UW-Madison’s Nick Hillman recently appeared on PBS Wisconsin’s “Noon Wednesday” webcast on Feb. 12 for a segment titled, “The Growing Student Debt Dilemma.”
The webcast preview explains how the “rapid growth of student loan debt has grabbed the attention of state lawmakers, saying it could impact Wisconsin’s economy. Nick Hillman, director of the Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab, says serious lack of data will make it difficult to tackle the issue.”
In addition to directing the SSTAR Lab, Hillman is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.
“Noon Wednesday” is a live, weekly webcast where “Here & Now” multimedia journalist Marisa Wojcik focuses on the “why” with newsmakers, experts, and fellow journalists.
While Hillman reports that scholars have been making significant progress on student loan debt research, there’s still limited data. He explains that this makes it difficult for academic research to keep up with policy conversations happening now.
Hillman and Wojcik discuss other complicated issues surrounding student debt, such as rapid growth of debt and the disproportionate impact of student loan debt on low-income communities and communities of color.
“People might say, we know we don’t have a student debt problem,” Hillman explains to Wojcik. “We have an inequality problem and student debt is just a symptom of it. And I think that there’s something to be said about that.”
Check out the full webcast here.