡

Brilliant Black girls tend to have much poorer parents than the average American, and so need to borrow more for college. They're also more likely to excel in school and complete more levels than Black boys.

1/N

@obviousdwest @Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke

Speaking as a German from a working class family, American-style tuition fees certainly would have scared me away from studying.

In fact, during my studies of physics, I did contemplate going to the USA as an exchange student. But then I took a look at the tuition fees they charged(*) at the American university that my own was partnered with, thought: "Are these guys NUTS?", and decided to go to Scotland instead.

And I am very glad that public German universities _still_ don't charge any tuition fees.

(*) That was $8000 per term, back in the late 1990s. I gather that tuition fees at American universities have increased a tad since then.

@juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

But why is US education so expensive? By now, y'all already know.

Why is everything that's weird and self-destructive in the US that way? The answer is of course racism.

Eg, in the 80s, an advisor to Ronald Reagan warned that cheap college tuition leads to "an educated proletariat," which he didn't want. So to prevent this, they intentionally made college education unaffordable for most. Seriously.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110794448767679670

1/N

@juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

And again, Black folk are *disproportionally* impacted, because we are *more likely* to be poor. But there are many times more white folk than Black folk in the US. There are so many of you!

👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻🧔🏿‍♂️👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻

What this means, is that there are a lot of poor white people. And a system designed like this *hurts white people the most*.

Let me say it again more directly: poor white kids get hurt most by the anti-Black racism of US college financing.🙂🙃

@mekkaokereke @juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

If you don't believe Mekka, go read Heather McGhee's great book on the subject, The Sum of Us.

In fact go read it even if you do believe him. It's a great book.