Almost all 2,000 students at South Carolina State University owed money to the school by the end of spring semester this year. Some owed less than a dollar, others were hundreds or even thousands of dollars past due on expenses such as tuition payments and housing fees, the Wall Street Journal reported. Without paying off the bills, many students couldn’t register for the next term or, in the case of seniors, get their diplomas. The school said this month it had wiped away $9.8 million in debt for more than 2,500 students — including current students and some who had already dropped out because they couldn’t afford to pay off their balances and re-enroll. Historically Black colleges and universities, such as South Carolina State, are springing students from the academic version of debtor’s prison, clearing their account balances so they can continue on with, or complete, school. More than 20 HBCUs are using federal pandemic funds for debt relief, according to a tally by the United Negro College Fund, a scholarship organization for private historically Black colleges and universities. HBCUs received $2.6 billion of the $40 billion set aside for higher education under this spring’s American Rescue Plan Act. Their students are overwhelmingly from low-income backgrounds, and many are first-generation college students; schools were told to give priority to the neediest students when distributing a portion of the funds and say these students were hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic downturn.
