As Chicago Proves, Student Debt Isn’t Necessarily Good Debt
(by Lee Davenport and Sean Luechtefeld, Prosperity Now)
“On June 7, the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and San Francisco, Prosperity Now (formerly CFED) and Citi Foundation convened 120 civil rights, youth empowerment and community economic development leaders in Chicago to discuss What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Communities, Families and the Nation. The book, which highlights the numerous factors that coalesce to predict financial health and well-being, was designed to be a starting point for communities to come together to probe solutions to the biggest challenges they face.
The event in Chicago was the perfect example of such a discussion. At a time when Chicagoans face some of the most significant social problems they’ve seen in decades, several community-based organizations are engineering promising solutions that are ripe for scale. Meanwhile, opportunities to develop new solutions abound, and if we are to overcome some of these most pressing challenges, the public, private, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors must come together and leverage the many ways in which large-scale systems intersect, including housing, transportation, education and more.”
