Okay, we've got people, we have guests, we have everything we need, so let's begin. Welcome everybody, welcome to the Future Trends Forum. I'm really glad to see all of you here today. We have a couple of terrific guests on a very, very important topic, a lot to discuss. Okay, it's a little hot in here, so I'm gonna go back to my business casual here. For the past, oh gosh, at least three years on the Future Trends Forum, we've been examining, among other things, two crucial topics. One is the question of financing higher education, especially the United States, how we do it with a massive amount of student debt. At the same time, we've been exploring race, racism, the anti-racism, and how that shapes not just society, but higher education. Today, I'd like to connect those two streams. I'd like to have us look into what it means to be black in this country and to take out student loans. How is that experience different from the experience of students of other races? What does higher education do to make that worse? And what can we do to improve it, to reform this, and to make it better? In order to do that, we have two wonderful scholars who have just recently published a new book. If you look in the bottom left of your screen, you should see a little button that says a dream defaulted. That's the title. And let me bring each of our scholars up on stage. First of all, let me find Professor Otto and let me add her to the top of our screen. Good afternoon. Hi, good afternoon. Good to see you. I'm saying afternoon. I know you're on the road. Which time zone are you in? Oh no, I'm still on the East Coast. I'm in the, I'm not, yeah, I see, I am. It's two o'clock here. We'll have to two o'clock here. Yes. Great, great. Well, I'm so glad to see you. President Otto, we have, I'm sorry, Professor Otto, we have all these ways of introducing ourselves in the Academy. But the one that we do here is forward-looking. I'd like to ask what are you gonna be working on for the next year or so? What are the big projects? What are the big ideas for you? Yeah, so I have several new or fairly new projects that I'm working on, all kind of still related to this topic on higher education. I'm working with a team that's looking at system-wide data here in North Carolina, kind of trying to do like a demographic landscaping of their financial aid and student debt profiles. Like, you know, comprehensive data to kind of figure out what's been going on over the last few years here. I'm also still doing some work on social mobility or higher education and college degrees as a mechanism of social mobility for poor middle-class black Americans. And I'm also working on a paper more recently on how student debt might be thought of as a form of reparations and whether or not we can make that claim, so. Wow. Wow. Well, that's all amazing. I would love to see that paper whenever it gets out. Yeah, that sounds good. What a great idea. Well, welcome. And let me add your colleague to the stage as well. I don't wanna leave him completely out of everything. No, no, no, we can't leave Jason out. Now, if he's in New Hampshire, I lived in Vermont long enough to know that I don't have to be nice to anyone from New Hampshire, but let me see if I can be polite at least, you know. And let's say how that'll work. Professor Hul, welcome, welcome. Hey, how are you? Good to see you, good to see you. Here, let me actually make things a little fancier. Let me make the video a little sharper here. Professor Hul, you heard our unique method of introducing ourselves. What are you gonna be working on for the next year? Yeah, so I think like a lot of us who just lived through the last three years, I'm really interested in understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has either exacerbated all the problems we care about as social scientists or perhaps maybe made some of them better because historically we saw, you know, direct aid to families be higher than it has been in previous recessions. And particularly given my interest in debt, more broadly than just student debt, we're really interested in how this has impacted borrowing for rich folks, for poor folks, and particularly the kind of borrowing we tend to worry about that is like really high interest loans that we think of as being predatory, like payday loans and those sorts of things. So it's really understanding the landscape of debt and inequality kind of during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. People usually say that the pandemic exacerbated economic inequality. Do you think that idea still holds up from what data you've seen? I think it does in some ways. We saw what looked like a very K-shaped recovery. So it was really working class folks and folks of color who were in service sector industries that were emergency workers. It was also these folks who were more likely to get laid off and quite frankly, folks like me who were able to keep their job and just do it remotely, even though it was mildly uncomfortable, we were pretty secure. And in fact, the upper middle class made a lot of money in the stock market boom that came after the COVID-19 pandemic and made a lot in the savings. What we also saw was kind of this grand experiment that I think a lot of progressives and liberals have been wanting to see, that is an expansion of welfare benefits. We saw the kind of the most generous unemployment benefits we've seen in decades, the most sort of the generous aid to most generous aid to children that we've seen. So child poverty, for example, was I think close to cut in half. That's just like slightly wrong during the pandemic. So there's ways in which it's sort of like a little bit of both. And so that's why it's sort of merits investigation because I don't think we have a good handle on this yet. Oh, that's a good product. Thank you. That's a good answer to like my clumsy question. And I look forward to seeing your results. Thank you very much. Friends, now that we have our two guests on stage, what I'm going to do is ask them a couple of really basic introductory questions to get things going. But then I want to get out of the way and make this space available for your questions in your comments. So as professors Ado and Hul describe their book and as you reflect on what you've read of it or read about it, and what you can do as you respond to their words, think of the questions you'd like to ask. I can promise we'll all be as kind as possible and we look forward to hearing your thoughts together. So just to begin with, in the course of your research in creating this important book, what are the main differences that you see that distinguish black student debt from everybody else's debt with student debt? How's the black student debt experience different from those of Latinos, from whites, from Hispanics, and from Asians? Should I start, Jason? Okay, I can start and then you just fill in where I miss, so what we really saw, and I think some of our earliest work speaks directly to this, was that black borrowers on average were accumulating more student debt, so they were taking out more debt, accumulating more debt, and struggling to repay it or have higher rates of loan default and delinquency. So really one of the strongest predictors of student debt was the racial categorization of the borrower. Second to that was usually the institutional sector that the student went to. So if they went to a for-profit college or so on, for example. So like I said, some of our earliest work was really quantifying that disparity, that the student debt disparity that black borrowers have. And when we compare it to other groups, whites or Latinos, it was always, the black numbers were always the highest or the most extreme. So our book really is focused on black borrowers because they had the highest and the most extreme levels. So I'll start to stop there and let Jason go from there. Yeah, so I think Fennabae did a great job sort of telling us sort of like the nitty gritty of why we focus on black borrowers in particular. It's, as a sociologist, I think of like if we wanna really, we wanna zoom in on the social situations or the situations in which there is great pain, and that is quite frankly, where we see the greatest pain. But I think I would back up also and just to kind of give a more 30,000 foot picture is that when we do better talking about the student debt crisis today than we did say five years ago. So in some ways our book's a little bit too late. But we often would hear debates about is student debt really an accumulation crisis or is it a repayment crisis? So if we look at student debt accumulation, we might see stories in the New York Times or the Chicago newspapers or what have you about like these baristas at 120K and student debt and they're struggling to repay it. But in reality that's usually not super representative of the people with high amounts of debt. People with high amounts of debt are people like, people with PhDs, people with medical degrees, people with law degrees who end up in really high paying professions where they pay it down pretty easily. And so a lot of folks have said like, we should ignore maybe the eye popping numbers of student debt. Instead they would say what we need to focus on is the fact that there's a student debt repayment crisis and these look very different such that the folks on average who have $120,000 in debt are not your baristas, they're your lawyers and doctors and they're not defaulting on their loans. They're not having a hard time paying their loans. Instead, the people who are defaulting oftentimes have small amounts of loans, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000. And they're through a negative aim organization they might end up having more debt later. And that's how it was kind of framed in the media and in even in a lot of policy debates about student debt. And I think one thing that Fennaba and I have really been trying to do is like that's almost thinking about that's basically a white lens of thinking about student debt. As you know, you're white doctors who are making a lot of money but in the reality of the case is even though the people struggling to repay their loans typically aren't, at least when you look at like white folks the same people who have high amounts of debt for black borrowers they're overrepresented in both groups. That is black borrowers have way more debt just as Fennaba said but also much more difficulty paying that debt down. And you could think about the default rates in terms of if we look at four year college graduates so these are the folks who we might say hey, these folks did everything right. They got a college degree they kind of have their meal ticket to the middle class.   So that is this idea to college going to college and graduating and this is paying off and giving us access to financial stability and security seems to be true for white folks but in an era where we're sort of debt financing higher education it doesn't seem to be as true for black folks. Wow. Okay, well those are very, very important differences. How did this occur? What are some of the mechanisms by which this awful bias appeared in black student loans? Is it mostly due to black over representation among students and for profits or are there other factors we should consider? So there are lots of mechanisms or explanations as to what has been going on. One thing that we can certainly point to and some of them are better explained than others that I should say that one is has been the defunding of higher education at the state level. So that we see this cost shift or privatization that there's many different ways that you can refer to it where the cost of college has increasingly been was subsidized more by the state and federal government and that costs have shifted more to students and their families. And as we've seen growth in the number of people that are pursuing higher education and also growth in the racial representation or diversification by race at higher education we've seen increasingly the percent of that they've had to carry or the cost that they've had to carry pushed on to these families that just don't have the soxial economic or the economic resources to afford the cost, the world cost of college. So tuition fees, room and board, whatever all the costs, not just always tuition but also a lot of the associated costs with completing a college degree being shifted to students and families at a time and financial aid packaging is becoming less grant based or we're organizing grant based and more loan based. We can just speak to the Pell Grant which didn't keep up with inflation. So over time, which was the grant program that was supposed to increase representation of lower socioeconomic status students within higher education also taking on debt to complete their degrees. So something that was supposed to prevent them from going into debt increasingly having to turn to credit markets to make up the difference between the cost of college and what they were supposed to or are supposed to contribute as well. So all the big things, Jason did I leave anything out there? I think that's right. I would just, I mean, I know this audience is very a higher education focused audience. And so, you know, you are all really familiar with the defunding of higher education and we can pin that on Reagan or we can not, it's everyone's favorite bookie man here but, you know, the defunding of higher education really happened at a time when colleges were becoming more diverse racially on campus. And as my, our colleague, Laura Hamilton argues this diversity came without funding, right? And that's a big part of the story. And then we could get into how that's like, if anyone was saying how that financing was then shifted to families and then what that meant for a lot of black families who lacked the wealth and the socioeconomic standing and how we even think about things like wealth.  And so wealth, which is really rooted in these historical injustices of racism in the U.S. are really, I think for us, like a big, big part of the story and for us also are reproducing racial disparities and wealth among this generation of folks. Thank you, this is, you can see friends why I didn't invite these two professors to our program. That last point, especially Professor Lule about having the reinscription and perhaps expansion of racial disparities through higher education, especially brutal and vital. I was about to exhort all of you to ask questions and I'm gonna do that. But before I can even finish saying that, we're gonna start saying that questions have piled up. So let me just start putting a little screen so you all get a chance to hear them all. And this- Sorry, can I interrupt one more? I didn't want to ignore your for-profit comment because I think of like Tressie Cotum's work as being some of the most important work on for-profits. And so for us, for-profits are part of the story but they can't explain all of it. But they are particularly predatory and particularly alarming. I would say that's where the greatest pain really is. And so I think Tressie's book remains sort of undefeated in that regard and its ability to understand this. This is the excellent book, Lower Ed, which I teach my classes and I recommend to everybody. We've also read it in our book club and I can't recommend it enough. Thank you for equating that. This is a question that we have from Charles Finlay. Oops, hang on a second. And Charles asks, I'm wondering what is the correlation between degree completion and debt accumulation and repayment? Yeah, so I'll speak for the focus of our group for Black Barrowers. So what we find is that independent of degree completion, Black Student Barrowers have significant amounts of debt. So that was a strong predictor of whether or not they had debt. So Black Barrowers, non-completers, Black Barrowers with two-year, four-year degrees and grad students. I see some comments in the chat about grad student debt as well, all being correlated with student debt accumulation. We do also know that non-completers struggle the most with repayment. So as Jason was making that distinction about the differences in the debt distribution. So there are a lot of people who are concentrated at the lower ends of the debt distribution with less than 10,000 amounts of debt. A lot of those people are among the people who don't have the college degree. So they have the debt and no degree and they struggle, when we say struggle, have history of default and delinquency and they're up and overrepresented amongst those people who are struggling the most. So it's a little bit similar to debt, but we can also, they are more likely to also be debt burdened. So the amount of debt that they have relative to their income is quite large. I'll just add like two points to that. So I think to answer the question directly sort of about broadly the correlation between degree completion and debt accumulation or repayments, we know that kind of broadly speaking, people who complete their college degree, these folks tend to accumulate more debt, which makes sense, because they're sort of going to college longer, right? They have very little trouble repaying it. Non-completers accumulate less on average, but they're much, they have a much harder time repaying it going back to that discussion that Fennaba mentioned before, like a lot of folks who are defaulting have very little loan levels and in part because they're having a hard time in the labor market finding jobs, high paying jobs. But I want to also stress that, which I think Fennaba stressed again, but I always feel like it's worth bears repeating everything, because that's, I always tell people that's 90% of my job as a professor is repeating myself. That's really not enough to explain the racial disparity. So there's been some really good work on this. And so we have a piece in the chronicle that's like basically the introduction in first chapter of our book, but essentially what the research tends to show on this is that race is actually a stronger predictor of default in college completion, like it explains as much variance in default as college completion does. And we see these massive racial disparities even among completers and non-completers. So while that might be part of the story about like risk of dropping out of college, when we think about the racial gaps in student rundown, it's certainly not all or even I think maybe Fennaba, I can say the majority of the story. Yeah, yeah. So race is a stronger predictor of student debt default than non-completion of degrees. Or it's about as, sorry, it's about as, it explains as much variance just about. They both explain around 20-ish percent of the variance. Okay, thank you, thank you. And Charles, thank you for that question. If you're new to the forum, by the way, that's an example of the text question. You can see how it works. Meanwhile, in the chat, we had a couple of really good comments from Ed Webb and Ariana Curtis about how tuition is not the entire picture of costs for students, which is very, very true and definitely worth repeating. Now that we've had text question, let's bring up the video question and I'll just have a Lynn Sibolski join us. Let's see if we can bring it up on stage and, Hello, Lynn. Hello, hello, can you hear me? Very well, thank you. It's always a win. Wild Horses could not have dragged me away from today's presentation. So thank you to the presenters for this work. It's near and dear to my heart. I just wanted to make a comment and then ask the question. My comment, I'm thinking back to my very first job in financial aid that was on the school side versus in student loan servicing and that was as the director of financial aid for a for-profit medical assistant school, predominantly black students and unbeknownst to me, it was already being shut down for Title IV violations. And I regard my year and a half of that institution as one of, if not the most pivotal extended moments in my life in terms of learning what I did not understand as a white person born and raised in coal country, Northeast Pennsylvania, 18702, coming from a place that was problematic, having moved out to New York City and saying, hey, I'm here to embrace all of the things that the world has to offer. But what that job taught me in terms of working with that student population were advantages that I took for granted, even as the child of a first in college father. My students didn't have homes. And it made a big difference in terms of, did they have a meal to eat? Did they have a place to do their homework? Did they have money for the Metro card the next day? Was a parent gonna be around to fill out their piece of the FAFSA so that they could finally get that loan money so that they could get that stipend for their transportation and so on and so forth. The issues of trauma that required professional judgment that required reaching out to other people in the community to confirm some of just the terrible experiences that some of these students went to in and out of class because they're in and out of homelessness, you know, kids bringing guns to the school. I mean, I could go on forever, but just in terms of understanding what that student population was up against, to this day, I still feel terrible about all of the student loans that I signed off on and the financial aid packages because I have so much of a better understanding of what really happened to those students, whether or not they graduated from the program and how easily they were taken advantage of because they just didn't have the background and the resources and support that even someone like me took for granted. And so my question going forward with the advent of technology now that students can take classes online, knowing that my black colleagues feel better going to work, working from home versus attending in person, what are the implications of that for this population in terms of, you know, hey, we're gonna go online shopping for some schools that are cheaper, we won't have to take out as much in student loans, but is it a fly by night thing? And is that a space, the online space given, you know, just racial tensions, is that a space that we should be focusing on or is there a real disadvantage to putting the focus on online education? Whoa. Thank you. Do you want to start or do you want to start? I mean, I have some thoughts. Jason, feel free to just jump in whenever. I guess my initial thought, I honestly thought you were gonna ask a different question so I'm recalibrating because thinking about what we know about online courses is a lot of the work that's been done on that was prior to COVID, right? So we have, you know, there's a lot of work that's in progress of like what online teaching and online environment, of course that's conflated with COVID as well as what happened, you know, the events that happened, especially in the spring and summer of 2020, with regard to a lot of the mass murders and killings of black men and women. So I think, I'm saying all that to say is that what we know about in the past, especially with regard to online degrees and even like they tended to be predatory, there was a lot of evidence that the returns to a lot of those degrees and programs were equivalent to some of the non-online programs and traditional institutional programs or how they were evaluated and seen, especially within the labor market. So I'm starting there to say that when we try to think, and I think this moment is definitely a moment where we should be thinking innovatively and thinking about what else could we do, you know, beyond what we've always done. But we also want to make sure that we're creating products and creating returns with equity and, you know, with equity focus and are ensuring that they're not recreating inequalities. And so that would be where I would go with that question.  So a lot of like, you know, I'll give an example, like black women are overwhelmingly represented within for-profits because they meet a need, right? For women who are working, maybe women with small children, the abilities that kind of have flexible schedules, but, you know, enormous amounts of debt that these, a lot of these women accumulated by pursuing those types or by attending those types of institutions and getting degrees from those places. And then when you turn to the labor market, not being amply compensated or being questioned about the quality of those degrees. That's just one example. Thank you. That's a great answer for a powerful question. Professor Hool, did you want to weigh in? Well, I always like to say when I'm sort of outside of my wheelhouse and expertise, when it comes to online education, I'm decidedly out of my expertise.  So I think I would just echo what Fenomba said, is it sort of depends what it looks like. I know my own institution has now kind of said, well, we can't always do stuff online. We are not accredited for this. So you see a lot of institutions kind of backing off for this on, from this online focus. But I think it really depends with these, what a lot of quote unquote non-profit institutions do with this new kind of like online technology they have. Do they turn like a part of their campus into something that looks very much like a for-profit university? Or do they use that new online technology and online infrastructure to actually give us education that is more affordable and can be accessed more easily? I'm a little bit pessimistic as to what the answer to that question is. It's probably more the former than the latter. But I think it really depends on where we go in the next five to 10 years, I would guess. Well, Lynn, thank you so much for that question. Did you want to say more to build on that or? Oh no, I'm good. I'm ready to sit back and listen now. Well, I think you're fantastic. So thank you. Thank you. Again, if you're new to the forum, that's an example of a video question, as you might have guessed. So please, if you'd like to follow Lynn and joining us on stage, just click the raise hand button. Or if you'd like to follow Charles and ask a test question, just type in that Q&A box and fill her up. We've got more and more questions coming. And by the way, thank you, Jason and Finabo. Those are terrific, terrific answers. And if I could, much as I like to make fun of Dartmouth in New Hampshire, Dartmouth has long been a leader in digital technology. Dartmouth Congress is where the term artificial intelligence came from. There's a lot of great stuff there, a lot of great people. But let me get out of the way and bring up some questions. We have a detailed question, a sociological question from our wonderful friend, Roxanne Risken, who asks, I find that family members like parents and grandparents often take on student debt for family members. What are your findings and views in this area? I guess I'll just say the findings are everything we talk about in our book is racial disparities being massive, multiply that by some other huge factor. And that's what we're talking about with parents and grandparent borrowing. So plus loans have really taken off in the last 10, 15 years. And you see a huge proportion and growing proportion of plus loans that are now in the six-figure territory. So we're seeing this a lot, like we talked to a lot of folks who we talked to for this book, who were like, yeah, my parents and my grandparents took on some loans for me to the key of like, this student may have taken on 30, 40 grand. Their parents were in it for 70, 80, 90 grand. Not being any loan limits for plus loans. That's a big deal. It's also why this loan forgiveness package, even though plus loans might be eligible, isn't gonna do as much to move the needle there. We don't have as much data on plus loans, but I would say, I would venture a guess that the racial disparities we have that Fenneba and I are observing in our work and that others are observing too are much, much, much bigger for plus loans. Wow. And I'll just add that we actually spent some time in the book. I think it's chapter three, chapter two and chapter three, like when we go into the background of a lot of the people that we spoke with and talking about the background of how, that like, essentially what we kind of think of as a accumulation piece, the story is not a story of individuals. It's a story of families. Of families wanting to figure out a way to make college happen for their children. And so we've had lots of, in the course of writing the book, we had lots of different terms. One was all hands on deck. I think that was one of the things we floated and just thinking about how, and in hearing from our respondents, how it really became making a way out of no way to make this happen. And even when they tried, a lot of, and oftentimes a lot of times when our respondents tried to avoid taking on loans, it became increasingly difficult one not to avoid them. And then parents taking on the loan to try to prevent their children from going into excessive debt as well. So I'm gonna make a plug for the book, if you wanna, you know, that we really built this family, the ideas of how families worked together to try to make college happen for their children. Yeah, the only thing I'd add here to build on what Fennaba would say is that like it's partially a story about what parents and grandparents or families are doing to get their children to college or their family members to college. But once there, a lot of these young people in college are then taking on debt and maybe getting a refund check or working and then sending money back home to help their parents who are now cash strapped because why? Because they've taken on all this debt to send them to college. And so there really is this feedback. It's not just flowing from grandparents and parents to children, but it works the other way as well. Roxanne, thank you for that great question and thank you both for this answer. This is a story not of individuals, but of families. Wow, this is huge. We have more questions coming in and I wanna make sure that everyone gets a chance to ask. We have two kind of information or clarification questions from our good friend, Glenn McGee. First, this is a question for you, Professor Hull. Can you share the five by five mobility matrix that you use? How does it compare across races? I guess I don't think I have a five by five. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the question. I used to do kind of traditional social mobility work way back in the day in grad school that doesn't really factor into this research. Mobility tables are a bit old school, but it's for lack of a better term, that sort of my former self did a lot of sort of traditional social mobility contingency table analysis. But I don't think that really comes up in this book in particular. Okay, thank you. And he also follows up with a quick question. Are you tying this work with Viviana Zelzer's work with Black Dead? And Viviana Zelzer is new to me, so I don't. She's a sociologist, I believe at Princeton, or she's been there for quite some time. Does a lot of work about the value of money or about the trends and values within society. So she's a economic sociologist, if I'm correct. I would say we probably engaged some of our ideas, but really we think about, we're also tying work by like Louie Simster as well, who has made some distinctions between Black Wealth and Black Dead and White Zet as well. There's lots of, you know, one of the great things about being in this space is that not only has it grown quite a bit over the last few years, but a lot of new ideas incorporating a lot of new ways of thinking about the rule of debt within our society and especially the racialization of this debt, which Louie's Black Dead, White Dead work is really speaks to how white, especially wealthier people have been able to use debt to make more, to become wealthier and how debt for Black families has been a way to kind of position them lower at the lower ends of the wealth distribution. So just becoming something that keeps them impoverished and indebted. So I think that's slightly different than thinking about the way that Zelizer has thought about these. But I know, Jason, I know I'm kind of thinking also maybe a little bit about the work on like relational debt. Is that so? Yeah. I think of Zelizer's work as very much being like squarely in the social meaning of money and sort of thinking about these things as relational processes, which is a super valuable way to think about it. And we actually do have some of this in our book because there's, oh God, I'm blanking on their names and I feel terrible about it. But there's some folks who've done work on debt among law students that talk about like sort of the relational work that it creates. Berman?  Yeah, it was the thought Berman. And the first author on that paper, I am blanking on their name and I feel horrible about it. But we do have a little bit of that in the book. It's sort of like, these are some of the burdens that debt creates as it causes all the political work. Abby Stivers, yes. But I would say if you want someone who's really taking Zelizer's ideas and applying them to debt in like the most interesting way since that's sort of not our background, check out Frederick Weary's work, also a professor at Princeton. He's very much kind of in that Zelizerian sort of world, if you will. Yeah. I just shared a link to, let's see, Black Debt, White Debt Seamster? Louise Seamster, is that it? Yeah, that's correct. Okay, so there's a link to one article by her in the chat. And that's Frederick Weary at Sociology. Thank you. I'm just nodding at the, I'm sorry, I'm reading the chat and nodding, so people will think that I, what is she doing? I'm just following along the chat. I'm glad you do. The chat is really, really active. And Glenn has an incredibly broad knowledge of sociology literature going back a ways. We also have more questions coming in. And here's one from our friend, Tom Ames, who asks a question about institutional types. Why are more of these families leveraging community colleges and more cost-effective options? Is the lack of institutional flexibility to meet their needs? Do you wanna, I don't know, Jason, are you gonna? I mean, I guess I can start, like, you know, I think we could think of part of this story, like, it might be tempting to think of the story of sort of like an educational mismatch story, like people are kind of making the bad, like, long decisions about where to go to college. And I just, I haven't found like an explanation there that seems like to hold water in the data to me. Again, when we look at racial disparities, we see them at community colleges, at for-profits, at for years, even at places like Dartmouth. I'd hate to say it. So we're seeing these everywhere. And one thing that we kind of, you know, we're quantitative researchers, so we're always crunching the numbers and all that stuff. And one thing that this book kind of opened our eyes about when we sat down and like, you know, talked to a lot of borrowers is people agonized over what the right decision to make was, where should I go to school? That is a lot of people were staying in state and maybe starting in a community college or starting at a place where they could stay at home and save a little money. And, you know, they blame themselves at the end for making the wrong decision, when in reality, we really see these disparities kind of regardless of where people are going. So from our sort of more broader perspective, it's the sort of individual choice question. It's one that is hard for me to sort of think of as like as an answer to this is sort of, maybe if people just made better decisions, there wouldn't be these racial disparities. And I think that's sort of the central thesis of our book is that's not the case, I think is how I would think about it. Okay, thank you. And thank you Tom for the good question. And friends, we are coming up to the last quarter of the hour. So I wanna make sure if you have any thoughts, any comments, this is the time to really get them in. We have a comment from Jordan Davis, who is a wonderful person among other things, a great student at Georgetown where I teach. And I'm just gonna bring this up from the chat box. He says, the thing is that a lot of black students who attend community college don't have finishing. So choosing those cheaper options doesn't really help the issue because cheaper options are not necessarily better options per se. So thank you. Better than I put it. And then there's an exchange between Lisa and David. Lisa there for David wrong. Lisa asks, shouldn't the first of the list I think be what I want to be in life? And David's response is yes, and will it provide a family sustaining wage? So as usual, the foreign community is bouncing ideas around very, very quickly and from a wide range of perspectives and domains. We have a question that came early on, and I think this is a good time to bring it up. This is from John Hollenbeck up in Wisconsin. And John asks, flat out, isn't debt the new slavery? Especially those who borrow would do not get a degree. What is the set of it do they have for fixing this? I think John can correct me, but the quotes around they means the institution or a site in general, not the students. I'll put that back up. It's a good question though, so you can say it. Thanks John. I mean, I don't think that that's very far off from ways that we'd have seen debt kind of, like I keep saying the word position, but kept to black Americans at the lower ends of the socioeconomic distribution across generations, right? We have slavery, we have sharecropping, which is like that pianist, I mean, just it's inequality in new forms, right? And so Jason and I call student loans at a new stratifier because it is concentrated among recent cohorts of young adults, but what is it really doing? It's recreating economic inequality within our society that positions black families at the lower ends of the wealth and income distribution as well. What we're seeing, as we're seeing today, I was gonna say something else, but I think, yeah, I'll pause there for now if Jason wants to add something. I would just add that like that's not an invalid argument in the social sciences and thinking about debt right now. And if you kind of wanna see that argument taken to its logical conclusion, I would really recommend this great book by my colleagues, Kevin Light and Scott Fitzgerald. If there's two different versions of the book, one is called Middle Class Meltdown, but the one that actually gets your question in the first edition of that book actually has a different title and it's called Post-Industrial Peasants. Basically saying like sort of like working class and middle class folks who are saddled with debt are not unlike peasants or serfs who were tied to the land in sort of feudal times. That's their argument and I would say if you wanna see that argument taken to its logical conclusion, it's a really wonderful thought provoking book. I don't know that I'm brave enough to call that the new slavery personally, but I think if you wanna see that argument, they do an excellent job, kind of enumerating sort of the logic behind it and the evidence for it. Well, thank you. Those are two great titles, by the way. Middle Class Meltdown, Post-Industrial Peasants. I put a link to Goodreads on that. Poor fellow's real name is Scott Fitzgerald. Oh man. I hope I didn't get his first name wrong and it just came up because I was thinking it is Scott, it is Scott. And there's also, in the chat, we had a link to one of my favorite recent books, David Graber, The Late David Graber's book on debt. We seem to have quite a bibliography coming out of this. But we also have a great video question. I mentioned Jordan Davis and now it's his time for the spotlight. So let me bring him up on stage. Hello, Jordan. Hey, Brian. Hey, Professor Ado and Professor Huul. Good to see you all. Thank you so much for joining today. And I'm really glad to be a part of this conversation I've read. I wrote a paper for one of my classes last year about this exact subject. So I'm really engaged. And the question that I have is actually about making college more affordable and potentially making college free in the US. Is that a conversation that, like how close are we to that conversation being proliferated on a national level? Like who is talking, is anybody talking about that? And, you know, there's a lot of things that would be complicated by that. But I'm just curious, are there any organizations, politicians talking about, you know, making college more affordable and potentially free in the future? Absolutely. There are lots of conversations. I'll say more or so at the state level, state, if we're looking at public institutions, it's very highly state dependent on where you are and whether or not your state is doing more innovative things with higher education if they're offering these, let's say, we've seen a proliferation of these promise packages, which are non-merit financial aid based kind of programs as opposed to merit based aid programs that are, we have Michigan, Tennessee, I mean, there's just everywhere. Even North Carolina has one, Wisconsin had one while I was there as well. So, and though these are all programs that are meant to make it more affordable for low income families to send their children through these institutions. I'll also say that, you know, what we also find is that some of the most innovative financial aid is happening at private institutions. So, or when I say innovative, I mean places where students can go and kind of low income students can go and leave without a lot of debt or with no debt. The problem is, is that as they become more innovative in their financial aid packages, they haven't really increased the number of students that they're admitting, right? So, these are the highly selective institutions that we can think of the IVs are, you know, small selective arts colleges as well. So, if you are lucky enough or, you know, are able to get into one of these institutions and you're low income, it is highly likely that you may be able to leave with reduced debt or a little to no debt. That being said, like Jason has said earlier, you know, there's still a high correlation between still going to these institutions and having debt, but that's really where we see kind of more of the innovative financial affordability programs happening, except they're not open to all students, you know, that you have to get in. Yeah, going to a school where the huge endowment makes a difference and they have the money to kind of be experimental as Venoba said.  If you said about that $10,000, I'd be like, I'll take that bet, whatever. And then now it is, and I think we're seeing free college, just as Venoba said, we're seeing it at the state level and the state level, the devil's in the details, like, is it first dollar, is it last dollar? Some ways of doing these free college programs seem to work better than others. We talk about this a lot in the conclusion of our book, but on the national sort of level, we are seeing it. So I think it was when Bernie Sanders was running in 2020, that was part of his platform, forgive me, but I don't remember if this was part of Elizabeth Warren's platform or not. If you wanna kind of read like sort of a techy, wonky policy brief on like, how would we make this work given how we fund higher education? That is, how could we make college free or the first two years of college free, you know, without spending more money? Cause that's always, you know, a non-starter at the federal level, right? There's a really great white paper by Sarah Goldberg-Rabb and Nancy Kendall called FC2O, which that was really the paper that launched. I mean, I think it was that paper and everything that came after it that sort of became Bernie's platform here. So I think this is becoming part of a national conversation. And again, 10 years from now, maybe this is looking very different just like debt forgiveness. And not to switch the subject too much, but if we are starting to talk about debt forgiveness as this, and I would say important downstream solution to the student debt crisis, we better be looking at upstream solutions like affordable or free college. Cause if not, we're gonna find ourselves right back to where we started five or 10 years from now, even after this forgiveness is up. Yeah, exactly. I couldn't agree more. I was just about to echo the last, the very last sentiment you just made and you made it for me. So thank you so much. I saw somebody in the chat too, talk about credentialing inflation and like how credentialism would increase as a result of more people going to college. And I think that's a whole another part of the conversation that deserves unpacking, but I'll let someone else ask their questions to share the spotlight. So thank you so much for answering the conversation. Thank you, Jordan. Thank you. Great question and a great answer. We have a bunch of comments are just coming up and down the chat right now. So I can save that. And if people in the chat don't mind, I can post it to my blog along with a recording. So if you're chatting right now, if you don't want me to post this, please let me know. I can also anonymize it and just remove your names. So just let me know in the chat. We have all kinds of questions to bring up and we're starting to run low on time. So I wanna make sure that we get to the ones that have come in earlier. John Hollenbeck asks, he returns to his first question and he wants to press on this a little further. Who would free tuition? I'm sorry, who would free college benefit? I doubt it's quote them, quote. So that's a good question. I guess that's another way of saying, what are the politics of this? How could that work? Yeah, I mean, my understanding of most free college programs and even the federal, what's going on at the federal level, it's a proposal to make the first two years of college free at the public level. So this wouldn't affect the Dartmouths of the world. This wouldn't affect the Stanford's of the world, the Dukes of the world. So I suspect that a lot of people would not necessarily, a lot of wealthier folks wouldn't necessarily take advantage of it, which could also be why we see political blowback to this in the same way we're seeing political blowback for debt forgiveness. So in fact, one of the Republican challenges to the new debt forgiveness law is basically, and I think it came out of Wisconsin actually, is that this disproportionately benefits black folks and therefore it's racially motivated and therefore this should be struck down. All these legal challenges and they're all trying to prove that they've injured their defendant in some way because they have to do that. But I suspect we would probably have these same conversations because these are the conversations we've had for a hundred years over any social program that might benefit anyone in society. That is, yeah. We, years ago, we hosted Chris Newfield on the forum who's done several great books on the defunding of public universities. And he makes the case that the defunding started in California in the 60s and 70s, specifically in response to the growing diversity of the student body. We have, I'll leave it another way. Another question asked, we've been talking about that, the Biden forgiveness plan. I'm wondering if we could hypothetically make a scenario where if the debt forgiveness plan succeeds, it survives legal challenges, it survives logistical hunts and all, it manages to progress, say five years out, how does that impact the student debt situation overall? Do you think the student debt bubble reinflates? Do you think this will adjust the preponderance of debt that black students disproportionately have? I mean, how might that play out, do you think? I guess that means starting from where Jason kind of just left off, you know, if we just think of downstream instead of fixing the upstream, such as in particular the accumulation part, then we could very much see us back in the same place where we are today, you know, in particular thinking about how, well, I'll say, what hasn't changed is the need or an entirely in the credentialing discussion for a college degree in order to achieve some form of financial or economic security within our society, right? So it's not clear to me that people are changing their risk profile as a result of the student debt cancellation because not having the college degree is, it makes it hard just in the market. So I'll just say that there. I also, yeah, so we really need to think about, at least multiple places that need reform and in particular the accumulation of the affordability piece. I'll also say that, you know, I'm a part of the camp that while the plan was a great start, it was definitely not an end, right? And so there were a lot of, in particular, black borrowers who were not going to be able to meet or were not going to fit the criteria, right? So they may have, because of their income, they may not qualify for debt forgiveness. You know, they may have over $150,000 and so forth will not be receiving any relief, but they don't have the wealth profiles, right? Or they're still struggling with or paying massive amounts of debt. And so thinking about, you know, who, you know, this, it's going to help a lot of people, but not all the borrowers. And I really would like to see more done for the people who are still having lots of outstanding debt and just don't have the economic profile to improve and pay off that massive amounts of debt that they hold. Thank you. Then I would add, I guess a couple more things is because I just want to, again, this is sort of plugging what we say in the last chapter of the book, but I just also wanted to point out, if you're interested in sort of a more wonky back of the envelope, how much debt forgiveness would we need to kind of like eliminate racial disparities and debt? Two papers I really like by Charlie Eden, Adam Goldstein and Laura Hamilton. That was basically a paper that informed some of Elizabeth Warren's stuff, as well as Tom Shapiro, Louise Sam, Simeester and Raphael, Chiron Chenier, both kind of show that these sort of smaller debt forgiveness things like 10, $20,000, which is what we got, are going to move the needle, but not as much as 50,000 or full forgiveness in part because black borrowers have these huge balances, right? So that's part of it. So this is going to make a dent. It's not going to be a silver bullet. The second thing is like what you said, like what happens five years from now? Like sort of what Feneva said, I'm probably, I'm kind of a glass half empty guy because I'm a sociologist. So by definition, I sort of am pessimistic, but I'd worry about where we will be from for five or 10 years from now. My colleague, Charlie Eden has a really good piece in the AAUP newsletter this week in Akadim today, I think it's called, where he basically argues what this could do and he takes a real graver style argument for those of you who like graver, that this could be the start of a virtuous cycle where we're going to see repeat debt jubilee sort of like we did in the middle ages. I like, I love Charlie and I hope he's right, but I'm not as optimistic about that, but that is one way we could continue to be out of this is, and we're good at that as Americans is to keep fixing downstream problems without addressing the root causes. So I guess that's a possibility as well and some people think it really is. Well, thank you. Well, thank you both of you. We are at the end of our hour. We actually overshadowed it because we have so much to talk about. Thank you both for offering such a fantastic masterclass in this topic. I'm just in awe of how much knowledge you've, not just accumulated and shared, but shared so elegantly and so passionately. Thank you both. What's the best way to keep up with both of you? I mean, I'm fascinated, Professor Otto, about your paper on student deserperation, for example. How do we keep up with all of you? You can find me. I think I'm the only phenobioto out there, so you just Google my name, but I'm here at UNC Chapel Hill on most days. You can find me in the classroom or in my office around UNC. Sounds good. You can see me at jnhool.org. That's my website, and also there's not many Jason Hools out there, so I'm pretty easy to follow on Google Scholar. Because phenobion I've been writing about student debt for well over a decade now, and we're very kind of happy to see people caring about it a lot more than when we started this work, when we were grad students, when people seemed less interested in talking about it. And I'm one of those people who quit Twitter in the pandemic, so you can't find me there. Well, I'll have to find you where we can. Thank you both. And this is important work, because we really look forward to where this goes next. But I have to wrap things up, but thank you again. Thank you both. Dear friends, don't leave yet. We have just information on what's happening next. We have coming up over the next few weeks. We have a whole series of sessions. If you want to keep talking about student debt and the racial dimension of this, please on Twitter, if you still are on Twitter, you can ask TTE as a hashtag. You can follow me, Brian Alexander, or at Shindig events, or you can go to my blog, BrianAlexander.org. If you'd like to look ahead a bit, or if you'd like to look into the past rather, to our previous sessions on debt, as well as into race and racism, just go to tinyurl.com slash FTFarchive. You can see all of our sessions there. Looking ahead, we have more topics coming up, including free speech, redesigning universities, campuses of local inequality, and the impact of COVID in the higher ed. Just go to forum, thatfutureofeducation.us, if you'd like to see those. And if you want to share any of your own work, just email me. I'd be glad to share that with everybody else. Now, thank you again. You all asked terrific questions. It's been wonderful talking with you. Thank you all for all of your work. As the fall semester goes on, please work hard, be safe, and take care. We'll see you next time online. Bye-bye.


Hello, St. Lucians. Today marks an important day in our history. Today, the Pito Management Area celebrates its 18th anniversary. As a World Heritage Site under the theme, the Pito's Management Area, protecting our property for our prosperity and posterity. The Pito's Management Area, or the PMA located in the southwest of St. Lucia, is a multiple use conservation and management area of 1,154 hectares of land and 875 hectares of sea, respectively, totaling 2,909 hectares. The majestic Pito's two towering volcanic peaks are the major iconic landmarks of the island. These spectacular twin pinnacles, Gopito and Piti Pito, rise side by side from the sea to 770 and 743 meters above sea level, respectively. They are bridged by an inland ridge and towering above an accessible caldera-like formation known as the Kualibu Depression. The PMA finds itself within the Soufre Volcanic Center and then compasses a wide range of its diverse geological features, including a site of geothermal activity with fumaroles and hot springs known as the Sulphur Springs. Petroglyphs and diverse artifacts bear witness of the Amerindian carry population, which historically inhabited what is now the PMA. Despite the small extension, there is a high diversity of terrestrial habitats, flora and fauna. The dominant vegetation is comprised of various forest types, including rare elfin woodland on the summits. Small belly-disturbed patches of natural forest remain preserved by the steepness of the land. The marine management area within the PMA is a strip of roughly 11 kilometers long and about 1 kilometer wide along the shore. It comprises a steeply sloping continental shelf with healthy fringing and patched rifts covering more than 60 percent of the marine area, boulders and sandy plains. The diverse marine and coastal habitats have an important marine life. Hawksbill turtles are seen inshore and whale sharks and pilot whales offshore. The government of Zendushia became a signatory of the World Heritage Convention on October 14th, 1991. Subsequently, the PMA became a World Heritage Site on June 40th, 2004, under criteria 7 and 8 of the UNESCO World Heritage Center operational guidelines, which present precise criteria for the inscription of properties on the World Heritage List. Additionally, the PMA was declared an environmental protected area in 2003 and a special enforcement area in 2011. The PMA office, which has the name implies, bears the responsibility of managing our World Heritage Site. Established in 2006, the office has the vision to achieve a well-managed area in which the natural and cultural assets and landscape quality are protected through a participatory management approach which is guided by the principles of sustainability, equity and participation and in which benefits are generated for individuals, the community and the state. Key areas of focus include conservation of natural, cultural and historical resources, landscape management, monitoring and reporting, public education and awareness, research, surveillance and enforcement, and marketing and promotion. In an effort to commemorate this momentous occasion, the PMA office has planned a series of activities including a jingle competition, open house days, a panel discussion and radio interviews, PSAs and the launch of the PMA Did You Know series. The main goal of these events is to create an awareness of and by extension a deep appreciation for the PMA. Slightly more than half of the PMA is on governmental land with the remaining portion in private hands. While the conservation area and the marine portions of the PMA are uninhabited, there are approximately 1,500 residents living within the terrestrial multiple-use zones. The zonation responds to the different demands on a property that explicitly attempts to strike a balance between resource use and nature conservation. The marine boundary about one kilometer offshore is the 75-meter depth contour which circumscribes the coral reef. Within the PMA, the Sufrem Marine Management Area or SMMA is a multiple-use marine area in its own right. Other challenges include on-plan development, encroachment, erosion, deforestation and climate change. Despite these challenges, the government of Saint Lucia remains committed to maintaining the outstanding universal value of the PTA's management area. The government continues to work with all stakeholders, including the Sufrem Marine Management Area and the Sufrem Regional Development Foundation, to ensure that it remains in compliance with the obligations of the World Heritage Committee. Ongoing initiatives include plans to delineate and demarcate the boundaries of the PMA, in cooperation of disaster risk reduction into the PMA management plan, reforestation using the endemic pencil cedar and the removal of the invasive species wandering drew on the Gopiton nature trail. In closing, I would like to remind us that the PTA's management area does not just belong to the residents of Sufrem but to the people of Saint Lucia and by extension the rest of the world. Let us each continue to play our part faithfully in protecting our natural and cultural heritage, not just for ourselves but for our children. The PMA protecting our property for our prosperity and posterity. Happy 18th anniversary to the PTA management area.


We now move to First Minister's, Questions number one. Kezia environmental assistance to answer your questions. Do you ask the First Minister what engagement she has planned for the rest of the day? We assimilate her engagement to take forward the Governance programme for Scotland. Kezia environmental assistance. Yesterday, the First Minister's poverty advisor said that 56 per cent of children in poverty live in working households. These are the children whose mums and dads go out to work but still struggle to make ends meet. ond i chi i wneud i'r rhannu i gyda'r cras hyn sydd gennymau iawn oedd yn gallu dododol yn ysgrifftiwn? Mae Y First Minister oedd Анw i'n credu eich rhai a'r ysgrifftiwn yn ddiniadu sleidwydau felly yw ffrif yn ei dyddol i siaryr o'r rhywun hwnnw i'i ardal. Yr hyn mae hyn wedi bod gweithio'r cyfnod oes yr ysgrifftiwn yn gorffent. Mae'r gygoning hwnnw i'n cyfrwyng yn gydymiannog hwn i'w mor ffair ni oedd ddim yn dda i'r drafydd, is their right. Last year in this chamber, the First Minister said that she was working with local councils to deliver on her pledge. So, can she tell us whether council funding to deliver 16 hours of free early learning and childcare has gone up or down in the draft budget for next year? First Minister, can I also welcome the report that was published yesterday by the poverty adviser? I think that it is a very solid report that makes a number of recommendations that this Government will consider very seriously indeed done. I note that the poverty adviser says that the policy decisions taken by this Scottish Government have, and I quote, been important in protecting people from poverty. As Kezia Dugdale is well aware, the Government currently funds 16 hours a week of childcare for three, four-year-olds and for vulnerable two-year-olds. I have said in the past that it remains the case that, as well as funding that provision in a global sense, we are working with councils to improve the flexibility of that provision so that it better fits in with the working patterns of parents. We are also determined—this was reflected in the poverty advisers report yesterday—over the life of the next Parliament should the people of Scotland re-elect us in May to double provision of childcare for young people. This is important to parents who will be listening to this. The poverty adviser said yesterday that, as well as quantity, quality was important. That is why yesterday I also announced £1 million to pilot different ways of delivering that expanded childcare. That is our policy on childcare. We will be judged in just a couple of months on our record on that and on many other things. I am still waiting to hear what Labour's policy is. In all of that, there was not even an attempt to answer the question that I asked. The honest answer is that the council childcare funding is being cut by this Government's budget. The First Minister's own poverty adviser rightly tells her that affordable and flexible childcare is key to helping people in work to get out of poverty, yet this SNP Government solution is to cut the childcare budget and slash funding for local services. We know that the First Minister's promises on childcare are currently not being delivered, so what about her latest pledge to almost double the number of free childcare hours by 2020? A few months ago, the First Minister was asked in this very chamber about how those plans would be delivered. She said, We are working with local authorities to determine the expansion of capacity that will be required. That will be a mix of new build and extension of current local authority capacity. Two months on, can the First Minister tell us how many extra nurseries need to be built to deliver on that promise? First Minister, let me take Kezia Dugdale's point in order. In terms of our current policy, we are funding the expansion of childcare that we committed to in this Parliament. Just to remind people who may be listening to this, in 2007, young people three and four-year-olds were entitled to 412.5 hours of free childcare a year. We have extended that by 45 per cent to 600 hours for three and four-year-olds, but we have also taken the additional step of extending it to vulnerable two-year-olds as well. That is the measure of the commitment. The policy that Kezia Dugdale refers to for the next Parliament, and I am delighted that she clearly thinks that I am going to be in the position after the election of delivering this commitment. I take that as a welcome endorsement of the SNP's election campaign at this early stage. However, as I said previously in this chamber, in response to Ruth Davidson on that occasion, we are doing detailed work with local authorities to plan now for that expansion, which will take place over the period of the next Parliament. That will be a mix, and we do not yet know exactly what that mix will be, because we are still working to plan for that expansion. It will be a mix of new build. That is why I have described it as the biggest capital investment or the most important capital investment of the next Parliament, but it will also involve existing buildings that local authorities already use. I have already said that it will involve childminders. One of the proposals that Naomi Eisenstadt made yesterday was to look at what is called blended childcare. We are taking those proposals forward seriously, carefully and robustly. I repeat again that Kezia Dugdale is still to set out what Labour's policy on childcare is. I know what mine is. I know the work that we are doing to deliver it. We just seem to have a vacuum coming from the Benchy's opposite. Kezia Dugdale does not know how many nurseries she needs, but campaigning mums do. The campaign group Fair Funding for our Kids estimates that the equivalent of 650 new nurseries would have to be built to accommodate the extra places that are needed because of the First Minister's latest pledge. She has just described it as the biggest capital expenditure of the next Parliament, but John Swinney's budget this year cuts council capital funding for nurseries by 56 per cent. By the First Minister's own admission, it would cost £880 million to deliver on her new pledge in running costs alone, yet, at the same time, she is taking half a billion pounds out of council budgets. Let's get this just absolutely clear. The First Minister needs 650 new nurseries, but she has cut the capital budget to build them. She needs £880 million to expand childcare services, but she has slashed council budgets by £500 million. Only in the world of the SNP will that deliver a childcare revolution. The First Minister's childcare policy is a mess. Is she hoping that parents are just too busy to notice? To be fair to Kezia Dugdale, I know that her day-to-day working experience right now involves a rather large mess, otherwise known as the Labour Party. No wonder that it is a work that is uppermost in her mind. Kezia Dugdale, in a flurry of statistics, forget some of the key points that she mentioned. First of all, she mentioned capital funding for local authorities. If she is not aware, she certainly should be aware, because John Swinney has outlined it, that the capital budget of local authorities has been re-profiled. Money will be reallocated to local authorities in future years. In terms of the overall council budgets, as I said last week and I think the week before, in terms of the overall revenue expenditure of local authorities, they are looking at a 2 per cent reduction. That is before we take account of additional resources for social care, additional resources through the attainment fund and, of course, the additional investment that we plan over the life of the next Parliament in transforming the provision of childcare. I say again, Presiding Officer, that those are our plans. We have set them out and we will set out the budgets that support those plans. If Kezia Dugdale really wants to give people in this country a choice in just a few months' time, then she has to do more than whine from the Opposition benches. She has to give an alternative, and so far there is no alternative from the Labour Party whatsoever. Kezia Dugdale, Mr Dugdale. There we go, Presiding Officer. It is not a 56 per cent cut, it has just been re-profiled. Almost a year ago, the First Minister told me that she had looked campaigning mums in the eye and told them that she would fix Scotland's childcare problems. After meetings with Nicola Sturgeon and her education secretary, the more parents hear, the less they believe. Judge me on my record, says the First Minister. Here it is, promises not delivered, budgets cut and parents let down. Instead of delivering what families really need, is not it the case that the SNP's childcare plan is just one great big con? Kezia Dugdale knows that we have, in John Swinney, guaranteed local governments a maintained share of the overall Scottish Government capital budget. That is the reality. It might not suit the Labour Party's increasingly desperate narrative, but nevertheless those are the facts. On to the central issue here. I can point to the achievements of this Government in childcare over the life of this Parliament and the last Parliament. Three in four-year-olds are entitled to 45 per cent more childcare now than they were when Labour were in office. Two-year-olds are entitled to childcare that none of them were entitled to when Labour was in office. Not only that, I can point to clear plans for how we are going to transform childcare over the next Parliament. As the poverty adviser said, not only are we allowing more parents, mothers in particular, to get into work, we are also supporting young people with the best start in life. Those are our achievements and our plans, and the people of Scotland will judge them, Presiding Officer. Do you know what, when they are making that judgment, they will also look at what is the alternative? I say again that Kezia Dugdale has said zero about what the Labour Party will do for childcare, and that is why the people of Scotland are casting their judgment on Labour, and their judgment is to keep them firmly in opposition. To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Prime Minister. This morning, we learned that the number of school inspections has fallen from 491 in 2004-5 to just 137 last year, a drop of more than 70 per cent. Inspections are a vital means of providing parents with the necessary information to make decisions about their children's schooling. Last year, fewer than 6 per cent of Scotland's schools were inspected, meaning that, under the SNP, a child can go right through their school career without ever having had their school assessed. If that rate keeps up, it would take 19 years to get around all of Scotland's schools once. Given that, does the First Minister think that parents are getting the information that they deserve when it comes to looking at local schools? Let me see two things about that. First, as Ruth Davidson knows, Education Scotland undertakes a wide range of different activities to promote quality assurance and improvement in the quality of education that is being provided by our schools. The number of full inspections undertaken varies from year to year, and during the period of the implementation of curriculum for excellence there was a deliberate and, I think, very correct decision taken to reallocate resources to other improvement activities to oversee the implementation of curriculum for excellence. During that period, inspectors were deployed to undertake intensive support and challenge activities with both schools and local authorities. It is also important to point out that work was recognised in the recent OECD report, which, in relation to CFE implementation, said that Education Scotland has been a linchpin in providing the guidance, resources and quality assurance. Ruth Davidson will also presumably be aware of that, because I saw him, the chief inspector, right in the Sunday times to this effect just a few days ago. There will be an increase in inspections over the coming years, complemented by new types of improvement activity, in particular making sure that we use the resource of the new attainment advisers that are working on the Scottish attainment challenge. That is the first thing that I want to say very briefly, Presiding Officer. The second thing that I would say is that Ruth Davidson knows my commitment, set out in the national improvement framework that I published in the first week in January, to vastly expanding, transforming the range of information that is available to parents and to the wider public about the performance in our schools. As a result of the national improvement framework, within the next couple of years, people will be able to look at the performance of pupils in each school and compare that. That is the direction of travel that we are headed in, and I think that it is the right one. Ruth Davidson. Presiding Officer, it was a straight question, and the First Minister did not seem to want to give a straight answer, so I will. No, parents are not getting the information that they deserve. Instead, they are being told by the education establishment that it knows best and that everybody else will just have to lump it. One former director of education said in the press this morning that inspections are now, and I quote, "...virtually useless as a source of information for parents." The First Minister, this morning and on previous days in this chamber, has urged Opposition parties to offer proposals on how to improve a system if they complain about it. We say this. It is time to re-establish an independent inspectorate out with the arms of the Scottish Government so that parents know when their school is measured it is done so entirely separately from those people who are setting the policy. We want more transparency and information for parents and an inspection regime that demands high standards and improvement from coasting schools with parents crucially given regular and up-to-date information. Does the First Minister back that plan? First Minister, the inspectorate is independent. The inspectorate demands high standards from schools. Local authorities also have a statutory duty to ensure that the quality of education is what we would expect. I have already outlined why and what the inspectorate was focusing on during the period of curriculum for excellence and the plans to increase the number of inspections over the next few years. However, I want to do much more than Ruth Davidson has just outlined. I want to give parents and the public direct information about the performance of pupils in our primary schools and lower secondary schools, because we do not have that at the moment. Under the national improvement framework, once that is firmly established, we will see the percentages of pupils in every primary school across our country who are achieving the different required levels of curriculum for excellence. This is a revolution in transparency in Scottish education. For the first time, parents will be able to look at that, the public will be able to look at that, they will be able to look at schools that are doing well, schools that are doing less well, and that will give all of us the information that we need to drive further improvements. I am much more ambitious in terms of transparency than Ruth Davidson is. I have a number of constituency questions. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The First Minister will be aware of the difficulties that Johnston Press has experienced, and it is identifying 21 Scottish titles ranging from Scotland on Sunday to the Arbor of Herald in my constituency as being sub-core, raising concerns over the future of those newspapers. Given the journalistic traditions of some of those titles, their importance to local communities and the jobs at stake, can I ask whether the Scottish Government will engage with the company and do what it can to ensure that those newspapers have a future? Can I thank Graham Day for an important question and give him the assurance that, yes, we will seek to engage with the company. As with any company where there is the potential of job losses, the arrangements that we put in place primarily through PACE will be available should they be required. I can also make a wider point, and that is about the importance in our democracy of a free, vibrant and dynamic media. I think that all of us will be concerned at this latest announcement, coming on the back of recent announcements that we have seen about job losses in other areas of the media. I think that all of us have a duty to make sure that we have a properly resourced media in this country to hold all of us to account, as well as contribute to the national debate that we all want. It was announced this week that at least 80 jobs will be lost to FMC technologies in my disfirmled constituency by June, and the workforce tells me that the real job loss figure could be substantially higher as this figure does not include contract staff. Given that FMC technologies has lost 2,000 jobs worldwide since January last year, there is real uncertainty about job security going forward, and my constituents feel that if they are paid off now or in the future, there is going to be very little chance of them finding employment within the oil and gas industry. What action will the First Minister take to support my constituents working at FMC technologies at this time of low oil prices and high job losses? Of course, we are aware of the situation that the member outlines, and the Government will be engaging with the company. As I said in response to Graeme Dey, we make available to the workforce of any company in this situation the resources of pay, so that we are doing as much as we can to avoid redundancies, but also to help those who are facing redundancy. I am sure that the Enterprise Minister would be happy to meet the member to discuss this particular case in more detail. The First Minister will be aware of this morning's announcement of 100 job losses at Marine Harvest, the bulk of them in the Highlands and Islands and many in my constituency. That is a large number of jobs for small communities to lose. Will the First Minister ensure that all will be done to assist those who may lose their jobs and outline what measures the Government will be putting in place to help with this serious matter? Obviously, as in the case of the previous two companies that I have been speaking about, this will be a particularly anxious time for employees and their families. The Scottish Government is in contact with the company and it has approached Highlands and Islands Enterprise to identify redeployment opportunities. My officials have, as I said, been in contact with Marine Harvest and will shortly be meeting the company and to discuss what can be done to support staff. We remain fully supportive of the sector, which is a key industry for Scotland in terms of supporting employment, particularly in our remote coastal communities. It is currently estimated to generate economic activity in Scotland, worth more than £1.8 billion a year, supporting more than 8,000 jobs. It is extremely important, and the Government's response will recognise that. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the cabinet. Matters of importance to the people of Scotland. This week, I received a letter from Amazon HQ in London. They boasted that they paid workers £7.20 per hour. Even though that is well below the national living wage, the Scottish Government paid almost £1 million to the company just last year. Does the First Minister think that it is wise for reward companies to pay workers such low wages? All companies should pay the tax that they are due to pay. The Scottish Government, in the limited tax responsibilities that we have, takes tax avoidance very seriously. Of course, I wanted us to have more tax responsibilities, something Willie Rennie argued vociferously again. We will continue to stand up for fairness and companies paying the tax that they are due. I have to take a different view to the one that Willie Rennie articulated in a debate that we did in Dundee on Monday evening, where he seemed to suggest that Fife would be better off without the jobs that are offered by Amazon. I suspect people working in that company would take a very different view as well. I know that she finds it difficult to listen to anybody else, but the question was about wages, not about tax. If she is too embarrassed to do it, I will leave her to defend low wages. No one is saying that Amazon should close, but I want the Government to support good jobs. This is about good jobs. Amazon workers have been in touch this week, too. They confirm what I have said. It is an exceptionally horrible place. The employment agencies creem off from everyone's wages. Meanwhile, Amazon pays hardly any tax in this country. The poverty alliance promotes the living wage. They get a small grant. It is a brilliant project. However, why give Amazon four times as much money for low wages as you give the poverty alliance to champion the living wage? Will the First Minister make a commitment not to give any more grants to companies without wage guarantees? My apologies to Willie Rennie if I misheard his first question. My comments about tax avoidance stand, though, and they stand very strongly. On the living wage, Willie Rennie, I hope, would agree that this Government is arguably doing more than any other Government across the UK to promote the living wage. The living wage accreditation scheme now has more than 400 companies signed up to it. More people in Scotland paid the living wage now than in any other UK nation, in any other part of the UK, outside the south-east of England. That is a point that was recorded in the poverty advisers report yesterday. We will continue to work directly with companies to encourage them to sign up and to pay the living wage. I will ask Rosanna Cunningham, the fair work secretary, the only Government in the UK that has a Cabinet-level Minister responsible for fair work, to engage directly with Amazon and other companies to get more people paid the living wage. We will take whatever action we are required to take to make sure that we are standing up for decent wages for everybody across Scotland. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the Resolution Foundation report, The State of Working Scotland. I welcome the findings of the Resolution Foundation report that was published yesterday, particularly the finding that pay in Scotland has risen faster than it has in any other nation or region in the UK. I am proud that this Government's commitment to the living wage means that 80 per cent of people in Scotland are already now paid at least the living wage, and there are, as I have just said, more than 400 living wage accredited employers. The rise in pay in Scotland will have contributed to one of the other findings of the report that household incomes fell by less in Scotland than the UK average during the recession. That is good progress, but there is much work still to do and the Resolution Foundation gives us some very valuable analysis in making sure that we continue to build on progress. I thank the First Minister for that answer. I was pleased to see yesterday's statistics on employment and, along with the Resolution Foundation report, showing that Scotland now has the highest level of wages of countries in the UK. Scotland is clearly showing that we can tackle inequalities and grow the economy. Can the First Minister tell me what action she will be taking to build on this good foundation to increase jobs and wages? I think that the member is right to note the progress on both wages and employment this weekend. I take the opportunity to welcome the figures yesterday showing the rise in employment in Scotland to record levels and the substantial drop in unemployment. That is all progress, but there is no room for complacency, and that is why we are working to do more in terms of employment and wages. Our economic strategy sets out our mutually supportive goals of increasing competitiveness and tackling inequality, and we will continue to make sure that we support the living wage accreditation scheme and the work of the fair work convention to make sure that, as we hopefully see employment continue to increase in Scotland, that is fair work with people doing a decent day's work and getting a decent day's wage in return. To ask the First Minister in light of the foil and oil prices when the Scottish Government will publish an updated oil and gas bulletin focusing on the impact on jobs. The Scottish Government's focus is absolutely on what we can do to support the industry and the workforce who are facing uncertainty at what is a worrying time for them. We continue to do all we can within devolved powers to help the sector. Last year, I set up the energy jobs task force. The task force has already helped to support more than 2,500 individuals and 100 employers through the current downturn, and it will continue to support the industry to improve collaboration, co-operation and innovation. I thank the First Minister for that response, but it has of course been more than six months since the last oil and gas bulletin was slipped out on the last day of term. In the intervening period, oil has dropped to $27 a barrel, some 70 per cent lower today than the price 18 months ago, and industry experts predicting it dropping further to $20 a barrel. 65,000 jobs lost already and more anticipated. We cannot afford to lose those skills in the future. What action will the First Minister take to protect those jobs and when will she publish a revised oil and gas bulletin so that we can consider the impact on jobs and the economy? We will continue to do all that we can within our responsibilities to support the industry and to support the jobs that are dependent on it. For example, the Scottish Cabinet will hold a special session on Tuesday next week attended by Lena Wilson, the chair of the oil and gas task force, to look at what the task force has already done and what more it can do to support those in the industry. I wrote to the Prime Minister just yesterday, urging him to agree with me that we should accelerate the finalisation of a city deal for Aberdeen to be funded jointly by the UK and Scottish Governments so that we can help Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils to invest in the infrastructure that the city needs. We will continue to take all action that we can, but we will also continue to call on the UK Government to make sure that there is an appropriate fiscal regime for the North Sea. I noted the comments of both of BP last week when they said when announcing very regrettable job losses that they were confident in their long-term future in the North Sea. I also noted the comments of oil and gas UK about the future of the sector if we do the right things now. We are determined to do the right things now and we call on the UK Government to do likewise. The First Minister will be aware that this Parliament's Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee produced a report on Monday saying that the oil and gas sector could have a sustainable future with the correct support. I wonder if she would agree with me that vocal campaigns for divestment from the oil and gas industry, from pension funds and others, are unhelpful, are potentially damaging and may in fact, if followed, lead to further job losses than we have already seen. I agree that anything that undermines the industry at this time is unhelpful. I am also aware of the report that Murdo Fraser refers to. I think that it is a very helpful report and it is one of the many things that the Cabinet will discuss as we consider how we continue to give the industry the support that it needs at this time. To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government regarding the possible reintroduction of the post-study work visa. Since the publication of the Smith commission report, the Government has remain committed to working with our UK counterparts to ensure that a post-study work route is reintroduced in Scotland. That has been raised with the UK Government at a number of meetings at both ministerial and official level. We are therefore deeply disappointed and I have to say that I am rather angry that the Secretary of State for Scotland recently indicated without any real consultation that there is no intention on the part of the UK Government to reintroduce the post-study work visa for Scotland. I understand that the UK immigration minister intends to meet the cross-party post-study work steering group and I would expect and certainly hope that the UK Government will take the concerns of the Scottish Government and indeed the united voice of Scottish stakeholders fully on board. I believe that there is a consensus in this Parliament and out there in Scotland to reintroduce the post-study work visa and I think that it is time that the UK Government got on and did it. I thank the First Minister for that answer. I wonder if she would agree with me that not only do the students themselves benefit from being able to work after their studies but the Scottish economy and Scottish society benefits as well from having these people living here. I agree wholeheartedly with that. If we are going to invest in educating the best and the brightest people from all over the world then surely it makes sense to try to encourage them once they graduate from university to make a contribution in our economy to give something back to economic and social life here in Scotland and of course we know that people who come to Scotland from all parts of the world make a real and rich contribution to our society just as Scots who go from here to other parts of the world do there. I think that the UK Government's actions here are short-sighted and wrong-headed and I urge them to change their minds. If there is any credence whatsoever to what we keep hearing about a respect agenda they will recognise the consensus on this issue and do something about it. Thank you. That ends First Minister's questions. We are now moving to members' business so members who are leaving the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.


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